Zen Community of Oregon is a Soto Zen Buddhist community in lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995). Maezumi Roshi’s life vow was to plant the Dharma deeply in the soil of North America. Zen Community of Oregon began when Jim Jordan moved to Portland in 1976 after training in Maine for seven years with Walter Nowick, Roshi. He moved into the second floor of a house belonging to Brian Heald, taught him zazen, and they meditated every morning. They joined with Richard Schweid and Deborah Einbender to form a small lay sitting group. They met informally in the home of Steve Nemirow, a poet, artist, and labor lawyer who was a Portland student of Robert Aitken, Roshi. John Tesshin Sanderson, a priest from Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA) showed up and eventually led the group. In the early 1980s the group began doing monthly all-day sittings, a precursor to the Zazenkai we do to this day, and soon members were attending retreats at ZCLA.
