Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir/Oral History of the First Zen Buddhist Monastery in the West--The First Year, 1967 - Hardcover

by David Chadwick (Author)

A Spirituality & Practice "Best Spiritual Book of 2025"

"As priceless as discovering a previously unknown time capsule."--Peter Coyote (Hosho Jishi), actor, director, author

This is what happened at the famous Zen monastery south of San Francisco.

From the best-selling author of the biography of Shunryu Suzuki (Crooked Cucumber), comes a memoir and oral history of Tassajara--a monastery founded in 1967 by Shunryu Suzuki, abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center. Peopled like a Sixties film of Buddhist invasion, with hippies, dreamers, lovers, a wave of serious practitioners. Nyogen Senzaki, D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and of course Shunryu Suzuki and Richard Baker are all here. This is the story of what happened at and surrounding the founding of the first Zen monastery in the West.

Author Biography

David Chadwick, at the age of 21, in 1966, first rang the bell of Sokoji, a Soto Zen temple and the original home of the San Francisco Zen Center. Thus began his serious study under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Ordained a Zen priest in 1971, he later wrote Suzuki's biography, Crooked Cucumber, as well as Thank You and OK!: An American Zen Failure in Japan. Chadwick is the primary preserver of the legacy of Shunryu Suzuki and those whose paths crossed his. See cuke.com and shunryusuzuki.com for more information. He lives in Bali.