Kanzeon Zen Center was a Zen Buddhist center located in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was an affiliate of the White Plum Asanga, an association of Zen centers stemming from the tradition of Taizan Maezumi. The founder and Abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center was Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi, who resigned in 2011 amidst controversy. Kanzeon Zen Center was the home temple and the hub of Kanzeon Sangha International, founded by Genpo Roshi in 1984, with affiliate teachers, centers and groups in the US and seven European countries. The center was housed at 1274 E. South Temple, a historic building listed as a contributing property in the South Temple Historic District. It closed in the wake of the sex scandals involving Merzel. News reports stated that the center was deeply financially in debt to Merzel.
John Daido Loori was a Zen Buddhist rōshi who served as the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and was the founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order and CEO of Dharma Communications. Daido Loori received shiho from Taizan Maezumi in 1986 and also received a Dendo Kyoshi certificate formally from the Soto school of Japan in 1994. In 1997, he received dharma transmission in the Harada-Yasutani and Inzan lineages of Rinzai Zen as well. In 1996 he gave dharma transmission to his student Bonnie Myotai Treace, in 1997 to Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, and in 2009 to Konrad Ryushin Marchaj. In addition to his role as a Zen Buddhist priest, Loori was an exhibited photographer and author of more than twenty books and was an avid naturalist.
Hakuyū Taizan Maezumi was a Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist priest who substantially contributed to development of Zen in the USA.
Dennis Merzel is an American Zen and spirituality teacher, also known as Genpo Roshi.
The Hazy Moon Zen Center is a Soto Zen center in Los Angeles, California.
Bernie Glassman was an American Zen Buddhist roshi and founder of the Zen Peacemakers, an organization established in 1980. In 1996, he co-founded the Zen Peacemaker Order with his late wife Sandra Jishu Holmes. Glassman was a Dharma successor of the late Taizan Maezumi-roshi, and gave inka and Dharma transmission to several people.
Hakuun Yasutani was a Sōtō priest and the founder of the Sanbo Kyodan, a lay Japanese Zen group. Through his students Philip Kapleau and Taizan Maezumi, Yasutani has been one of the principal forces in founding western (lay) Zen-practice.
Jan Chozen Bays, is a Zen teacher, author, mindful eating educator, and pediatrician specializing in work with abused children.
White Plum Asanga, sometimes termed White Plum Sangha, is a loose "organization of peers whose members are leaders of Zen Communities in the lineage of Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi," created by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi and Tetsugen Bernard Glassman. It consists of Maezumi's Dharma heirs and subsequent successors.
Yokoji Zen Mountain Center is a year-round Zen Buddhist training and retreat center located in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California. It is a 160 acres of sacred Native American land and wilderness.
Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto Zen priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism.
Gerry Shishin Wick is a Soto Zen roshi, author, oceanographer and abbot of Great Mountain Zen Center in Berthoud, Colorado, which he founded in 1996. He is one of the twelve Dharma Successors of the late Taizan Maezumi, receiving Dharma transmission and a Denkai from him in 1990. Prior to it, for 24 years he underwent Zen training with Maezumi, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and Sochu Suzuki Roshi. He remained the president of White Plum Asanga, a Zen school in the Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi lineage, from 2007 to 2014.
John Tesshin Sanderson is a Soto Zen roshi of the White Plum Asanga and spiritual director of the Centro Zen de México in Coyoacán, Mexico City, one of twelve Dharma Successors of the late Taizan Maezumi. He moved to Mexico in 1987 at the request of Maezumi, and has been teaching there ever since.
Below is a timeline of important events regarding Zen Buddhism in the United States. Dates with "?" are approximate.
The Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA), temple name Buddha Essence Temple, is a Zen center founded by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi in 1967 that practices in the White Plum lineage.
The Zen Peacemakers is a diverse network of socially engaged Buddhists, currently including the formal structures of the Zen Peacemakers International, the Zen Peacemaker Order and the Zen Peacemaker Circles, many affiliated individuals and groups, and communities formed by Dharma Successors of Roshi Bernie Glassman. It was founded by Bernie Glassman and his second wife Sandra Jishu Holmes in 1996, as a means of continuing the work begun with the Greyston Foundation in 1980 of expanding Zen practice into larger spheres of influence such as social services, business and ecology but with a greater emphasis on peace work. Eve Marko, Bernie Glassman's third wife, is a founding teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order. Zen Peacemakers have developed from the White Plum Asanga lineage of Taizan Maezumi.
Tenshin Zenki Reb Anderson is an American Buddhist who is a Zen teacher in the Sōtō Zen tradition of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a senior dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center and at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, California, where he lives. According to author James Ishmael Ford, "Reb Anderson is one of the most prominent of contemporary Western Zen teachers."
Zen was introduced in the United States at the end of the 19th century by Japanese teachers who went to America to serve groups of Japanese immigrants and become acquainted with the American culture. After World War II, interest from non-Asian Americans grew rapidly. This resulted in the commencement of an indigenous American Zen tradition which also influences the larger western (Zen) world.
New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care is a Soto Zen practice center in Manhattan. It was founded in 2007 by Zen teachers and monks Koshin Paley Ellison and Robert Chodo Campbell. In addition to Soto Zen Buddhist practice and study, NYZC offers training in end-of-life care for medical professionals, carepartners, and those who are dying. Since the Zen center was founded, the priests and their students have worked with over 150,000 people. New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care offers the first fully-accredited Zen Buddhist Clinical Pastoral Education program in the United States.
Koryū Osaka (1901-1985), birthname Koryū Matsumoto, was a Japanese lay Zen-teacher who taught Taizan Maezumi the Inzan koan-curriculum.
