The White Wind Zen Community (WWZC) is based at the Zen Centre of Ottawa (''Honzan Dainen-ji'') in

Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, with branch centres in

Wolfville, Nova Scotia Wolfville is a Canadian town in the Annapolis Valley, Kings County, Nova Scotia, located about northwest of the provincial capital, Halifax. The town is home to Acadia University and Landmark East School. The town is a tourist destination due ...

and Harrow, England. The Community is led by the Venerable Anzan Hoshin roshi. It consists of both a monastic order, the Northern Mountain Order, and a large community of associate, general, and formal lay students. The WWZC was founded in 1985 as the White Wind Zazenkai (''Hakukaze Zazenkai''), named after the Hakukaze-ji monastery of Anzan Hoshin roshi's teacher, the late Ven. Yasuda Joshu Dainen Hakukaze. The association was renamed "White Wind Zen Community" in 1989. While Anzan Hoshin roshi is still in permanent residence at the Ottawa centre, he retired from public teaching in 1991 and currently teaches only monastic and formal students. Lay teaching is currently performed by his Dharma-successors, the Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei and the Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho, and by practice advisors trained by Anzan Hoshin roshi. In addition to offering an intensive schedule of practice year-round, including sittings,

sesshin A ''sesshin'' (接心, or also 摂心/攝心 literally "touching the heart-mind") is a period of intensive meditation (zazen) in a Zen monastery. While the daily routine in the monastery requires the monks to meditate several hours a day, d ...

and outreach of a Western Zen centre, the WWZC provides a large number of individual students outside of commuting distance of the monastery or its branches with long-distance training. The long-distance training program provides students practice interviews and daisan via

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

, telephone, or letter, and grants students access to a library of over 2000 recorded

dharma talk A Dharma talk (Sanskrit) or Dhamma talk (Pali) or Dharma sermon (''Japanese'': , ''Chinese'': ) is a public discourse on Buddhism by a Buddhist teacher. In Theravāda Buddhism, the study of Buddhist texts and listening to Dhamma talks by monks o ...

s. The WWZC also publishes books and audio recordings through its publishing arm, Great Matter Publications.

External links

Main website
Zen centers Buddhist temples in Ontario Buddhist organizations Religious organizations established in 1985 1985 establishments in Ontario {{Ottawa-stub

See also

External links