Our Teachers

Our teachers at week long summer sesshin

Sensei Janet Jiryu Abels

Sensei Janet Jiryu Abels, founder of Still Mind Zendo, has been a teacher in the Soto-Rinzai lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi and the White Plum Asanga since 2000, when she became a dharma successor of her teacher, Roshi Robert Jinsen Kennedy. Previously, she was in private practice as a spiritual director for over 12 years and, before that, worked as a community organizer and peace activist. She is also a certified Bio-Spiritual Focusing teacher. Sensei is the author of Making Zen Your Own: Giving Life to Twelve Key Golden Age Ancestors, to be published by Wisdom in early 2012.

Sensei Gregory Hosho Abels

Sensei Gregory Hosho Abels became a dharma successor of Roshi Robert Jinsen Kennedy in 2006, in the Soto-Rinzai lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi and the White Plum Asanga. He has enjoyed a 50-year career as an actor, stage director and Master Teacher of Acting in New York City. Sensei is also a poet. His collection, Never Something Else: Poems from the Eye of Zen, features poetry sparked by practice and inspired by the natural world. His dharma name, Hosho, loosely translated, means Voice of the Dharma.

The teachers, married and the parents of a grown daughter, are members of the White Plum Asanga, the American Zen Teachers Association and the Lay Zen Teachers Association.