Gene Reeves, who sounds like he might be an American cowboy but is in fact an internationally respected Buddhist scholar of the highest order, also ranks physically impressive: as tall as he is broad, with a fulsome beard used to going its own way.
Gene, who ministers to the International Buddhist Congregation of Rissho Kosei-kai in Tokyo's Suginami Ward, and acts as international adviser to its associated Niwano Peace Foundation, is recently returned from China -- a delegate at the four-day World Buddhist Forum in mid-April.
"It was amazing," he recalls in the study of his apartment in Wada, just down the street from Rissho Kosei-kai's headquarters. "Some 1,000 monks and nuns and experts spent two days in Hangzhou, with lectures and discussion on the theme of the forum: A harmonious world begins in the mind. After flying to Zhou-shan, where we prayed for world peace, we moved on to Shanghai for the first performance of a Buddhist symphony."