Ama Samy

Ama Samy was born Arul Maria Arokiasamy on 21 May 1936 in Burma, now Myanmar, to poor Indian Christian parents who had emigrated there. As a child he was sent back to Tamil Nadu in South India to live with his grandfather. When his grandfather died he was left largely on his own, until the Jesuits took him into their school and gave him an education and training for the priesthood. He became a Jesuit priest in 1972.

Feeling that the Christian tradition did not entirely satisfy his search, Samy began visiting Hindu ashrams and Buddhist meditation centres. He was introduced to the Advaita teachings of Ramana Maharshi by Swami Abhishiktananda, and for a period he lived as a wandering beggar and later settled as a hermit.

The German Jesuit Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle introduced him to Zen and helped him travel to Japan, where he became a student of Yamada Koun Roshi of the Sanbo Kyodan in Kamakura. In 1982 Yamada Roshi authorised him to teach Zen, making him the first authorised Zen master in India, and gave him the Dharma name Gen'un-ken.

From 1985, when Lassalle invited him to join a tour of Europe, Samy spent several months each year leading retreats in Europe, Australia and the United States. In 1986 he founded the Bodhi Sangha, the community of his disciples, which became an independent Zen school when he left the Sanbo Kyodan organisation in 2002. His method embraced both the Soto and Rinzai traditions and drew on Christianity and other religions. He founded Bodhi Zendo near Kodaikanal in 1996 and Kanzeon Zendo at Perumalmalai in 2022, where he lived and taught.

His books included Zen Heart, Zen Mind (2002), Zen: Awakening to Your Original Face (2005), The Zen Way (2007), Zen: Ancient and Modern (2010), Zen: The Great Way has No Gates (2012) and Zen: The Wayless Way (2013), with further titles in German, Dutch, French, Spanish and Swedish.

Samy remained a member of the Society of Jesus, although after his move to Kanzeon Zendo he described his relationship with the order as being of a different kind. With the help of his students he founded Little Flower, a non-profit organisation supporting marginalised women, children and landless people in South India. His life and work were the subject of the 2016 documentary Zen and the Art of Compassion by Pat van Boeckel.

Ama Samy died on the evening of 7 November 2026 at Kanzeon Zendo in Perumalmalai, near Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, aged 90. Kanzeon Zendo announced that he had suffered from a respiratory condition that quickly became serious, and that he died in the presence of friends and family. The community said it remained blessed by his teachings and that its practice would continue.

Samy is remembered as the first Indian Zen master and as a bridge between Zen and Christian contemplative practice. The Bodhi Sangha he founded continues at Kanzeon Zendo, and he authorised Dharma successors including Stefan Bauberger, Johannes Fischer, Carl Hooper, Gert Luderitz, Cyril Mathew, Angela Pliske and Olaf Strelcyk, who teach in Germany, Australia, India, the Czech Republic and the United States.