
Authorized as a Zen teacher within the Suzuki-roshi lineage, and as a Preceptor within the White Plum Asanga, Peter Levitt is the founding teacher of Salt Spring Zen Circle on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, where he resides with his wife, poet Shirley Graham.
Known for the warmth, humour, clarity and depth of his teachings, Peter is also the author of seventeen books of poetry and prose. He is the Associate Editor of the Zen classic, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi; and he co-edited, with Tanahashi, The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master. In addition to other books translated together, he and Tanahashi are the translators of The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan and Blossom Awakening: The Life and Poetry of Wandering Monk Saigyō.
In 2022 Shambhala Publications brought out Yin Mountain: The Immortal Poetry of Three Daoist Women, which Peter and co-translator, Rebecca Nie, translated from the ninth century Chinese of the Tang Dynastic Period. Peter's other books include Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom, and, in poetry, One Hundred Butterflies and Within Within, which Canadian Governor General Award recipient, Robert Hilles, called, "master works that reveal the interconnected fabric of it all in ways that will leave you stunned." In the same vein, legendary American poet Robert Creeley wrote, "Peter Levitt's poetry sounds the honor of our common dance." In 1989, Peter received the prestigious Lannan Foundation Award in Poetry.