Victor Sogen Hori received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Stanford University in 1976 and that same year was ordained a Zen monk in Kyoto. After devoting the next thirteen years to training at monasteries in Japan, he returned to the academic life in 1990. He is currently professor of Japanese religions in the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University.

Professor Hori is the author of Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture) (University of Hawaii Press, 2003), Lectures On The Ten Oxherding Pictures (University of Hawaii Press, 2004) and Teaching Buddhism in the West: From the Wheel to the Web (Curzon Critical Studies in Buddhism, 20) (Curzon Press, 2001). He is also the author of the foreword to Heinrich Dumoulin’s Zen Buddhism: A History; Japan Volume 2.

Dr. Hori is also a member of the Asian Religion and Ethics Research Unit (ARERU) at McGill University which was established in 2001. The unit goals include among others, the investigation of the resources of the Asian religions for new concepts of social ethics and research into the adaptation of Asian religions into Western cultures.