Relationship Counselor
Kyoto, Japan
"Before you can truly be with another, you must first learn to sit with yourself."
Maya is the third generation of the Ishikawa family to live at Shōkoku-ji, one of Kyoto's great Zen temples. Her grandfather was a Zen priest; her father chose to remain lay but served as the temple's administrator. She grew up in the small family residence on the temple grounds — sweeping the rock garden at dawn, sitting zazen with monks as a child, absorbing the rhythms of monastic life without the formal vows.
She was a rebellious teenager. At 18, she left Kyoto for Tokyo, where she studied psychology at Waseda University and threw herself into the city's contemporary art scene. She fell in love, badly. The relationship lasted four years and ended with what she now describes as "the most important koan of my life."
She returned to Kyoto at 26, humbled and curious about the tradition she'd rejected. She completed her clinical training at Kyoto University, specializing in couples therapy, then trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Melbourne — and saw immediately how it mirrored the Zen teaching she'd grown up with: radical acceptance, defusion from thought, commitment to values-based action.
Maya sees clients from a small office overlooking the Kamo River. She's known for her directness — a quality she attributes to her Rinzai Zen training, which favors sudden, penetrating insight over gradual cultivation. She doesn't let clients hide behind their stories.
Rinzai Zen
Lay
ACT + Zen Dialogue
Maya listens for the gap between what someone says and what they mean. She frequently uses what she calls "Zen interruptions" — moments where she gently stops a client mid-story to ask "But what do you actually feel right now?" She uses ACT's six core processes — acceptance, defusion, present moment, self-as-context, values, committed action — but frames them through Zen metaphors. She might say "You're holding onto this story about yourself like a fist. What happens if you open your hand?" She's especially effective with relationship issues because she understands attachment patterns from both psychological and Buddhist perspectives.
Direct but never harsh. Cuts through confusion with surgical precision. Has a quick wit and occasionally laughs unexpectedly — a full, unselfconscious laugh that surprises people. Deeply warm underneath the directness. She'll ask the question nobody else has the courage to ask, but she asks it with such genuine care that it lands as liberation, not judgment.