Our lineage

Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995)

Maezumi RoshiHakuyu Taizan Maezumi, Roshi (1931-1995), was abbot of the Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) and had a strong influence on the growth of Zen Buddhism in the United States and Europe. He received Dharma transmission from Hakujun Kuroda Roshi, in 1955. He also received approval as a teacher from Koryu Osaka Roshi and Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, and so was Dharma successor in three Zen lineages (Soto, Shakyamuni-Kai and Sanbo-Kyodan).
He came to the United states in 1956 and there eventually founded ZCLA, giving Dharma transmission to twelve successors.
Maezumi Roshi died in Japan on a visit to his family in May 1995. He and his late wife, Martha Ekyo Maezumi, are survived by their three children, Kirsten, Yuri and Shira.

"In your daily life, please accept yourself as you are and your life as it is. Be intimate with yourself. Then everything, I am sure, will go all right. I want you to take good advantage of every chance you have to become a really intimate being".

Maezumi Roshi

Dennis Genpo Merzel

Genpo RoshiDennis Genpo Merzel Roshi was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1944, and grew up in California. He started formal Zen training under Taizan Maezumi Roshi at the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1972. In 1980, Genpo Roshi received Shiho (Dharma Transmission) from Maezumi Roshi and in the following year he began to conduct sesshins in several European countries. He founded Kanzeon Sangha in 1984 which includes all his students in the United States and Europe. 
In 1992 he gave hij Dharma-transmission to Catherine Genno Pagès who thus became his first Dharma successor. 

"Look into your mind, the source from which thoughts arise. What hears the sounds? Look and you will find only empty nothing. And yet, something is hearing, something is experiencing.
What is it? It can't be anything but yourself, your true self.

But somehow we can't accept this. We go on looking and seeking.
Only convince yourself to stop seeking. Once and for all, convince yourself there's nothing to seek, nothing to attain, and then just sit, nothing left to do, nothing left to search for".

Genpo Roshi