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 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.
The Kwan Um School of Zen (관음선종회,觀音禪宗會) (KUSZ) is an international school of zen centers and groups founded in 1983 by Zen Master Seung Sahn. The school's international head temple is located at the Providence Zen Center in Cumberland, Rhode Island, which was founded in 1972 shortly after Seung Sahn first came to the United States. The Kwan Um style of Buddhist practice combines ritual common both to Korean Buddhism as well as Rinzai school of Zen, and their morning and evening services include elements of Huayan and Pure Land Buddhism. While the Kwan Um Zen School comes under the banner of the Jogye Order of Korean Seon, the school has been adapted by Seung Sahn to the needs of Westerners. According to James Ishmael Ford, the Kwan Um School of Zen is the largest Zen school in the Western world.
The Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) is a nonsectarian international network of engaged Buddhists participating in various forms of non-violent social activism and environmentalism. The non-profit BPF is an affiliate of the international Fellowship of Reconciliation working toward global disarmament and peace, helping individuals suffering under governmental tyranny in places such as Burma, Bangladesh, Tibet and Vietnam. Headquartered in Oakland, California, BPF was incorporated in 1978 in Hawaii by Robert Baker Aitken, his wife Anne Hopkins Aitken, Nelson Foster, Ryo Imamura and others. Shortly after other notable individuals joined, including Gary Snyder, Alfred Bloom, Joanna Macy, and Jack Kornfield. Generally speaking, the BPF has a tendency to approach social issues from a left-wing perspective and, while the fellowship is nonsectarian, the majority of its members are practitioners of Zen Buddhism.
BPF's work includes:
- Sparking conversation at the intersection of Buddhism and social justice;
- Training Buddhist political activists;
- Mobilizing people to action from a Buddhist perspective;
- Building a network of radical Buddhist activists.
Charlotte Joko Beck was an American Zen teacher and the author of the books Everyday Zen: Love and Work and Nothing Special: Living Zen.
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.
Yamada Koun Zenshin, or Koun Yamada, was a Japanese Buddhist who was the leader of the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, the Dharma heir of his teacher Yasutani Haku'un Ryoko. Yamada was appointed the leader of the Sanbo Kyodan in 1967, 1970 or 1973 and continued to differentiate the lineage from other Japanese Zen traditions by deemphasizing the separation between laypeople and the ordained—just as his teacher Yasutani had done. Yamada was also instrumental in bringing Christians to the practice of Zen that “by the end of Yamada’s teaching career approximately one quarter of the participants at his sesshins were Christians”.
Martine Batchelor, a former Jogye Buddhist nun, is the author of several books on Buddhism currently residing in France. She and her husband, Stephen Batchelor, work mostly in the United Kingdom and occasionally in the United States. In addition to writing books, she leads meditation groups with her husband that incorporate aspects of Zen, vipassanā, and Tibetan Buddhism. Batchelor also blogs frequently for the U.S.-based Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. She studied Jogye Zen Buddhism for ten years at Songgwangsa with her former teacher Master Kusan Sunim, being ordained as a nun in 1975. Batchelor served as Kusan's interpreter on speaking tours of the United States and Europe from 1981 to 1985, the year she left monastic life, married Stephen Batchelor, and returned to Europe. There she became a member of Sharpham North Community and served as a guiding teacher at Gaia House, both of which are based in Devon, England. She has also led a Buddhist studies program at Sharpham College in Totnes, Devon. MB speaks English, Korean, and French and can read Chinese characters.
Toni Packer was a teacher of "meditative inquiry", and the founder of Springwater Center. Packer was a former student in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, and was previously in line to be the successor of Phillip Kapleau at the Rochester Zen Center.
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.
Berkeley Zen Center (BZC), temple name Shogakuji, is an Sōtō Zen Buddhist practice centre located in Berkeley, California currently led by Hozan Alan Senauke. An informal affiliate to the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), BZC was founded in 1967 by Sojun Mel Weitsman and Shunryu Suzuki as a satellite group for the SFZC. Despite founding the centre, Weitsman was not installed as an abbot there until 1985, one year after receiving Dharma transmission from Hoitsu Suzuki. Weitsman's Dharma heir, Alan Senauke, lives on-site with his wife Laurie Senauke and also works for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Another former teacher at BZC was Maylie Scott, who died in 2001. In 1969, Zenkei Blanche Hartman began sitting zazen at BZC, receiving Dharma transmission from Weitsman in 1988. In 1979, the centre relocated to its current location on Russell Street—and today houses a small group of residents who live on site. BZC has an active community and a full schedule of zen service, student talks, dharma talks, and zazen.
White Plum Asanga, sometimes termed White Plum Sangha, is a Zen school in the Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi lineage, created by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi. It consists of Maezumi's Dharma heirs and subsequent successors and students. A diverse organization spread across the United States and with a small presence in Europe, the White Plum Asanga
[I]ncludes teachers who represent the spectrum of styles to be found to American Zen—socially engaged Buddhism, family practice, Zen and the arts, secularized Zen, and progressive traditionalism."
Dr. Soyu Matsuoka, along with Sokei-an and Nyogen Senzaki, was one of the early Zen teachers to make the United States his home.
Upaya Institute and Zen Center is a center for residential Zen practice located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and founded by Joan Halifax Roshi. The center focuses on integration of Zen practice with social action, with traditional cultivation of wisdom and compassion in the Buddhist sense. It also provides service in the areas of death and dying, prison work, environment, women's rights and peace work. According to the Upaya website, in 2002 Joan Halifax founded the Prajna Mountain Buddhist Order. A non-profit organization, Prajna is a new Buddhist Order in the lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, the Zen Peacemaker Order and White Plum Asanga.
Dharma combat, called issatsu or shosan in Japanese, is a term in some schools of Buddhism referring to an intense exchange between student and teacher, and sometimes between teachers, as an occasion for one or both to demonstrate his or her understanding of the Dharma and Buddhist tenets. It is used by both students and teachers to test and sharpen their understanding. Practice is primarily seen in Zen traditions, particularly Rinzai Zen and the Kwan Um School of Zen. In both, it is a key component in the Dharma transmission process.
Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto Zen priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism.
Maurine Stuart, a.k.a. Ma Roshi or Mother Roshi, was a Canadian Rinzai Zen rōshi who was one of the first female Zen masters to teach in the United States. She became president and spiritual director of the Cambridge Buddhist Association in 1979.
Below is a timeline of important events regarding Zen Buddhism in the United States. Dates with "?" are approximate.
Bonnie Myotai Treace is a Zen teacher and priest, the founder of Hermitage Heart, and formerly the abbot of the Zen Center of New York City (ZCNYC). She teaches currently in Black Mountain and Asheville, North Carolina. Myotai Sensei is the first Dharma successor of John Daido Loori, Roshi, in the Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO), having received shiho, dharma transmission, from him in 1996. Serving and training for over two decades in the MRO, she was the establishing teacher and first abbess of the ZCNYC. At the Monastery she was the Vice Abbot, the first director of Dharma Communications, editor of Mountain Record, and coordinator of the affiliates of the MRO. Treace, ordained as a Zen monastic, now lives as a lay teacher, working primarily with her long-term students.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold is Rōshi of the Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) founded by John Daido Loori, from whom Shugen received shiho, or dharma transmission, in July 1997. As a lineage holder in the Sōtō tradition, Shugen currently serves as head of MRO and abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, New York, where he serves as the full-time resident teacher. Trained as a musician, Shugen was introduced to and began practicing Zen meditation in 1975. He began his formal training at Zen Mountain Monastery in 1984, and received tokudo, full monastic ordination, in 1988. Shugen's teachings have appeared in various Buddhist publications, including Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, The Mountain Record and in The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 and 2009. He is the author of O, Beautiful End, a collection of Zen memorial poems, published by Dharma Communications in 2012.
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.
