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This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Tassajara Zen Mountain Center" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, or Zenshinji (Zen Mind Temple), was established in 1966 by Shunryu Suzuki in the Ventana Wilderness area of California's Los Padres National Forest, east of Big Sur. It was the first Soto Zen Buddhist monastery in the United States.

Tassajara is part of the San Francisco Zen Center, which also includes City Center (Beginner's Mind Temple) in San Francisco and Green Gulch Farm (Green Dragon Temple) in Muir Beach, Marin County, northwest of the city. The Zen Center also founded and operates Greens Restaurant in San Francisco.

Reputation

Tassjara is renowned as a Soto Zen training center. It attracts serious practitioners and each member of its senior teaching staff has decades of practice experience. Within the American Zen community, as well as internationally (especially Japan), Tassajara is admired for the rigor of its practice. Many alumni have started centers of their own, mainly in the U.S. and abroad. For this reason Tassajara is known for its mission of teaching teachers.

Calendars and schedules

Practice periods

A practice period, ango in Japanese, denotes a period of intensive monastic practice. During the fall practice period (September-December) and the spring practice period (January-April), Tassajara is closed to the public. The schedule is a defining feature and activity revolves around meditation, scholarship, and work.

Guest season

After the practice periods, Tassajara re-opens to the public from mid-April through early September. The guest program is the cornerstone of Tassajara's economic well-being and the chief focus turns to looking after the guests, which includes a major kitchen operation: Tassajara is famous for its vegetarian cuisine. For students, this period also allows them to earn credits toward the fall and spring practice periods.

References

1. ^ Frederick C. Crews, review of Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center by Michael Downing. (28 March 2002). ""Zen & the Art of Success."" (html). The New York Times (reprint on cuke.com). book begins with, and then encircles in widening orbits, a conference held in March 1983 at Zenshinji, or Zen Mind Temple, better known to the world as Tassajara … Tassajara in summer sees too much traffic to be called a true monastery. Rather, it is part training camp, part profitable tourist enterprise, and part showcase for potential donors who may be inspired to support Zen Center's instruction in zazen. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); External link in |work= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. ""Pure Standards and Guidelines for Practice Period."" (pdf). sfzc.org.
3. ""Guidelines of Conduct & Precepts for Summer Practice."" (pdf). sfzc.org.
4. ""Summer Work Practice."" (html). sfzc.org.
5. Eileen Hansen, review of Greens Restaurant (29 August 2004). ""It's good to be greens."" (html). San Francisco Chronicle. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

See also

• Retreat (spiritual)

External links

• Tassajara Zen Mountain Center website

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