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Joan Sutherland

Joan Sutherland is a senior teacher of Zen Buddhism and the holding teacher for Springs Mountain Sangha in Colorado Springs. She is deeply interested in what becomes possible when ways of meditation and inquiry developed over thousands of years are brought into contemporary American lives. In her teaching she integrates these ancient ways with western wisdom traditions, including literature, psychology, and recent scientific discoveries about mind and consciousness. She is involved in an intensive exploration and re-imagining of the koan tradition and the use of mythopoetics in a practice of imaginative inquiry. She lives in Sonoma County, Northern California and teaches through The Open Source Project; she was the co-founder of Pacific Zen Institute, where she is now senior teacher emerita. Find more information about Joan at http://www.joansutherland.net/

David Weinstein

David Weinstein is Pacific Zen Institute's lead teacher at the Oakland Zendo. David was introduced to meditation in 1976 by Lamas Yeshe and Zopa in Nepal. He has studied Zen in Korea with Kusan Sunim, in Hawaii with Robert Aitken Roshi, in Japan with Yamada Koun Roshi and in California with John Tarrant Roshi. David lives in Oakland where he is a psychotherapist; his Zen teaching includes working with koans. He is interested in ways of cultivating a true Zen practice in the midst of a life where there is sometimes more energy for watching Monday Night Football than going to the Zendo and almost always more interest in chocolate than just about anything else.

Sarah Bender

Sarah Bender is a resident teacher for the SMS, and teacher for the Open Source Project. Sarah began Zen practice with Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1979, as a student of Robert Aitken. She moved to Colorado Springs in 1984, and sat with one or two people for some years after that. She attended retreats with Father Pat Hawk and with Thich Nhat Hanh in the 1990’s, and has studied with Joan Sutherland and David Weinstein since 1997. In 2001, Joan invited her to serve as meditation instructor for SMS. Then, in 2006, Sarah officially became a teacher for the Open Source Project as well as SMS's first resident teacher. Sarah is a learning disability specialist in private practice in Colorado Springs.