Norma Wong (Norma Ryuko Kawelokū Wong Roshi) is a Native Hawaiian and Hakka life-long resident of Hawai’i. She is the abbot of Anko-in, an independent branch temple of Daihonzan Chozen-ji and serves practice communities in Hawai‘i, across the continental U.S., and in Toronto, Canada. She is an 86th generation Zen Master, having trained at Chozen-ji for over 40 years. When No Thing Works – a Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse, her book on the necessity and ways to leap beyond this fraught societal moment, will be published in the fall of 2024 by North Atlantic Books/Penguin Random House.

In earlier years, Norma served as a Hawai‘i state legislator, on the policy and strategy team for Governor John Waihee with federal  and Native Hawaiian portfolios. She led teams to negotiate agreements on the munitions cleanup of Kaho`olawe Island, ceded land revenue for Native Hawaiians, and the return of lands and settlement of land issues for Hawaiian Home Lands. She was active in electoral politics for over thirty years.  

In recent years, Norma has been called back into service to facilitate breaking the impasse and transforming policy and governance on issues of seeming contradiction.  In the conflict between native culture/science and western discovery science posing as a dispute over the construction of a telescope on Mauna Kea, Norma was a team member narrating and facilitating a path forward through mutual stewardship. She is currently an advisor to Speaker of the Hawai‘i House of Representatives Scott Saiki, serving in policy development and facilitation roles on issues such as the protection of the aquifer from fuel contamination at Red Hill, and the long-term response to the Lahaina wildfires. 

Norma is part of the Collective Acceleration community of practice.