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Scott Thornton is an Assistant Teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage. He is also married to Valerie Forstman, who recently moved to Santa Fe to share teaching responsibilities with Henry Shukman at Mountain Cloud. Scott’s introduction to meditation came through theatre. The school he attended staged the first college production of the musical Hair, andContinue reading “Scott Thornton”

Jean-Luc Foisy informs me that after the death of Albert Low, the Montreal Zen Centre went through an “inevitable period of confusion with regards to who was going to do what. A lot of people had relied on Albert’s presence. He was really the center of the Centre. He was the founder, as you know,Continue reading “Jean-Luc Foisy”

Judy Roitman is one of the primary voices in Further Zen Conversations. She and her husband, Stan Lombardo, are the founding teachers of the Kansas Zen Center in the Kwan Um School of Zen. Kwan Um is a Korean Linji (J: Rinzai) lineage established by Master Seung Sahn. Judy has the official title of ZenContinue reading “Judy Roitman”

When Jeff Shore was twelve years old, he was enrolled in a class to prepare him for baptism in the Presbyterian Church. “We were learning the catechism, and the teacher was a young girl, older than us, but a teenager. So she was trying to get us to memorize the catechism, and I would askContinue reading “Jeff Shore”

In 2023, Donna Kowal was appointed co-director of the Rochester Zen Center along with John Pulleyn. When I interviewed her in October of 2021, she was the Head of Zendo at the Center’s retreat house located at Chapin Mill, where I once practiced Tai Chi Chuan beside Philip Kapleau’s grave, then laid a stone onContinue reading “Donna (Dhara) Kowal”

Chris Amirault is a practice leader with Shining Window Zen in Tulsa, a satellite center associated with Boundless Way Zen in New England. When I ask if being a “practice leader” puts him on tenure track, he says, “You know, that’s part of what I’m trying to figure out, whether I am on tenure track,Continue reading “Chris Amirault”

Rick McDaniel’s two-book set, Zen Conversations and Further Zen Conversations, goes to the horse’s mouth – Zen teachers themselves – to open up the evolving tale of North American Zen. Most of the contemporary teachers interviewed are homegrown, having trained in the US or Canada, not in Japan. Many did so with first and secondContinue reading “Rafe Martin’s Foreword to “Further Zen Conversations””

Hogen Bays and his wife, Jan Chozen Bays, are the co-abbots of Great Vow Monastery in Oregon as well as being the spiritual directors and primary teachers with the Zen Community of Oregon. “In 1968 or so, a friend and I went up to Rochester. He had done a sesshin with Philip Kapleau at FloridaContinue reading “Hogen Bays”

When I first looked up the website for the Louisville Zen Center, Bodhin Kjolhede of Rochester was identified as the Guiding Teacher. The local “Group Leader” and “Resident Novice Priest” was Jeanette Prince-Cherry. At the time, I asked her what the difference between the two roles was. “A Group Leader is just a hands-on personContinue reading “Jissai Jeanette Prince-Cherry”