Zen teacher Richard Baker Roshi

Baker Roshi is the "Dharma heir" of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind). He is founder of the Crestone Zen Center and co-founder of Tassajara Zen Center in California. Here is some more on him:

Zentatsu Baker Roshi is Abbot, Head Teacher, and founder of the Dharma Sangha centers in Europe and the United States. In the United States he lives at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center in Colorado; and in Germany, at the 'Buddhistisches Studienzentrum im Johanneshof' (Buddhist Study Center at Johanneshof) in the Black Forest.

He is the Dharma Successor of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, the first Zen Master to establish residential and monastic practice for laypeople and monks in the West. In 1966, with and for Suzuki Roshi, Baker Roshi co-founded the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California, the first traditional Zen monastery outside of Asia.

From 1968 to 1971, he studied in Japan at Antaiji, Eiheiji, and Daitokuji Zen monasteries. He became Suzuki Roshi's Dharma Heir in 1969 and was installed by Suzuki Roshi as the second Abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center in 1971.

Baker Roshi has committed his life to discovering and cultivating a way that combines monastic practice, community life, and the study of the interrelationship between Asian and Western cultural practices.

We are very fortunate to have this illustrious teacher with us for one day.