Biography of Ashin Cintita Dinsmore

Ashin Cintita (aka Bhikkhu Cintita Dinsmore) was born John Dinsmore in San Francisco, California into a non-religious family. He earned a PhD in linguistics at the University of California at San Diego, and an MS in computer science at Kansas University. Shortly after marrying and becoming father to two of three children, he became a professor of Computer Science at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. After a divorce he worked in the corporate world doing research and development in artificial intelligence, which brought him to Austin, Texas.

In 2001 Ashin Cintita retired from his career at the age of 51 in order to devote himself to Buddhist practice and later teaching, which he has done ever since. He spent one and a half years at Tassajara Zen Monastery in California, which is in the Japanese Zen tradition of Suzuki Roshi, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. Returning to Austin, he ordained as a Zen priest in 2003 at the Austin Zen Center, which he had helped found a few years before. He lived, trained and taught at the Austin Zen Center for six years before deciding to ordain as a Theravada monk.

In 2009, at the invitation of Ashin Ariyadhamma, Ashin Cintita traveled to Myanmar and was ordained as a bhikkhu by Sitagu Sayadaw. He lived in Myanmar for thirteen months before returning to Austin.

Ashin Cintita maintains a blog here: Through the Looking Glass