To strengthen our planetary network, ZPI will feature newly affiliated groups.
Join us here at https://hive.zenpeacemakers.org to explore some of the offerings of the organizations affiliated with ZPI.
Introducing a new ZPI affiliate group:
Dai Bai Zan Chō Bō Zen Temple (Chōbō-Ji)
What is your organization’s name?
Dai Bai Zan Chō Bō Zen Ji 大梅山聴法禅寺 (“The Listening to the Dharma Zen Temple on Great Plum Mountain”)
What is your mission?
We are diverse community doing deep spiritual inquiry through silent meditation and caring action for the benifit of all beings, great and small, animate and inanimate.
Where is your organization based?
Seattle, WA.
How many regular members do you serve? 50
Tell us a bit about how the group was conceived?
We formed around the Zen practice of Dr. Glenn Webb and Rev. Genki Takabayashi.
Tell us about one exciting project, retreat, or other offerings that you are currently working on.
We cook vegetarian meals for the homeless. We actively support the Duwamish tribe. We actively participate in the WA State Faith Action Network. To learn more, please visit the « Engaged Buddhism » page of our website.
How do the Three Tenets inform your social engagement?
Many of our members have participated in ZPI events and Bearing Witness retreats. We are interested in helping to organize a Deep-South Bearing Witness retreat in American Race issues in 2022 or 2023.
What is the most meaningful challenge your organization faces?
How to stay socially engaged in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Your main website URL: www.choboji.org
Main contact:
Board President: Rev. Anne Sendo Howells, howellsab@aol.com.
Current Abbot: Kokan (古観) Genjō (玄成) Marinello, Rōshi and Oshō.
Genjō Rōshi began his Zen training in 1975. He moved to Seattle in 1976 to serve as a VISTA community organizer in the central district of Seattle. In 1980, Genjō was ordained as a Zen monk, and in 1981-82, he trained in Japan. In 1999, Genjō succeeded Genki Takabayashi Rōshi as the second abbot (Oshō) of the Seattle Zen temple, ChoBo-Ji, and became a Dharma Heir in his lineage of Rinzai Zen in 2008. Genjō has been a member of the University Friends Meeting (Quakers) since 1983. He is also a psychotherapist in private practice. For several years, Genjō was the volunteer Buddhist pastor at the Twin Rivers Correction Center in Monroe Washington, and has also served as adjunct faculty at the Seattle campus of Antioch University. In addition, he has attended five Bearing Witness Retreats with ZPI.
