Sit, Breathe, Bow

Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi, is a Guiding Teacher of Boundless Way Zen, a multi-lineage school of Zen Buddhism with practice sanghas in New England, New York, and Copenhagen, Denmark. She began studying Zen in 1981 and joined the Center for Mindfulness, founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester in 1993. There she worked as a member of the mindfulness-based stress reduction teaching staff, the Associate Director of the Stress Reduction Clinic, and a Director of professional training programs until 2012. Melissa was ordained a Soto Zen priest in 2004 and received dharma transmission from James Ford, Roshi, in 2006, and Inka Shomei in 2010. She is widely published and co-editor of The Book of Mu: Essential Writings of Zen's Most Important Koan. Sit, Breathe, Bow is hosted by Ian White Maher. https://ianwhitemaher.com/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is sponsored by the Providence Zen Center. http://providencezen.org/

Zen Master Bon Shim (Aleksandra Porter) is the Regional Zen Master for the Kwan Um School of Zen in Europe. As a young girl growing up in Cracow, Poland she gravitated to the contemplative atmosphere and the smell of incense of the Catholic Church. In the silence she found a safety she had been longing for, but desired to go beyond what she was being taught, to know that her life had meaning. In 1978, she began practicing with Zen Master Seung Sahn and was given Inka, or permission to teach, in 1992. In 2006 received transmission. Today she serves as the guiding teacher of Zen centers in Poland; Prague, the Czech Republic; and Spain, but frequently teaches in the United States. Sit, Breathe, Bow is hosted by Ian White Maher. https://ianwhitemaher.com/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is sponsored by the Providence Zen Center. http://providencezen.org/

Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and Dharma successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He first studied Buddhist art and culture in Japan in 1970, and began formal everyday zazen and Soto practice in 1975 at the New York Zen Center with Kando Nakajima Roshi. He moved to San Francisco in 1978 and began to work full time for the San Francisco Zen Center in 1979. Taigen was ordained in 1986 by Reb Anderson Roshi. From 1990-1992 he practiced in Kyoto, Japan translating Dogen with Rev. Shohaku Okumura. Taigen has taught widely at the university level, both in the United States and Japan, and is the author of 19 books and numerous articles. Today he lives on the north side of Chicago with his wife and serves as the Guiding Dharma Teacher for Ancient Dragon Zen Gate sangha Sit, Breathe, Bow is hosted by Ian White Maher. https://ianwhitemaher.com/ Sit, Breathe, Bow is sponsored by the Providence Zen Center. http://providencezen.org/

Zenshin Florence Caplow is a Soto Zen priest and Unitarian Universalist minister. For 25 years she worked as a conservation biologist specializing in endangered plants in the American West. She is widely published and has edited two books, Wildbranch, an anthology of nature writing, and The Hidden Lamp, a collection of 100 teaching stories by Buddhist women over 25 centuries.

Zen Master Soeng Hyang, Barbara Rhodes, or Bobby, as she is known to many people, was one of Zen Master Seung Sahn's first American students and began studying with him in 1972. She was given inka, or permission to teach, in 1977 and received dharma transmission from Zen Master Seung Sahn in 1992. For many years Bobby worked as a hospice nurse and her practice and teaching was profoundly impacted by sitting with her patients as they transitioned from this body. Today Zen Master Soeng Hyang is the guiding Zen Master of the Kwan Um School of Zen, which includes over a hundred centers and temples worldwide.