Teachers
Working with a Teacher
When you are a member of Pacific Zen Institute you have the opportunity to work with teachers one-on-one online, in person, or in some cases via email or phone. You may connect with a teacher in person at a workshop or retreat, or through our PZI-wide online gatherings and weekday teachings. Individual meetings are one of the ways to go deeper in your meditation and koan practice. You may contact a teacher to see whether they are available to work with you as a student.
Working with a teacher is part of an active engagement with meditation and koans and with your own life and transformation.
As you begin to meditate daily, you allow koans into every part of your life. You can talk to your teacher about ways to be connected to the community and help out, even if you live far away. It is also beneficial to support your teacher financially, if you are able, through dana contributions.
For more information on each teacher and how to contact them, check their section below.
PZI Teachers
John Tarrant Roshi, Founder and Director of the Pacific Zen Institute
John Tarrant is a Zen teacher, author, and poet and is PZI’s founder and director. He is interested in Zen as a Way that transforms the mind and in the dance between innovation and tradition in both teaching and practice.
Zen as a set of rules and procedures is not so interesting to me. I learned Zen when we were still trying to find what worked in the West. And people now seem to find freedom more naturally than I had assumed during my own initial studies.
My experiments have led me to trust people more than I once did, and to teach people to trust their own moves. To me this means that koans are not a gadget that you put all your effort into using. They’re an environment—you wander around and they teach you. You have to listen and look. Read the full bio here.
—John Tarrant
Teacher Bios
John Tarrant Roshi is a Zen teacher, poet, and founder of the Pacific Zen Institute. He is interested in Zen as a way that transforms the mind, and in the dance between innovation and tradition in both teaching and practice.
Allison Atwill Roshi is a Zen teacher and visual artist whose work emerges from an intimate and embodied conversation with koans. She is interested in wholeness over perfection, discovery over self-improvement, and how the images and language of koans offer a way of moving in the dark.
Artist and teacher Allison Atwill Roshi leads Tess Beasley Roshi is a Zen teacher based in New York and serves as Pacific Zen Institute’s Board President. She is particularly interested in the ways Zen and depth psychology complement each other to kindle creativity and transformation.
Jesse Cardin Roshi currently resides beside a deep, incredibly clear lake in Chelan, Washington with his wife, son, and magnificent grey cat. He teaches regularly in the PZI Digital Temple and at PZI retreats, as well as working with students individually. Jesse is particularly interested in how creative arts can be a practice for discovery and transformation.
Eduardo Fuentes is a Zen teacher based in Santiago, Chile. He is especially interested in how koans can help people learn what they are and to become intimate with nature.
Jon Joseph Roshi is a Zen teacher and director of San Mateo Zen. He finds that he is not only leading but is participating in a community of brothers and sisters, any one of whom at any time can offer guidance and wisdom to the group and to himself: having joy in each others’ joy.
David Parks Roshi is a Zen teacher and director of Bluegrass Zen in Waco, Kentucky. He has an interest in the parables, sayings, and doings of Jesus as Christian koans, and sees all koans as vehicles for opening the heart-mind to the intimate experience of life lived freely and fully.
Michelle Riddle Sensei is a Zen teacher and leads programs in PZI’s digital temple. She has been involved in some way with the care and evolution of PZI for decades and is interested in how koans help with the discovery of freedom in our lives, and in the creative possibilities for manifesting that freedom.
Michelle Riddle Sensei leads programs in PZI’s digital temple and lives in the SF Bay Area.David Weinstein Roshi is a Zen teacher and director of the Rockridge Meditation Community centered in Oakland, CA, where he teaches regularly. He is interested in discovering Zen practice in the midst of ordinary life.
David Weinstein Roshi is the Director of the Rockridge Meditation Community, where he teaches regularly.