Hobu Beata Chapman has practiced Zen with chronic nerve pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for 23 years. She studied with Katherine Thanas at Santa Cruz Zen Center and with Darlene Cohen until her untimely death, and received Dharma transmission from Tony Patchell in 2013. Beata continues the Suffering & Delight groups for people with chronic pain that Darlene founded around 15 years ago, and teaches an online S&D group she began for people not able to attend in person. For more information about Beata's work with chronic pain, you can see sufferinganddelight.net. Beata is an organizational consultant currently doing corporate leadership training and assisting health care organizations to develop compliance systems. She recently started a zazen group in San Mateo (PenZen.net). Click HERE for Beata’s talk.

Paula Jones was an early student of Jikoji founder Kobun, and decades later was ordained and given dharma transmission by Angie Boissevain. She is a co-founder and teacher of Floating Zendo San Diego. After years teaching writing and literature in colleges and universities, Paula continues to write poems, create hand-bound chapbooks of her work, and lead poetry workshops.

Max Erdstein teaches at the Insight Meditation Center and the Insight Retreat Center. He is trained as a teacher by Gil Fronsdal. Max has practiced Vipassana and Zen in America, Japan, Thailand, and Burma. He completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Dharma teacher training program and trained in Buddhist chaplaincy with the Sati Center. With Gil he taught the first weeklong retreat at IRC in November 2012. Max holds an AB degree from Stanford and worked at Google for five years. He is a husband and father of two girls.

My path in Zen began in earnest in 1989 with the winter residential practice period at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center and my first teacher, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, who set me on this ~30 year path. In 2009 I received the Jukai precepts and lay ordination from Eiko Carolyn Atkinson, a dharma heir of Kobun. And here/now at Jikoji, my dharma teacher Shoho Michael Newhall is guiding me on the path to priest ordination. My talk will be on “Wild country zen, the peaceful mountain and subtle way leading to the tiger’s cave.” 

Shoho Michael Newhall was ordained and transmitted by Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi. Prior to his installation as Jikoji’s Resident Teacher, he taught art and Buddhism at Naropa University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other universities in the midwest. He leads sesshins and meditation workshops at Zen centers in the U.S. and Europe. Shoho has also practiced and studied with Keibun Otogawa in Japan, Dainin Katagiri Roshi, and Tenshin Reb Anderson.

David Shapiro became a student of Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche in 1973, and studied with him until his death in 1987. David was the founding director of the Milwaukee Dharma Study Group, now the Shambhala Center, and was a practicing internist for over 3 decades. Currently he is involved with the Light of Berotsana Translation Group and continues to practice within the context of Tibetan Buddhism. His talk will discuss the practice of Mind Training, known as Lojong, brought to Tibet from India by the sage Atisha in the 9th century. The practice centers on slogans that tease the mind from its usual foundations. David’s talk can be found HERE.

At 18, Ying arrived in the U.S from China.  Now she leads design efforts for emerging markets at LinkedIn. She’s also a translator and interpreter, and an experiential and outdoor educator. She has traveled to five continents and 30 countries, always affirmed by people's relationship with the environment they live in--their creativity and spirituality in everyday life. At a young age she envisioned a world without borders and is constantly inspired by the next generation of global citizens and their steady movement toward connection. Ying’s talk can be listened to HERE.

Reirin Alheidis Gumbel is currently the Resident Priest and Teacher at the Milwaukee Zen Center in Wisconsin. After many years of being a lay practitioner, she was trained at the San Francisco Zen Center, where she lived as a monastic for almost 12 years. She was ordained as a Soto Zen Priest by Furyu Nancy Schroeder in 2007, served as shuso in 2012, and is in the process of Dharma Transmission.  To listen to her talk, click HERE.

Kokyo Henkel leads a new generation of Buddhist scholars and is currently Head Teacher at Santa Cruz Zen Center. Kokyo's interests include looking at how the classic original teachings of Buddha-Dharma from ancient India, China, and Japan are still very much alive and useful in present-day America to bring peace and harmony to this troubled world. This year, Kokyo will be leading Genzo-e Sesshin - July 10-12

Angie studied with Kobun while she was raising three sons, being a wife and writing poetry. He called her the enlightened housewife. During the last thirty-plus years of her practice with him she served as a teacher and director at Jikoji, a retreat center she helped to establish for Kobun in the Santa Cruz mountains. She founded and serves as head teacher for the Floating Zendo in San Jose.

Shoho Michael Newhall was ordained and transmitted by Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi. Prior to his installation as Jikoji’s Resident Teacher, he taught art and Buddhism at Naropa University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other universities in the midwest. He leads sesshins and meditation workshops at Zen centers in the U.S. and Europe. Shoho has also practiced and studied with Keibun Otogawa in Japan, Dainin Katagiri Roshi, and Tenshin Reb Anderson.

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Ph.D., is an author and ordained Zen Buddhist priest. She combines Zen meditation, intuitive knowing, and indigenous wisdom in a path of liberation. She applies spiritual teachings to our lived experiences in the context of race, sexuality, and gender and at the same time hold these experiences as gateways to absolute freedom. With her own insights and creative teachings she encourages us to make a commitment to freedom and take refuge in it. Ultimately, she invites meditations on the nature of embodiment within a boundless life. As a teacher she continues as a student by dedicating herself to ongoing study and dharma practice (including yearly residential retreats) and to deepening continually her understanding and embodiment of the Buddha’s teachings.

Lance began his study of Zen in the late seventies, first at the Zen Center of Los Angeles and affiliates, and soon in Seattle at Cho Bo JI, a Rinzai temple under the guidance of Genki Takabayashi. In 1990 he moved to the Bay area and began practice at Jikoji. In 2002 he relocated to Oregon and practiced with the Ashland Zen Center. By 2012 he was back in the Bay Area and at Jikoji again where he will remain until the next wind whisks him away. Interests other than Zen include comparative philosophy, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science.

Joseph W Hall is a resident priest at Jikoji Zen Center.  His energy is enthusiastically focused on the nexus between Lay Practice and the Monastic world and he is fascinated by the ways in which we interpret the world and the means by which physical motion trains the mind. He wakes up in the morning excited to witness the ongoing birth of American Zen. His favorite words are Sublime, Exquisite, and Ravissant.

Shoho Michael Newhall was ordained and transmitted by Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi. Prior to his installation as Jikoji’s Resident Teacher, he taught art and Buddhism at Naropa University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other universities in the midwest. He leads sesshins and meditation workshops at Zen centers in the U.S. and Europe. Shoho has also practiced and studied with Keibun Otogawa in Japan, Dainin Katagiri Roshi, and Tenshin Reb Anderson.

In 1976, Misha Merrill graduated from college, showed  her work in small galleries and earned her living as a graphic designer. In 1988 she ordained as a Zen priest with Les Kaye Roshi, went to the monastery and became a librarian.  She received Dharma Transmission in 1998 and became the Primary Teacher for Zen Heart Sangha in Menlo Park/ Woodside. Misha has been teaching tea to others (including children) for over 15 years.   As Misha says it, art, gardening, teaching, tea, and her husband and animals are the crucial pieces of her 'pie'--meditation is her 'pie plate'!

Doug Jacobson, a Jikoji Resident, received Dharma transmission from Shoho Michael Newhall.  In his professional life he is a civil/tunnel engineer.  He serves as Jikoji's maintenance oversight manager (MOM), and also assists prisoners with Buddhist practice.