Our teacher is Shojo Joy Brennan. Joy began formal Soto Zen training in January of 2008 with Sojun Diane Martin at Udumbara Zen Center in Evanston, IL. Joy received lay ordination from Diane in 2009, priest ordination in July 2017 and dharma transmission in August 2022. Joy received a PhD in Buddhist philosophy from the University of Chicago and now teaches Buddhism and the religions of East Asia at Kenyon College in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

Like Zen schools everywhere, Kokosing Zen Center’s teaching and practices come to us from our Zen ancestors, which includes our teachers and our teachers’ teachers, extending all the way back to the historical founder of the Buddhist tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha. The figures listed here include Shojo Joy’s teacher, Diane Martin Roshi, as well as her two teachers, Shogaku Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and Jikai Dainin Katagiri Roshi. At Kokosing Zen Center, each of us and all of us together also include in our lineages any ancestor whose path has made ours possible. That includes ancestors who struggled to make better lives for us, ancestors who gained wisdom that we have learned from, or ancestors whose suffering we work to alleviate with our own practice and our commitment to build a better world for all beings.