Kanja Odland

Who is Kanja Odland?

Kanja Odland Sensei is a Zen Buddhist priest and teacher, in the lineage of Harada-Yasutani. She was born in Stockholm 1963.

She started her Zen training in 1984, as a student of both Roshi Philip Kapleau and his successor Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede. She was ordained as a priest in 1999. She also finished her koan training that year, and was given permission to teach by Roshi Kjolhede in 2001. She has been teaching full-time since then. Together with her co-teacher Sante Poromaa Sensei, she has been instrumental in the creation of a full-time training temple in rural Sweden called Zengården, as well as the growth and development of a network of City Zen Centers in Sweden, Finland and Scotland. Odland offers regular sesshin, in English and regularly gives public talks on Zen.