Gerta Ital

Gerta Maria Luise Karoline Ital (7 July 1904 – 21 July 1988) was a German actress and writer known for her autobiographical accounts of training in Japanese Zen Buddhism. In 1963, she traveled to Japan and trained in a Rinzai Zen monastery under Mumon Yamada.^[1]

Ital was born in Hanover, Germany, into a musical family; her father was an orchestra conductor and her mother a lyric singer.^[2] She received musical training and later worked as an actress in Germany. Her performing career ended after she temporarily lost her voice due to a medical condition.

From 1928 onward, she pursued spiritual and academic studies, including Egyptology and Indology, while practicing forms of yoga and meditation.^[3]

Between 1953 and 1955, Ital studied with philosopher Eugen Herrigel. She was also in contact with Jesuit priest and Zen teacher Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle. She changed her name to Gerta at the Wilmersdorf district office on July 27, 1982. She left the Protestant Church in 1987.^[4]

In March 1963, she traveled to Japan and spent approximately seven months in Zen monastic training under Mumon Yamada, associated with the Myōshin-ji branch of the Rinzai school.^[5] She returned to Japan again in 1967 for further study.^[5]

Ital documented her experiences in autobiographical works originally published in German:

• Ital, Gerta (1966). Der Meister, die Mönche und ich: Im zenbuddhistischen Kloster. Munich: Otto Wilhelm Barth.
• Ital, Gerta (1966). Auf dem Weg zum Satori. Munich: Otto Wilhelm Barth.

English translations were published later under the titles:

• The Master, the Monks and I: A Western Woman's Experience of Zen
• On the Way to Satori: A Woman's Experience of Enlightenment

After returning to Germany, Ital lectured and wrote on Zen Buddhism. She died on 21 July 1988 in Munich, Germany.^[1]

• Gerta Ital's profile in "Journeys East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions"