Teacher
Sangen Salo sensei
“How would I feel if I hadn’t been born?”
This question, asked as a child, led, after many twists and turns, to Sangen Salo sensei’s weekend retreat in 2004. The teacher there was Sante Poromaa roshi, who had come from Sweden to visit Finland. The retreat inspired Sangen sensei to attend his first sesshin at Zengården in January 2005.
He began making regular visits to Zengården and practicing under the guidance of Sante roshi and the center’s other teacher, Kanja roshi. Three visits to a Zen temple called Bukkokuji in Japan in 2008, 2009, and 2024 have been an important source of inspiration for his practice. In the fall of 2012, Sangen-sensei moved to Sweden and Zengården.
He completed his formal koan training at the end of 2013 (Mumonkan, Hekiganroku, Shoyoroku, Jujukinkai). In the spring of 2014, he was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest. After serving for about three and a half years as the first zendo leader at Zengården, he gradually moved back to Finland and Helsinki.
In January 2018, Sante-roshi ordained him as a Zen teacher. Since the summer of 2020, Sangen-sensei has been working at Sanneji, where he resides permanently.
Salo (b. 1967) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1992 to 1997 and graduated as a sculptor.
Sangen-sensei's teishos (dharma talks) on the Sanneji Zen Temple Teisho Podcast
Transmission of the Dharma and Mountain Seat Ceremony
On February 26, 2022, a Mountain Seat Ceremony was held at Sannej, led by Roshi Sante Poromaa, marking the appointment of a new abbot to the temple. At the same time, it was an Inka ceremony, in which Sangen Salo received full transmission of his teacher’s teachings, meaning he became Sante Roshi’s Dharma heir in the lineage of Roshi Philip Kapleau.
