Claude Anshin Thomas

Claude AnShin Thomas is a Zen Buddhist monk and the founder of the Zaltho Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization that promotes peace among individuals, families, societies, and countries. A Vietnam War veteran, he speaks internationally in religious and secular communities about cultures of violence and how they can become transformed. He visits war-torn countries, hospitals, schools, and prisons, and facilitates mindfulness meditation retreats, long-distance pilgrimages, and practice days in former concentration camps and other places of suffering.

In the years following the Vietnam War, Thomas  worked to address the plight of many of his fellow veterans who were suffering from social isolation, homelessness, drug addiction, unemployment, and abnormally high rates of suicide, divorce, and imprisonment. He came to realize that the roots of war are within each one of us and that our acceptance of our own vulnerability, aggression, fear, and individual suffering is the starting point of peace.

In 1990, Thomas began to walk a Buddhist path. He received full ordination as a Zen Buddhist monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition in August 1995.