| Ordinary Mind Zen School | |
|---|---|
| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Zen |
| Architecture | |
| Founder | Charlotte Joko Beck, Elizabeth Hamilton, Diane Eshin Rizzetto, Elihu Genmyo Smith |
| Completed | 1995 |
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| Part of a series on |
| Zen Buddhism |
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The Ordinary Mind Zen School is a network of independent Zen centers established by Charlotte Joko Beck and her Dharma Successors in 1995.
The school is unaffiliated with any Zen centers which fall outside of its own network, however many Ordinary Mind Zen teachers are members of the White Plum Asanga. [1] The history of the Ordinary Mind Zen School dates back to 1983, which was the year that Joko Beck had left the Zen Center of Los Angeles. [2] That was the year her teacher, Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi, had been confronted by his students about his alcoholism and sexual liaisons with some female students. Joko Beck established the Zen Center of San Diego [3] in 1983.
According to Richard Hughes Seager, "By 1998, the Ordinary Mind School had centers in San Diego, Champaign, Illinois, Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon and New York City." [4] There is no one set structure of curriculum in the Ordinary Mind School, as the Dharma Successors of Joko Beck get to decide their method of training independent of any organizational head. Long before retirement, Joko Beck had done away with all titles and no longer wore her okesa. (For formal occasions she often wore a rakusu after ceasing to wear okesa; she also ordained several Zen priests throughout her life.) She had distanced herself considerably from her roots in the Sōtō school, and much of the ceremony had been abandoned in favor of pure meditation practice. [2]
Note that Joko wrote a letter saying that she revoked transmission for two teachers she gave transmission to: Ezra Bayda and Elizabeth Hamilton. [20] However it is unclear if Joko or anyone had the authority to revoke transmission. [21]
Buddhism in the West broadly encompasses the knowledge and practice of Buddhism outside of Asia in the Western world. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years. The first Westerners to become Buddhists were Greeks who settled in Bactria and India during the Hellenistic period. They became influential figures during the reigns of the Indo-Greek kings, whose patronage of Buddhism led to the emergence of Greco-Buddhism and Greco-Buddhist art. There was little contact between the Western and Buddhist cultures during most of the Middle Ages but the early modern rise of global trade and mercantilism, improved navigation technology and the European colonization of Asian Buddhist countries led to increased knowledge of Buddhism among Westerners. This increased contact led to various responses from Buddhists and Westerners throughout the modern era. These include religious proselytism, religious polemics and debates, Buddhist modernism, Western convert Buddhists and the rise of Buddhist studies in Western academia. During the 20th century, there was a growth in Western Buddhism due to various factors such as immigration, globalization, the decline of Christianity and increased interest among Westerners. The various schools of Buddhism are now established in all major Western countries making up a small minority in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The term American Buddhism can be used to describe all Buddhist groups within the United States, including Asian-American Buddhists born into the faith, who comprise the largest percentage of Buddhists in the country.
Hakuyū Taizan Maezumi was a Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist priest who substantially contributed to development of Zen in the USA.
The Lay Buddhist Ordination refers to the public ordination ceremony wherein a lay follower of Zen Buddhism receives certain Buddhist precepts. The particulars of the ceremony differ widely by country and by school of Buddhism.
Dennis Merzel is an American Zen and spirituality teacher, also known as Genpo Roshi.
Japanese Zen refers to the Japanese forms of Zen Buddhism, an originally Chinese Mahāyāna school of Buddhism that strongly emphasizes dhyāna, the meditative training of awareness and equanimity. This practice, according to Zen proponents, gives insight into one's true nature, or the emptiness of inherent existence, which opens the way to a liberated way of living.
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.
Shinge-shitsu Roko Sherry Chayat is the former 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.
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.
Robert Edward Kennedy is an American Jesuit priest, professor of theology, psychoanalyst and Zen rōshi in the White Plum lineage.
Kōbun Otogawa was an American Sōtō Zen priest.
Enkyō Pat O'Hara is a Soto Zen priest and teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism.
Shodo Harada, or Harada Rōshi, is a Rinzai priest, author, calligrapher, and head abbot of Sōgen-ji — a three-hundred-year-old temple in Okayama, Japan. He has become known as a "teacher of teachers", with masters from various lineages coming to sit sesshin with him in Japan or during his trips to the United States and Europe.
Below is a timeline of important events regarding Zen Buddhism in the United States. Dates with "?" are approximate.
Village Zendo is a combined Soto and Rinzai Zen practice center in lower Manhattan. Originally located in the apartment of Enkyo Pat O'Hara, who founded the zendo in 1986, the Zen center took up the majority of space in O'Hara's apartment. Village Zendo is a practice center of the White Plum Asanga and Zen Peacemaker Circle, the former founded by O'Hara's teacher Taizan Maezumi and the latter by Bernard Glassman.
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.
Barry Magid is a psychoanalyst and Zen teacher whose life and work have been on the forefront of a movement to integrate Western psychology with Eastern spiritual practices. He teaches at the Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York City. OMZ is part of the Ordinary Mind Zen School, a network of independent Zen centers established by Charlotte Joko Beck and her Dharma Successors in 1995.
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.
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