Zen Profiles

  • Tess Beasley

    Pacific Zen Institute – Tess Beasley, although located in Connecticut on the East Coast, is the current board president of the Pacific Zen Institute on the West. And she grew up far from either ocean in Utah. “Neither of my parents were Mormon. They ended up there by just strange karmic circumstances and decided toContinue…

  • Joko Beck

    A conversation with Peg Syverson – Joko Beck died in 2011, before I began doing these interviews. I never met her but have spoken with several people who knew her. Peg Syverson was one of the most informative of these. Joko was the founder of the Ordinary Mind School of Zen and became one ofContinue…

  • Leonard Marcel

    Seven Thunders – Leonard Marcel is a founding member – and current teacher – of Seven Thunders Zen Sangha in Portland, Oregon. He is also a retired psychiatrist and Jungian analyst. He grew up in Brooklyn, ten blocks away from Bernie Glassman’s home neighborhood. “We never knew each other, and, of course, he died aContinue…

  • Pat Hawk

    Abridged from Catholicism and Zen – Combining Zen practice and Catholicism is based in “the recognition in experience of a resonance between the two traditions. Many Catholics remark, after their first Zen experience, that it is what they have always been seeking.” So wrote the first Catholic priest born in America to receive Dharma transmission.Continue…

  • Michael Elliston

    Atlanta Soto Zen Center – Taiun Michael Elliston is the founder and guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Georgia. He grew up in Centralia, Illinois. “Named after the Illinois Central Railroad. Due east of St. Louis, about 300 miles south of Chicago. Pretty much in the middle of the state,” he tellsContinue…

  • Dan Dorsey

    Zen Desert Sangha – Dan Dorsey is the resident teacher at the Zen Desert Sangha in Tucson. He grew up in Texas, and first encountered Buddhism in the library at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches where he was studying forestry. “There were only three books in the library on Buddhism, and I readContinue…