Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
Tea House & Garden at Green Dragon Temple
Shunryu Suzuki arrived in San Francisco from Japan in 1959 where he founded the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) and later the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, a monastic retreat center and popular summer resort south of Carmel, CA. He also founded the Green Dragon Temple at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, CA. Tassajara was the first traditional Zen monastery outside of Asia. He is the author of a modern Zen classic, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
His only American dharma heir was Zentatsu Richard Baker (1936- ), the second abbot at SFZC whom he installed in 1971. Baker went on to start a number of other centers in the U.S. and Europe including the Crestone Mountain Zen Center in Colorado. Baker gave dharma transmission to Tenshin Reb Anderson who became the third abbot at SFZC and remains their senior teacher. Suzuki Roshi’s students have formed a network of centers in the USA and Europe.