GUIDING SPIRITUAL TEACHER

Roshi Enkyo O’Hara, PhD, is the Abbot of the Village Zendo (Dotokuji). Enkyo Roshi is a Zen Priest and certified Zen Teacher in the Soto tradition. She studied with Roshi John Daido Loori of Zen Mountain Monastery and Taizan Maezumi Roshi of the Zen Center of Los Angeles/Zen Mountain Center. In 1997 she received Shiho (dharma transmission) from Roshi Bernie Tetsugen Glassman and in June, 2004, she received inka from him in an empowerment ceremony held at the House of One People in Montague, MA. Roshi currently serves as Co-Spiritual Director of the Zen Peacemaker Family, a spiritual, study and social action association. Enkyo Roshi's focus is on true self-expression, peacemaking, and HIV/AIDS activism. She holds a PhD in Media Ecology and taught multimedia at New York University for over 20 years.

CORE FACUTY

Robert Chodo Campbell, is a Founding Director of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He works as a consultant with couples groups and individuals. He integrates his psychoanalytic training with his Buddhist practice to create a place of safety, compassion, clarity and spaciousness in which the healing process can arise. Chodo brings his life experience and many years of study to his work in the areas of: anxiety and depression, drug and alcohol abuse, recovery from sexual abuse and trauma. In his private practice he uses a psycho-spiritual approach to healing emotional, mental and spiritual concerns. He began formal Zen training in 1994 and currently he is a Buddhist Chaplain Priest with Village Zendo in New York City. He is committed to helping people develop their own transformational tools for coping with emotional suffering, to be fully engaged in their lives and in healthy relationships.

Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, is a founder and Co-Executive Director of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He is a founder of the Buddhist Psychotherapy Collective and in private practice, where he sees individuals, couples, and groups. Koshin is currently a Jungian Analyst Candidate at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. He has served as a chaplain at Cabrini Medical Center & Hospice and Beth Israel Medical Center. Since 2002, he has led the weekly meditation practice at Beth Israel’s Continuum Center for Health & Healing. Koshin began Zen practice over twenty years ago, and he is a senior student and novice Soto Zen Buddhist priest under Roshi Enkyo O’Hara, at the Village Zendo. He teaches workshops on meditation, contemplative care, and addiction and spirituality in a variety of settings from public school classrooms to corporations.

Trudi Jinpu Hirsch, ZPO, ACPE Chaplain Supervisor and is a Soto Zen Buddhist Priest with the Village Zendo. She was the acting Director and Chaplain Supervisor for Beth Israel Medical Center for four years. Jinpu piloted and continued a Buddhist CPE unit at Beth Israel Medical Center for chaplain interns, bringing mediation, visualization and relaxation to staff and patients.

2007/2008 VISITING TEACHERS

Catherine Anraku Hondorp, D.C, is a Soto Zen Priest and Dharma Holder with the Village Zendo in New York City and Roshi Enkyo O'Hara. She holds an MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Anraku serves as the priest in residence at, The Zen Center on Main Street, Northampton, Massachusetts, which is an affiliate temple of the Village Zendo. She is the Buddhist Chaplain at Smith and Hampshire Colleges where she leads weekly meditations for students and supports the spiritual life of the community in various ways. Anraku practices as a Network Chiropractor at The Life Center for Network Care a healing center she founded in 2001. Grounded in deep gratitude, her work is dedicated to opening the path through suffering into love.


Since 2004, Reverend Jennifer Block has served as the director of Public Education for the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, California, creating curriculum, teaching workshops, offering spiritual care, and providing community outreach. In her current role, Jennifer shares the mission and learning of Zen Hospice Project nationally through the many curriculums she has created from her years of hospice and chaplaincy service. Jennifer also provides training and spiritual care to volunteers, clinicians, and caregivers, as well as friends and families facing the spiritual and emotional issues related to end-of-life care. With Gil Fronsdal and Paul Haller, Jennifer founded the Buddhist Chaplaincy Training program at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies (www.sati.org), where Buddhist practitioners are are introduced to the competencies of professional spiritual care.  Jennifer completed her undergraduate degree at Boston University, and her theology degree at Naropa University and is an ordained Interfaith minister and Buddhist chaplain.


Sensei Joan Hogetsu Hoeberichts is a Zen Teacher in the lineage of the White Plum Asangha, founded by Maezumi Roshi. She leads the Heart Circle Sangha in Ridgewood, NJ. Rev. Hoeberichts, LCSW, has a private psychotherapy practice in NYC and Montclair, NJ. She is an Imago Relationship Therapist, working with families, couples, and individuals. Joan initiated Heart Circle Sangha’s involvement in the Psycho-Spiritual Healing Project, a joint project of Heart Circle Sangha and Sarvodaya, the largest non-governmental organization in Sri Lanka, following the tsunami of 2004 where 35,000 people were lost in Sri Lanka. Bringing together senior therapists from the U.S., counselors from Sri Lanka, and the leaders of Sarvodaya, the project develops programs that integrate Western approaches to healing grief and trauma with Eastern spiritual traditions to deliver to the village survivors. It’s focus has now expanded to include care of the survivors from the civil war.


Josh Korda has been studying the dhamma since 1995 and received his initial teacher training with Noah Levine. He gives regular talks at DharmaPunx New York, as well as other sanghas in New York City. Over the years Josh has had the honor to sit with and learn from a variety of respected practitioners such as Ajahns Geoff, Brahm, Vajiro and Sucitto, to name a few. Josh lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY.




In 1987, Frank Ostaseski co-founded the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in American 2004, he created Metta Institute to bring his work to a broader audience and develop the End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program that Frank leads with faculty members Ram Dass, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, Rachel Naomi Remen MD, and many others.Frank is a dynamic, original, and visionary teacher. His public programs have introduced thousands to the practices of mindful and compassionate care of the dying. His groundbreaking work has been widely featured in the media, including the Bill Moyers television series On Our Own Terms, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in numerous print publications. In 2001, Frank was honored by the Dalai Lama for his years of compassionate service to the dying and their families.


Sharon Salzberg is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. She is one of America's leading spiritual teachers and authors, and has been a student of Buddhism since 1971, leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Sharon's latest book is The Force of Kindness, published by Sounds True. She is also the author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, published by Riverhead Books; Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and A Heart as Wide as the World, both published by Shambhala Publications; and co-author with Joseph Goldstein of Insight Meditation, a Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate (audio), from Sounds True. For more information about Sharon, please visit: www.SharonSalzberg.com.


Shugen Sensei completed his formal training in the Mountains and Rivers Order and received dharma transmission from Daido Roshi in 1997. Shugen Sensei is the Monastery’s vice-abbot and branch president of the Zen Center of New York City. He also manages the National Buddhist Prison Sangha. He has been in full-time residential training since 1986. His teachings have appeared in various journals and in The Best Buddhist Writing 2005.



Gina Sharpe is a co-founder and Guiding Teacher of New York Insight Meditation Center. She is a graduate of the first Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leaders Program. Her primary mentor is Jack Kornfield. She has been teaching meditation and Dharma for 11 years. She has taught at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Insight Meditation Society (IMS), Asia Society, Tibet House, the New York Open Center, the Katonah Yoga Center, and at other centers in the U. S. and helped to initiate and teach People of Color retreats at IMS. For the past four years, she has been a volunteer teacher of Dharma and meditation at the only maximum security prison for women in New York State.


Dean Sluyter has taught meditation throughout the U.S. since 1970. He is the Buddhist chaplain at Northern State Prison in Newark, leads the Dzogchen Center’s New Jersey practice group, teaches workshops at New York Open Center, and works with addicts at Flynn Fellowship House. As the developer of the Literature of Enlightenment program at The Pingry School, he is a leading innovator in the use of meditative techniques in education. Dean is a film critic for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and the author of three books on enlightenment in contemporary culture, the most recent being Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies. Dean has appeared on National Public Radio and Oprah & Friends Radio, and his work has been featured in USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and The New York Times. When not writing or teaching, Dean pursues photography, practices the non-fighting martial art of aikido, and plays the saxophone.


Acharya Eric Spiegel has been teaching in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition for nearly 30 years. Based in New York, Eric had a 22 year career on Wall Street. He is known for his pastoral work with people dealing with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses. His clear, direct and warm teaching style brings the exploration of mind and meditation, not separate from the hard complexities of “real life”: work, relationships, health, aging into perspective for students to meditation as well as long time practitioners.