Eijun Linda Cutts | |
---|---|
Title | Priest |
Personal | |
Born | 1947 |
Religion | Zen Buddhism |
Nationality | American |
Spouse | Steve Weintraub |
Children | Sarah Nancy Cutts Weintraub 2 others |
School | Sōtō |
Lineage | Shunryu Suzuki |
Senior posting | |
Based in | Green Gulch Farm San Francisco Zen Center |
Predecessor | Tenshin Reb Anderson |
Successor | Jisan Tova Green, Keimyō Dario Girolami, Kyoshin Wendy Lewis |
Eijun Linda Cutts (born 1947) is a Sōtō Zen priest practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, a Senior Dharma Teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center. Cutts is a Dharma heir of Tenshin Reb Anderson, having received Dharma transmission from him in 1996. [1] She served as co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center from 2000 to 2007, [2] and had first begun practice at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1971; [3] later, she was ordained a priest by Zentatsu Richard Baker in 1975. Currently living at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, as abbess she had been aware of the significance in being a woman in a leadership position in religion that has historically been a patriarchy. In this vein, within her first year as abbess she instituted the ceremony in which female ancestors could be honored. [1] She became Central Abbess of San Francisco Zen Center in 2014.
Hōun Jiyu-Kennett, born Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett, was a British roshi most famous for having been the first female to be sanctioned by the Sōtō School of Japan to teach in the West.
Richard Dudley Baker is an American Soto Zen master, the founder and guiding teacher of Dharma Sangha—which consists of Crestone Mountain Zen Center located in Crestone, Colorado and the Buddhistisches Studienzentrum (Johanneshof) in Germany's Black Forest. As the American Dharma heir to Shunryu Suzuki, Baker assumed abbotship of the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) shortly before Suzuki's death in 1971. He remained abbot there until 1984, the year he resigned his position after it was disclosed in the previous year that he and the wife of one of SFZC's benefactors had been having an ongoing affair. Despite the controversy connected with his resignation, Baker was instrumental in helping the San Francisco Zen Center to become one of the most successful Zen institutions in the United States.
San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and a group of his American students in 1962. Today SFZC is the largest Sōtō organization in the West.
Providence Zen Center (PZC) is the Head Temple of the Americas for the Kwan Um School of Zen (KUSZ) and the first Zen center established by Seungsahn in the United States in October 1972. The PZC offers residential training where students and teachers live together under one roof, which was one of the hallmarks of Seung Sahn's philosophy concerning Zen practice in his organization. Practice at the center, and at Diamond Hill Zen Monastery, which shares the PZC property, includes sitting meditation, prostrations, and chanting.
Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki, born Yeita Sasaki, was a Japanese Rinzai monk who founded the Buddhist Society of America in New York City in 1930. Influential in the growth of Zen Buddhism in the United States, Sokei-an was one of the first Japanese masters to live and teach in America. In 1944 he married American Ruth Fuller Everett. He died in May 1945 without leaving behind a Dharma heir. One of his better known students was Alan Watts, who studied under him briefly. Watts was a student of Sokei-an in the late 1930s.
Mary Farkas was the director of the First Zen Institute of America (FZIA), running the center's administrative functions for many years following the death of her teacher (Sokei-an) in 1945. Though she was not a teacher of Zen Buddhism in any traditional sense of the word, she did help to carry on the lineage of Sokei-an and also was editor of the FZIA's journal, Zen Notes, starting with Volume 1 in 1954. Additionally, she also edited books about Sokei-an, i.e. "The Zen Eye" and "Zen Pivots." Through her transcriptions of his talks, the institute was able to continue on the lineage without having a formal teacher.
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Hakuryu Sojun Mel Weitsman, born Mel Weitsman, was an American Buddhist who was the founder, abbot and guiding teacher of Berkeley Zen Center located in Berkeley, California. Weitsman was a Soto Zen roshi practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, having received Dharma transmission in 1984 from Suzuki's son Hoitsu. He was also a co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, where he served from 1988 to 1997. Weitsman was also editor of the book Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai, based on talks given by Suzuki on the Sandokai.
Shinge-shitsu Roko Sherry Chayat is the current abbot of the Zen Studies Society, based at the International Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji monastery, outside Livingston Manor, NY, and at the New York Zendo Shobo-Ji on the Upper east Side of Manhattan. She is also the abbot of the Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji. Chayat is an advocate for the use of meditation in medical settings, with Hoen-ji running the program Well/Being Contemplative Practices for Healing for healthcare professionals.
Zenkei Blanche Hartman was a Soto Zen teacher practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. From 1996 to 2002 she served two terms as co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center. She was the first woman to assume such a leadership position at the center. A member of the American Zen Teachers Association, Blanche was especially known for her expertise in the ancient ritual of sewing a kesa. Hartman became known for her attention to issues women face; she and her late husband Lou Hartman had four children, eight grandchildren, and a number of great-grandchildren.
Malinda Elliott Cramer was a founder of the Church of Divine Science, a healer, and an important figure in the early New Thought movement.
Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism.
Gyokuko Carlson is a Soto Zen roshi and abbess of Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland, Oregon, United States.
The Zen Center of Syracuse, temple name Hoen-ji, is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist practice center in Syracuse, New York, one of the oldest continuously running Zen centers in the United States. Founded in 1972, the center is currently led by Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi. Originally at 111 Concord Place, the meditation hall is now located in the former carriage house at 266 West Seneca Turnpike and offers Zen practice for laypeople. Several clergy and practitioners live in a house next door and in the Joshua Forman house, where programs are also conducted. The Zen Center of Syracuse began as a group of graduate students from Syracuse University, with Chayat eventually becoming the center's leader. In addition to Zen practice, the center also provides some instruction in Tibetan Buddhism. According to The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, "The Syracuse Zen Center also leads meditation at Syracuse University, Syracuse area schools, recovery and justice system institutions, hospitals and corporations." The center also won two awards for their restoration of The Forman House from the Preservation Association of Central New York. This house was instrumental during the War of 1812 and the American Civil War, for it was a bandage assembly area for wounded troops.
Maylie Scott, Buddhist name Kushin Seisho, was a Sōtō roshi who received Dharma transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1998 at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. She graduated from Harvard University in 1956 and obtained a master's degree in social work from the University of California, Berkeley. According to the book The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, "Maylie Scott described her primary teaching objective as empowering the sangha by making sure she is the facilitator, not the 'star.'" In addition to her occupation as a social worker, she was also on the Board of Directors for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF). In addition to serving for the BPF, Scott was also involved with the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement and frequently protested the import of weapons at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. A socially engaged Buddhist and teacher at the Berkeley Zen Center, Scott was known for her work in prisons and homeless shelters. Also, during the 1980s she studied under Maurine Stuart and, in April 2000, she founded Rin Shin-ji in Arcata, California. Professor Lloyd Fulton, of Humboldt State University, had once said of Scott that she is, "a strong-willed and organized woman."
Josho Pat Phelan, Buddhist name Taitaku Josho, is a Sōtō Zen priest and current abbot of Chapel Hill Zen Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina—she has served as abbot there since 2000. Before coming to Chapel Hill, she practiced for twenty years at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center. Phelan began leading the Chapel Hill Zen Center in 1991, when there were just eight members including herself. As of 2001, the center had forty-five members and provides meditation instruction for approximately one-hundred and fifty people every year. Ordained as a priest by Zentatsu Richard Baker in 1977, she began Zen practice in 1969 and has also trained under Sojun Mel Weitsman, Robert Baker Aitken and Tenshin Reb Anderson Additionally, Phelan is a member of the American Zen Teachers Association, and in 1995 she received shiho from Sojun Weitsman at Tassajara.
Angie Boissevain is a Sōtō Zen roshi leading the Floating Zendo in San Jose, California. A Dharma heir of Vanja Palmers, for many years she was director and then teacher of Jikoji in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Today (2012) she leads meditation retreats in California.
Mary E. Hunt is an American feminist theologian who is co-founder and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland, US. A Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to social justice concerns.
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