JIKOJI GUIDING TEACHERS
Note: Click on Speakers Talks for a list of each Teacher’s Dharma Talks. Speakers, including Jikoji’s Teachers, are listed in alphabetical order by last name, followed by a list of their recent talks.
PAMELA CHOBUN NENZEN BROWN
Pamela Chobun Nenzen Brown was introduced to sitting meditation practice in 1976. Forty years later, as her father was declining with a neurodegenerative disease, she finally decided to stay seated. In 2017, Pamela met Sensei Gary Koan Janka, and practiced for many years with and served Santa Barbara Zen Center. Koan Sensei introduced Pamela to Jikoji Zen Center where she was ordained in Kobun Chino Ottogawa Roshi's lineage by Shoho Michael Newhall in 2020. She received dharma transmission from Jakko Eso Vanja Palmers at Felsentor, Switzerland in 2022.
OSHIN JENNINGS
Oshin Jennings is the founder of No Barriers Zen, an accessible sangha active in the Washington, D.C. area and online. Oshin is the first known Deaf monk and he brings forth his experiences as a Deaf and disabled practitioner to make the Dharma more accessible. In 2022 he received Dharma transmission from Shoho Michael Newhall at Jikoji. Oshin is also an artist and psychotherapist, and together with his community he is translating the Buddhist Sutras into ASL. You can find out more about him and connect at nobarrierszen.org. He invites connections to advance a more inclusive world through Buddhist practice.
Dan Zigmond
Dan Zigmond is a writer, technologist, and Zen teacher. Dan was ordained as a priest at Jikoji by Kobun Chino Otagawa Roshi in 1998 and received Dharma transmission there from Shoho Michael Newhall in 2020. He currently serves on the board of directors of both Jikoji and the San Francisco Zen Center. He has also led teams at several successful technology companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. His most recent book Buddha's Office: The Ancient Art of Waking Up While Working Well was published in 2019. You can find more about Dan at his website, www.shmonk.com.
JIKOJI TEACHERS EMERITI
Kobun chino Otogawa,
JIKOJI FOUNDER
The name Kobun means “to extend the way,” to extend culture, language, the word, to extend the dharma—fitting for someone bringing Zen to America. His dharma name was Ho-un Kobun. “Ho” means phoenix, firebird, and “un” is mystery, mystical, cloud. We could imagine the image: a bird flying in the clouds, just a wing-tip, a bit of the tail, fleetingly visible for a moment and then not—it’s so fitting from a student’s perspective. He traveled extensively, teaching in many places, always coming and going. He carried the forms elegantly and formlessly. He was often more than inscrutable, certainly not to be captured or contained by any preconception of what a Zen teacher was. Yet in his presence you felt you encountered someone complete. – From “Traces of Kobun” by Shoho Michael Newhall.
Transcriptions and audio recordings of talks by Kobun may be found here.
Angie Boissevain
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 was the first director at Jikoji, a retreat center she helped to establish for Kobun in the Santa Cruz mountains. She founded and served as head teacher for the Floating Zendo in San Jose until 2019.
Michael Newhall
Shoho Michael Newhall began practicing and studying with Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi in the early seventies, and was ordained by Kobun in the mid-eighties. In the early nineties he was director at Jikoji Zen Center. Throughout this time he taught visual arts at various schools and universities, including Naropa University, where he also taught meditation and Buddhism. Since that time, Mike has lived at Jikoji, serving as the Resident Teacher and chief priest.
Vanja Palmers
Vanja Palmers is an animal rights activist of many years, and a Dharma heir of the late Jikoji founder Kobun Chino Otogowa Roshi. Vanja spent 10 years as a monk at Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. In 1981 he co-founded Buddhists Concerned for Animals (BCA), which now operates as Humane Farming Association (HFA.) In 1989 he co-founded Puregg, a house of interreligious dialogue, particularly between Christians and Buddhists, where Kobun led Sesshins for 15 years. In 1998, Vanja founded Stiftung Felsentor in Switzerland, a combined meditation center and animal sanctuary that runs a vegetarian garden restaurant.