The Open Source is a collaborative network of NewZen communities and practitioners in the western United States. The network is centered in Santa Fe, New Mexico and includes The Open Source of Northern California; Springs Mountain Sangha in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Wet Mountain Sangha in Pueblo, Colorado; and a new group in Honokaa, Hawai'i.
The Open Source was founded by Joan Sutherland, Roshi, and its teachers include Sarah Bender, Sensei, who is based in Colorado Springs, and visiting teacher David Weinstein, Sensei, who teaches in Colorado Springs. Natalie Goldberg holds sit/walk/write workshops in Santa Fe for The Open Source.
Our
practice has the power to reveal a Zen that is not bound
to
another time and a different place, a Zen that is native to us;
we
begin to recognize the ineffable in the images and metaphors
of this
time and place, arising out of our landscapes, our
ancestral spirits,
our poetries, our psyches, and our songs.
Joan
Sutherland, Roshi is the founder of The Open Source.
She is deeply involved in
re-imagining the koan tradition and exploring its relationship to creativity,
and she also integrates mythopoetics and contemporary mind and consciousness
disco
veries
with meditation. She holds frequent koan and meditation retreats, and
her work was recently chosen for the anthology Best Buddhist Writing
2006 (Shambhala).
She lives and teaches in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is also the holding teacher for Springs Mountain Sangha in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Wet Mountain Sangha in Pueblo, Colorado. She is one of the founders of the Pacific Zen School, an innovative contemporary koan school. She is also a writer, and a translator from Chinese and Japanese. Before becoming a Zen teacher, she worked as a scholar and teacher in the field of archaeomythology, and for nonprofit organizations in the feminist antiviolence and environmental movements.
