Taigen will be in the SF, Bay Area and has graciously accepted our invitation to tea. Taigen and Rev Myo share the same teacher and Dharma predecessor Tenshin Reb Anderson and he has a new book coming out and agreed to join us for casual conversation for an hour or so…
Taigen began his Zen practice in 1975 at the New York Zen Center, training under Kando Nakajima roshi. He studied at Columbia University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies. Leighton worked as a television and film editor in New York, and then San Francisco.
In 1978, he moved to California and eventually became a resident at San Francisco Zen Center, where he worked at Tassajara Bakery and other of Zen Center’s businesses. In subsequent years, Leighton practiced in residence at all of the San Francisco Zen Center facilities, including Green Gulch Farm Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. In 1986, Leighton was ordained as a priest by Tenshin Reb Anderson (in the latter’s first ordination ceremony).
He lived in Japan from 1990–1992, translating Dōgen texts with Shohaku Okumura and training under various masters. In 1994, Leighton founded the Mountain Source Sangha in Bolinas, San Rafael, and San Francisco, California (of which Ancient Dragon Zen Gate is a sister temple).
In 2000, Leighton received shiho, or Dharma transmission, from Tenshin Anderson. He taught for four years at Loyola University, Chicago and has taught since 1994 at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, part of the Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, from which Leighton has a Ph.D. degree.
Please join us to have tea and casual conversation as he tours the bay area to also promote his new book being released in early April. Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness