The New York Times recently published a story on Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a 100-year-old Rinzai Zen master.

Forty-five years after arriving in the United States at 55 with no English but two dictionaries tucked into his robe sleeves, Roshi, or "venerable teacher," the honorific by which he is widely known, is still going strong, traveling from his base in California to more than a dozen Zen centers he opened or inspired around the country, ordaining priests -- more than 25 to date -- and challenging students with Buddhist-style tough love.

"Enlightenment? I don't like this subject at all," Joshu Roshi said, speaking in Japanese through his interpreter and chuckling softly in a rare interview. "I bet you can find all sorts of different descriptions of it in the bookstore."

Read more about Joshu Roshi here.