Tamo-San
(Rev. Ryoju Kikuchi)
Tamo-San was born in 1908, the third child of a Buddhist priest. Her grandfather saw something special in her and kept her separate from other children and the rest of the family. He lived close by, so they could maintain contact when needed but mainly she grew up away from other influences and was unusually self-directed. She understood innately that "everything natural is glowing and the beauty of it was enough to make her happy all the time", and that sustained her throughout.
At the age of twenty-two, she was ordained as a priestess in the Jōdo Shinshū sect, a school of Pure Land Buddhism. While waiting for the ceremony to begin, she had an overwhelming enlightenment experience which took many days to assimilate and became the basis of her life's calling.
She traveled and preached but found that communication was hindered both by her lack of formal education and by others' inability to go beyond conditioned perceptions and responses. She taught that there is no reason not to be happy, we are surrounded by and permeated with beauty and light but people could not "get" this existentially.
Tamo-san left her body on November 21st of 2001. Her daughter reports that "the room was filled with golden particles which almost all of us saw. She left in a flood of golden light".
Above is abridged and paraphrased from an account written by her daughter, Shizuru Kikuchi. A few copies of it can be found around the net -- one such link is below -- all apparently connected to one of Tamo-san's Western acolytes who is promoting himself as a spiritual teacher; care has been taken not to infringe on possible copyright.
Tamo-san came to Pune to see Osho in Nov 1989, staying for one night and leaving. She came to White Robe and Osho showered her with rose petals. Veena says about this meeting that Tamo-San "had come to visit Osho to give all her energy to him as he could reach people worldwide in a way that she could not".
More about this event can be found at the White Robe event page, link below, and more still at the two Osho News links. Veena's account has also been incorporated into her book, Glimpses of My Master, and Punya's account is also in her book, On the Edge.
