Rev. Renshin Barbara Verkuilen
March 07, 1945 - March 18, 2024
Obituary
LIVESTREAM SERVICE:
Rev. Renshin Barbara Berkuilen's Livestream Service will begin at 1 p.m. CT on Friday, March 29, 2024. Scroll down to the Webcast section and click on "Watch Now."
A Zen Buddhist Memorial Service will take place at GUNDERSON WEST FUNERAL AND CREMATION CARE, 7435 University Ave, Middleton, WI, on Friday, March 29, 2024, at 1 p.m. followed by visitation and refreshments.
Rev. Renshin Barbara Verkuilen was born in Chicago, IL to Max and Helen [Dresser] Jacob. She was husband of Taizen Dale, mother to John [Samantha Cripps], Peter [Monica Hanley], grandmother to Myasia Fajardo, and sister to Renee Kahn [Eliot Bolotin].
Renshin taught 2nd grade at Francis Parker School in Chicago for seven years before retraining as a psychotherapist, practicing for twenty years in various Wisconsin locations. She studied and practiced Zen Buddhism for fifty-five years under Rev. Soyu Matsuoka, Rev. Dainin Katagiri, and Rev. Shoken Winecoff, culminating in ordination as a Zen priest in 1997 and certification as a Zen teacher in 2013. She founded the Midwest Soto Zen Community in Madison in 2001, served at Ryumonji Zen Monastery, and at a number of Zen Centers in the Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin on a temporary basis.
Renshin authored three books [The Tale of Zen Master Bho Li, Dokusan with Dōgen: Timeless Lessons in Negotiating the Way, and Tending the Fire: An Introspective Guide to Zen Awakening] and The Process of Awakening, a comprehensive study of Zen practice, as well as a number of guidebooks on Zen subject materials.
Her association with the psychotherapist, David Grove, and his non-interpretative, supposition-free approach to accessing intuitive knowledge, produced two innovative adaptations - Metaphor Awareness and Enhanced Emergent Knowledge - both of which were integral to her counseling therapy and Zen practice.
Renshin’s kind, generous, and compassionate nature, combined with an unusual intuitive intelligence, had the faculty to communicate profound and complex ideas in a succinct manner. Those in relations with her were introduced into to a new and more vital way of being in the world merely by being close.
She will be greatly missed by her family members, many friends, and fellow Zen practitioners.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials be made in Renshin’s honor to Solace Friends [Hospice for the Homeless] https://www.solacefriends.org/, P.O. Box 5587, Madison, WI 53705-5587 info@solacefriends.org (608) 843-8191
Online condolences may be made at www.gundersonfh.com.
Gunderson West
Funeral & Cremation Care
7435 University Ave.
(608) 831-6761
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