Bhikkhu Cintita
| Bhikkhu Cintita Dinsmore | |
|---|---|
| School | Theravada |
| Education |
University of California, Berkeley California State University, Sonoma University of California at San Diego |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | American |
| Born |
1949 San Francisco, California, United States |
| Part of a series on |
| Buddhism |
|---|
 |
|
Bhikkhu (Bhante) Cintita Dinsmore (b. 1949, San Francisco), born John David Dinsmore, is an American Buddhist monk, ordained in Burma and currently teaching in the cities of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Austin, Texas.
Life
In 1949 Bhikkhu Cintita was born in San Francisco, California, to David Dinsmore and Alma Morris, half a block from what is now the San Francisco Zen Center. He was raised, along with his three siblings, in San Francisco, El Cerito, and Larkspur, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, as a mathematics major during college but dropped out and traveled to Europe. In 1975 he earned his B.A. in Linguistics at California State University, Sonoma. He earned his M.A. and Ph. D. in Linguistics from University of California, San Diego.
In 1979 Bhante was a Research Fellow in Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft in Germany where he began meditation practice. Soon after he moved back to the United States he married his long-time girlfriend Sarah Perkins and had his first daughter, Kymrie Dinsmore.
Before ordaining Bhante Cintita was a successful academic and professor, holding positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Kansas, and Southern Illinois University. He had two other children, Warren Dinsmore and Alma Dinsmore, with Sarah before they divorced. He was also the CEO of a software company.
In 2002 he began Buddhist monastic training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California and was later ordained Kojin Hosen (“Vast Compassion, Free River”). From 2003-2009 he was a priest at the Austin Zen Center.
In 2009 he traveled to Burma and attended Sitagu International Buddhist Academy, Sagaing, Myanmar where he taught English and studied Buddhism. He was reordained as a Theravada bhikkhu by Sitagu Sayadaw. His ordination name, "Cintita," means good thinker.