With his shaven head, straight back and deep, calming voice, Sokun Tsushimoto, a newly qualified physician who started practicing at a Tokyo clinic in April, clearly betrays evidence of his long and rich life experience.
Until he set out on his eight-year study/training path toward becoming a medical doctor in 2000, Tsushimoto practiced in an altogether different field — that of Zen Buddhism — in which he had held one of the highest positions in the Rinzai School, one of Japan's two major schools along with the Soto School.
Although he no longer belongs to any Buddhist group, nor has any official status as a monk, the 54-year-old native of Ehime Prefecture in Shikoku still says that he is a priest who also happens to be a physician — not the other way around.