Lizzie Coombs JDPSN started practicing with the Kwan Um School of Zen in 1987. In 2010 she moved back to the United Kingdom, her country of origin. In 2018 she received Inka, or permission to...

Tenku Ruff, Osho, began her journey into Buddhism with a 5-day retreat in Japan in 1997. But took to the practice and started sitting intensively in Zen monasteries in Japan and North America...

Matthew Kozan Palevsky first traveled to Upaya in 2006 for a weeklong retreat. He returned eight years later to join the resident body and was ordained as a novice priest by Roshi Joan Halifax in...

Bàrbara Pardo, JDPSN, was introduced to Buddhism through her parents, Fernando and Rosana, who were some of Zen Master Seung Sahn’s first students in Spain. Her father has served as...

Charlie Korin Pokorny began practicing at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1991 and trained as a resident at Tassajara and Green Gulch Farm from 1994 to 2006. He received his master’s degree...

In 1974, Daigaku Rumme returned to Japan with the intention of finding a monastery where he could train. But was not as simple as he imagined. It wasn’t until 1976, that he began training at...

Adam Jogen Salzberg, Sensei, began practicing dharma in 1997. From 2003 to 2018, he lived and trained full time at Great Vow Monastery, with Jan Chozen Bays, Roshi, and Hogen Bays, Roshi. Jogen is...

Knud Rosenmayr, JDPSN, traveled Asia when he was 20 and first experienced Zen meditation in Korea. The next year, he met Zen Master Seung Sahn and began to deepen his meditation practice in the...

Jiri (George) Hazlbauer, JDPSN, began training with the Kwan Um School of Zen in Prague in 1999. Over the years, he has lived and worked in Zen centers around the world, participating in daily Zen...

Ellen Jikai Birx, Roshi, is a Zen teacher in the White Plum lineage and co-founder of New River Zen Community in Blacksburg, VA. She received Dharma Transmission from Roshi Robert Kennedy, SJ in...