Department: Visiting Teacher

Shōku Kathy Early came to zen practice in 1994 through classes with Tenshin Reb Anderson at the Yoga Room in Berkeley while working as a semiconductor engineer in Silicon Valley. She then practiced for several years with Keido Les Kaye at Kannon Do Zen Center in Mountain View, after which she trained at San Francisco Zen Center for 16 years. She was priest ordained by Tenshin Anderson in 2005. Shōku also spent a year and a half in residence at Toshoji International Training Monastery, in Okayama, Japan, including four angos (90 day training periods).

Rev. Taiga Ito, trained at Daihonzan Sojiji, one of the head monasteries of Soto Shu (Soto Zen in Japan). In 2016, Taiga Ito became Kokusaifukyoshi (international teacher of Soto Shu). He served as secretary of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center between 2016 and 2018, and has served as its Assistant Director since 2019.

Susan Moon is a writer, editor, and lay teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. She is the author of a number of books about Buddhism, including the humor book The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi and This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity. For many years she was the editor of Turning Wheel, the journal of socially engaged Buddhism. Her short stories and essays have been published widely.

Sue has been a Zen student since 1976, practicing in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi at Berkeley Zen Center, Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery, Green Gulch Farm, and now with Zoketsu Norman Fischer’s Everyday Zen sangha. She received “entrustment” as a lay teacher in 2005.

Meikyo Robert Rosenbaum, PhD, received lay entrustment in Soto Zen from Sojun Mel Weitsman.  He is also authorized as a senior teacher of the Taoist practice of Dayan (Wild Goose) Qigong in the lineage of Yang Meijun by Master Hui Liu.  In addition, he has received denkai  in Ordinary Mind Zen from Karen Terzano. Bob teaches Zen and Qigong at the Meadowmind Center in Sacramento.

Bob is the author of several books including Zen and the Heart of Psychotherapy, Walking the Way : 81 Zen Encounters with Tao Te Ching and most recently, That is not your Mind! Zen Reflections on the Sarangama Sutra.

Rhonda Magee, MA, JD is an internationally recognized educator, author, and practice leader, focused on integrating mindfulness into social change.  She draws from Buddhist teachings, law and legal history, weaving together storytelling, poetry, analysis and practices.  A trained mindfulness teacher, Rhonda Magee demonstrates the merit of embodied meditation.

Professor Magee has dedicated her life to healing and teaching that inspire personal, interpersonal and collective transformation.  Professor of Law at University of San Francisco since 2004, her teachings support compassionate conflict engagement and management, holistic problem-solving to alleviate suffering, presence-based leadership and humanizing approaches to education.

Rev. Renshin Bunce is a California native, born in Marin County and raised in Southern California. In midlife, yearning for a peaceful mind, she began meditating, and met her teacher Myogen Steve Stücky in January of 1994. She made jukai (took her lay vows) with Myogen at Dharma Eye Zen Center in 1996, was priest ordained by Zenkei Blanche Hartman at San Francisco Zen Center in 2003, served as Shuso (head student) with Myogen at Tassajara in 2008, and received dharma transmission from him at Tassajara in April of 2013.

Renshin lived at Zen Center for seven years, and then began training as a chaplain. She moved out of Zen Center in 2008 and worked as a hospice chaplain from 2010 until retiring in 2022.

She has written two books, Entering the Monastery, a record of her time at Zen Center, which was published in 2008; and Love and Fear, reflections on chaplaincy, which was published in 2020.

Eijun Linda Cutts came to San Francisco Zen Center in 1971 and was ordained as a priest in 1975. She has lived at Tassajara and SFZC’s City Center, and has resided at Green Gulch Farm since 1993. In 1996 Linda received Dharma transmission from Tenshin Reb Anderson. After having served as Abbess of SF Zen Center from 2000 to 2007, she was appointed Abiding Abbess of Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in 2010, and Central Abbess of SF Zen Center in 2014. As Senior Dharma Teacher, she continues to teach and lead practice periods and retreats at Tassajara, Green Gulch, and elsewhere, and has been leading Yoga-Zen retreats and workshops for many years.

Reverend Mary Mocine is abbess of Clear Water Zendo in Vallejo. She was trained at San Francisco and Berkeley Zen Centers, and Tassajara Zen Monastery. She was ordained in 1994 by Sojun Mel Weitsman, former Abbot of San Francisco Zen Center and continuing Abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. Reverend Mocine has also trained with Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman and former Abbots Zoketsu Norman Fischer and Tenshin Reb Anderson of the San Francisco Zen Center. She received dharma transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in May 2005.

Danan John Wark, abbot of Cloud Zendo in Pilot Hill, practices koan introspection and has received inka from Zen Master BoMun (George Bowman) in the Single Flower Sangha tradition. Master BoMun is associated with the Kwan Um School of Zen and also with Boundless Way Zen. John has also studied koans with Tenshin Reb Anderson at No Abode Hermitage. Cloud Zendo offers sutra service and zazen every Saturday morning at 8:30 in Auburn at Sierra Foothills Unitarian Universalist Church, 190 Finley St., Auburn, CA 95603.

Chris began her practice in 1976 at the San Francisco Zen Center, and received Dharma Transmission from Zoketsu Norman Fischer. She is founding and guiding teacher of the Dharma Heart Zen sanghas in Sonoma County, an Everyday Zen senior priest and teacher, and guiding teacher for Sky Island Zen in Tucson, AZ. She offers retreats and practice groups through SF Zen Center that include Jizo Bodhisattva Journeys through grief and change, Jizo Ceremonies, Wildland Firefights Retreats. She co-founded Veterans Path for current era veterans and co-facilitates (with Valley Streams Ino Doralee Grindler Katonah) an ongoing Racial and Social Justice as Dharma Practice group.

Kokyo Henkel has been practicing Zen since 1990, in residence at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, most recently as Tanto (Head of Practice), Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, No Abode Hermitage in Mill Valley, Bukkokuji Monastery in Japan, and Santa Cruz Zen Center.

He was ordained as a Zen priest in 1994 by Tenshin Anderson Roshi and received Dharma Transmission from him in 2010. Kokyo is interested in exploring how the original teachings of Buddhadharma 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.