Central Abbot Myogen Steve Stücky Myogen Steve Stücky has been practicing Zen since 1971 with various teachers including Richard Baker, Dainin Katagiri, Robert Aitken, and Tenshin Anderson. He received Dharma Transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1993. He became co-Abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center in February 2007 and in 2010 became Central Abbot as a part of restructuring the abbacy.
Edward Brown Edward Brown has been practicing Zen since 1965. Ordained as a priest by Suzuki Roshi in 1971, he received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman in 1996. He is the author of several books and also has edited a book of Suzuki Roshi lectures, Not Always So. Ed is the founder and teacher of the Peaceful Sea Sangha.
Laura Burges Laura Burges is a lay entrusted teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. A teacher of children for 27 years, her work has been featured in the PBS special The Digital Divide and in the book Teach Our Children Well. She is active in bringing mindfulness practices into elementary classrooms. Laura co-founded the Sangha in Recovery program at the San Francisco Zen Center and lectures and leads retreats at different practice centers in Northern California.
Seido Lee deBarros Seido Lee deBarros is a Dharma teacher in the Suzuki Roshi Soto Zen lineage. He serves as a Buddhist chaplain at San Quentin prison and is a minister to the homeless and to hospice patients.
Laura Deutsch Laura Deutsch is a writer and teacher, who has led writing retreats from Tassajara to Tuscany. Laura has led writing workshops for more than 15 years and has participated in numerous workshops at Tassajara and Green Gulch.
Senior Dharma Teacher Zoketsu Norman Fischer Zoketsu Norman Fischer is a poet, priest, and a former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. He is founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation dedicated to sharing Zen teaching and practice widely with the world.
Bruce and Chris Fortin Bruce Fortin is a MFT psychotherapist in private practice in Santa Rosa, California, with a specialty in couples counseling. Bruce leads the Occidental Laguna Sangha in Sebastopol. He received dharma transmission from Zoketsu Norman Fischer.
Chris Fortin is a Zen priest, a teacher in the Everyday Zen sangha, and a MFT psychotherapist and Spiritual Counselor.
Gary Gach Gary Gach is ordained in the Order of Interbeing. Author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism and editor of What Book!? Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop.
Shinchi Linda Galijan, Ph.D. Shinchi Linda Galijan,Ph.D., was ordained by Sojun Mel Weitsman in 2004. She is licensed as a clinical psychologist, and has practiced yoga for 20 years. She currently serves as Treasurer at Tassajara.
Catherine Gammon Catherine Gammon is a fiction writer, writing teacher, and Soto Zen priest. Catherine’s novel Isabel Out of the Rain was published in 1991. Her shorter fiction has appeared in many literary journals, and she recently published Beauty and the Beast, a collection of early stories from the 1970s. From 1992-2000, Catherine taught in the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh.
Steve Gross Steve Gross has worked as a financial planner for more than 25 years. His Buddhist practice began in 1994 and he has been a student of Zoketsu Norman Fischer since attending Company Time in 1996. He received lay ordination from Norman in 2006 and is an active member of the Everday Zen community.
Steven Harper Steven Harper is a wilderness guide, author, and consultant. He has taught at Esalen Institute for over 25 years. A student of Buddhism since 1972, Steven has an M.A. in psychology. His work focuses on wild nature as a vehicle for awakening.
Alan Hawkins Alan Hawkins received the bodhisattva precepts (jukai) in 1992 and works with bees at Green Gulch and in Tracy. In 2011, he facilitated the establishing of hives and harvesting honey at City Center in San Francisco.
Kokyo "Luminous Owl" Henkel Kokyo "Luminous Owl" Henkel was ordained as a priest in 1994 and has practiced at Tassajara, Bukkokuji monastery in Japan, No Abode Hermitage, and for several years at Green Gulch Farm. Recently he served as tanto (head of practice) at Tassajara.
Roger Housden Roger Housden is an inspirational speaker and author of twenty books on art, travel, and poetry, all of which ask deep questions about the way we live and encourage us to live up to the best that we are. His latest book is Twenty Poems to Bless Your Marriage and One to Save It (Shambhala, December 2012). His work has been featured often in Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. You can find him at www.rogerhousden.com
Mushim Ikeda Mushim Ikeda is a meditation teacher, community peace activist, writer, diversity facilitator, and mother of a 23-year-old son. She has done both monastic and lay Zen Buddhist practice over the past thirty years, in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and S. Korea. Her poetry, fiction and essays have been published widely in journals and anthologies such as Tricycle and Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream. Mushim was coeditor of Making the Invisible Visible: Healing Racism in Our Buddhist Communities.
Lisa Jansen Lisa Marie Jansen began practicing yoga in 1984 and began teaching in 1998. While teaching she typically blends styles, including Hatha, Yin, and Therapeutic Yoga. Her love for teaching and interest in supporting her students encouraged her to receive training in many other healing modalities. She has extensive studies and 14 years of experience treating clients with Cranio Sacral Therapy, Reiki, Thai Yoga, Yoga Therapy, and Energetic Facilitation.
Wendy Johnson Wendy Johnson lived and trained at Green Gulch Farm from 1975-2000. She is one of the founders of the Organic Farm and Garden Program at Green Gulch, a lay dharma teacher, and the author of Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate (Bantam, 2008). Wendy is a garden mentor to the Edible Schoolyard program and a College of Marin instructor in the Environmental Landscape program at the Indian Valley Organic Farm and Garden project.
Skip Kimura Skip Kimura began studying horticulture in 1975, apprenticed with Alan Chadwick at the Round Valley Garden Project, and spent a year in the gardens of Great Britain. Designer of the Green Gulch garden, Skip has worked in Marin for 25 years in gardening, garden design, horticultural therapy, and garden coaching.
Judith Hanson Lasater Judith Hanson Lasater, Ph.D., PT, has taught yoga since 1971. She is the author of seven books on yoga and one, What We Say Matters, about using speech mindfully. She taught at Tassajara every summer from 1989 to 2007 and has a long association with many members of the San Francisco Bay Area Zen community.
Rev. Jiko Jane Lazar, SEP Rev. Jiko Jane Lazar, SEP*, was ordained as a Zen Priest in 2005 by Tenshin Reb Anderson and has trained residentially at Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara for eleven years. She served as shuso with Abbot Steve Stücky in the Fall of 2009. Having discovered her own unresolved trauma through zazen, she found Somatic Experiencing® (SE) to be of profound help and a strong complement to Zen practice. Now a certified Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner*, she sees her work as helping others to develop the capacity to face difficult karma with presence and compassion. Jane was a certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication between 1995 and 2000.
Lee Klinger Lesser Lee Klinger Lesser studied and led workshops with Charlotte Selver, the founder of Sensory Awareness in the United States. Charlotte was a close friend of Suzuki Roshi and of Zen Center. Lee has led workshops in Sensory Awareness in both English and in Spanish for over 34 years. She also leads national diversity and equity trainings and has been developing a program to support returning veterans through sharing mindfulness and meditation practices. Lee has been a Zen student since 1978 and appreciates the ways that Sensory Awareness and meditation practice inform and enrich each other.
Marc Lesser, is the CEO and a co-founder of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI), a company dedicated to promoting world peace through transforming organizational culture and supporting the development of enlightened leaders worldwide. The core program, developed at Google, offers training in mindfulness-based emotional intelligence grounded in science.
Taiyo Lipscomb Taiyo Lipscomb began practicing in the mid-seventies, was ordained by Tenshin Reb Anderson in the mid-eighties, and recently received dharma transmission. He lived at all three residences of Zen Center for over two decades, working in many different jobs and teaching classes.
Scott McDougall Scott McDougall has studied and taught the Way of Tea since 1985.
Patricia Meadows, SEP Patricia Meadows, SEP*, is a certified Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner* and a holistic nurse counselor. She brings 40 years experience in nursing, nursing and healthcare education, counseling, healing and trauma resolution work. Currently, in her integrative private practice, she facilitates a somatic and process-oriented approach to healing and living more fully and authentically in the present. Patricia integrates Somatic Experiencing® with other modalities that trust the inherent wisdom and organic movement toward integration and wholeness within each of us. Some of these modalities include: biodynamic craniosacral therapy, prenatal and birth trauma therapy, energy healing, Authentic Movement and embodied psychospiritual inquiry. Her work is informed by long-term spiritual practice, including meditation and the Diamond Approach, as well as doctoral studies in East/West Psychology.
Lane Olson Lane Olson, M.A, has worked in higher education for over 20 years as both an academic advisor and an instructor. With research interests in feminist spirituality, her university courses include Female Images of the Divine and Women in Theology and her Master’s thesis focused on the work of artist Mayumi Oda. She was a graphic artist in San Francisco for over 20 years and has had a meditation practice since 1975.
Samantha Ostergaard Samantha Ostergaard is a Zen student and yoga teacher who has used yoga to support her zazen practice for almost fifteen years. Her teaching of yoga is deeply influenced by Zen Buddhism, and in her retreats she teaches yoga as a meditative practice of paying close attention to the body, the breath, and the mental and emotional processes. Samantha lived and practiced at Tassajara for three years, receiving lay ordination from Zoketsu Norman Fischer in 2000.
ARobin Orden ARobin Orden is a Senior Management Analyst with the City of Berkeley, currently in Public Works, and formerly in Finance and as an Assistant to the Mayor. She was ordained as a Zen priest in 2008 by Norman Fischer.
Anke Perkert Anke Perkert is an AmSAT Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique and has been teaching the Technique since 1997. She has a private practice in Oakland and Moraga, California. Anke has studied and practiced Zen extensively and lived for many years at Tassajara, Green Gulch, and Berkeley Zen Center.
Korin Charlie Pokorny Korin Charlie Pokorny was ordained as a priest by Reb Anderson in 1999. He practiced as a resident at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm for 12 years, including serving as tenzo and director at Tassajara. He holds a master’s degree from Stanford University in Religious Studies, and he brings a breadth of perspective on the direction that Soto Zen is taking in the world today through his position as director of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association.
He currently resides with his family in Sebastopol.
Professor john a. powell Professor john a. powell (who does not capitalize his name), in addition to being a dharma practitioner, is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties and a wide range of issues including race, structural racism, ethnicity, housing, poverty and democracy.
Dr. George Silberschatz George Silberschatz, Ph.D., is a Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. Internationally recognized for his psychotherapy research, Dr. Silberschatz has given over 300 presentations at professional meetings and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe and has published some 60 papers in various professional journals and books. His book on psychotherapy, Transformative Relationships, was published by Routledge in January 2005.
Shinko Rick Slone Shinko Rick Slone was ordained as a priest by Zoketsu Norman Fischer in 1997, and received Shiho, Dharma Transmission, from Zoketsu in 2009.
Annie Somerville Annie Somerville, a former resident of SF Zen Center, is currently the Executive Chef of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, and has earned a national reputation for her imaginative approach to vegetarian cooking. Somerville is a popular teacher of cooking classes throughout the Bay Area, and is the author of Fields of Greens: New Vegetarian Recipes from the Celebrated Greens Restaurant and Everyday Greens. Her work and recipes have been featured in many publications, including Gourmet, Food and Wine, Ladies Home Journal, and Vegetarian Times.
Sala Steinbach Sala Steinbach received lay ordination (jukai) with Senior Dharma Teacher Tenshin Reb Anderson in 1992. She has served on the Board of Directors, the Ethics Committee, and the Diversity Committees of San Francisco Zen Center. She was shuso (head monk) in fall 2006.
Patricia Sullivan Patricia Sullivan began her yoga practice in 1971 and was introduced to Zen Buddhism in 1985. She has taught in Teacher Trainings and has led retreats for over 20 years.
Do-On Robert Thomas Do-On Robert Thomas has practiced Zen and lived at Zen Center for 17 years. He was ordained as a priest and received dharma Transmission from Zoketsu Norman Fischer. He served as president of San Francisco Zen Center for seven years, overseeing the three temples. Since 2004 Robert has led retreats that combine the complementary practices of Zen and Yoga. Robert has focused his teaching on how Zen Buddhism can be extended into the activities of everyday life.
Nina Wise Nina Wise is an artist who has invented a compelling form of physical autobiographical theater. She is a teacher of improvisation and also teaches contemplative practice at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Her performance works have garnered seven Bay Area Critics’ Circle Awards, and she has received, among other prestigious honors, three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. She wrote the book, A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life.
Liping Julia Zhu Liping Julia Zhu, L.Ac., is a certified qigong instructor from China and a disciple of Taoist Master Yu Anren. She is the qigong instructor at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a licensed acupuncturist, and a former resident of San Francisco Zen Center.