Tatsudo Nicole Baden is the Abbot of the international non-profit organization Dharma Sangha and its two Zen Practice Centers, the Crestone Mountain Zen Center in Colorado, USA and the Zen Buddhist Center in the Black Forest, Germany. Nicole is a Dharma Successor of Zentatsu Baker Roshi in the Soto Zen Lineage. She has been practicing Zen since 2001 and received Dharma Transmission in 2017. Nicole graduated as a psychologist from the University of Oldenburg in 2008. She also trained at the ‘School for Body Mind Centering’ for four years. She was a member of the council of the German Buddhist Union from 2013-2019 and is currently serving on the advisory council of the mindfulness oriented MBSR Association. She has been living and practicing either at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center or at the Zen Buddhist Center Schwarzwald (ZBZS) in Germany since 2009.
Zentatsu Richard Baker is the Founder of the Dharma Sangha centers in the United States and Europe. In September 2024, he retired as the Abbot of the Dharma Sangha and passed the responsibility on to his successor Nicole Baden Roshi. However, he still teaches regularly in both Centers and online. Baker Roshi 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 subsequently founded the Green Gulch Zen Practice Community and Farm in Marin County, California in 1972. During the ’70s, he pioneered a number of businesses related to Zen practice. In 1983, he founded the Dharma Sangha.
Ryuten Paul Rosenblum Roshi is a lineage holder in the tradition of Dongshan and Dogen. He began Zen practice with his first teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 1968. For ten years, Ryuten practiced at Zen Center: with Suzuki Roshi until his death in 1971, and subsequently with Suzuki Roshi’s successor and the Second Abbot of Zen Center, Zentatsu Baker Roshi. Ryuten received lay initiation from Suzuki Roshi in 1970 and priest ordination from Baker Roshi in January of 1975. After a period working “in the world” in fields such as government, politics and non-profit management consulting, Ryuten resumed formal practice with his teacher, Zentatsu Baker Roshi, in 1995. He is a successor of Baker Roshi and received Dharma Transmission in 1999.
