Zentatsu Richard Baker is the Founder and Head Teacher of the Dharma Sangha centers in the United States and Europe. In the United States he lives at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center in Colorado; and in Germany, at the ‘Dharma Zentrum Quellenweg’ in the Black Forest.

He 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.

Tatsudo Nicole Baden Roshi is a Dharma Successor of Zentatsu Baker Roshi in the Dharma Sangha Soto Zen Lineage. 

She has been practicing Zen since 2001 and received Dharma Transmission in 2017.  She graduated as a psychologist from the University of Oldenburg in 2008.  She also trained at the ‘School for Body Mind Centering’ for four years.

Since 2009 she has been living and practicing either at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center or at the Zen Buddhist Center Schwarzwald (ZBZS) in Germany. At present, she is Director and a resident teacher at the ZBZS.

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. He served in a variety of positions at Tassajara, Green Gulch Farm and Temple and the San Francisco/Page Street Zen Center including Director and Head Monk. 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, authorization to teach, from him in August of 1999. 

Ryuten’s practice and teaching is rooted in the fact that truth, the whole body, is continually presencing anew. When we drop the beliefs and preconceptions that keep us from attesting to this fact, we can know directly that each one of us, each being and thing, is unbounded aliveness. To practice is to be present in the unfolding of aliveness itself.

Ryuten is a teacher in the Dharma Sangha. He serves as Vice Abbot at Zen Buddhistisches Zentrum Schwarzwald located in the Black Forest in Germany. Ryuten also teaches in Vienna and Berlin as well. When not in residence at ZBZS, he lives in San Anselmo, California.