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Mark Pfaff
President mark.pfaff@sanshinji.org Mark has been a member of the Board of Directors since August 2009. He is currently Communications Chair. In 2001, he received the precepts from Okumura-roshi. From 2001 to 2004, he served on the board of Stillpoint, a Soto Zen practice community in Pittsburgh, PA, where he was the leader of the gardening crew, a member of the outreach community, and webmaster. The Communications Committee collaborates with Sanshin's Technology and Development efforts to get information out to the local and global Sanshin audience, and aims to keep the sangha interconnected through traditional and cutting-edge technologies. |
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Mark Howell
Vice President mark.howell@sanshinji.org Mark is serving his second term on the Board of Directors. His board experience includes serving two terms on the Indiana Kyudo Renmei Board of Directors and two gubernatorial appointments on the Indiana Board of Licensure for Professional Geologists. Mark studied Zen at Sanshin-ji before receiving the precepts from Okumura-roshi in 2010. He also studied kyudo at Wa Do Kan under Takako Matsui and Philip Swain, achieving Nidan in 2008. Mark's professional practice is as a geologist and geophysicist, fields that give constant reminders of how perceptions color our interpretation of reality. |
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Sabine Karner
Treasurer sabine.karner@sanshinji.org Sabine works in Indianapolis as a finance and accounting professional and serves as chair of Sanshin's finance committee. A native of Austria, she has lived in the United States since the 1990s. In 2014 she helped found Great Wind Zendo, a lay zen practice community situated in Danville, IN. Sabine enjoys creatively expressing herself through music and crafts. |
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Tōnen O'Connor
Secretary Also representing clergy outside Sanshin's lineage tonen.oconnor@sanshinji.org Tōnen is the first to occupy the board seat created this year for clergy outside of Sanshin's lineage. Directors asked to serve in this role bring experience in running a dharma center, contacts with other teachers and centers around the country and the world, and their own years of practice and study. Tōnen is the resident priest emerita of Milwaukee Zen Center, retiring after having led the center for more than 12 years. She received ordination from Tōzen Akiyama in 1994, dharma transmission in 1999 and in 2000 performed the ceremony of zuise at Eiheiji and Sojiji, head temples of the Soto school in Japan. She trained in Japan at Shogoji, Hosshinji and Hokyoji, and holds the rank of nitokyoshi within the Japanese Soto system as well as a four-year assignment askokusaifukyoshi. For more than seventeen years she has worked extensively with inmates within the Wisconsin correctional system, serving on the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Religious Practices Advisory Committee and giving a presentation on this work at a conference in Tokyo in 2008. Tōnen served as chair of the Committee on Interfaith Understanding, is past President of the Board of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association and, with Zuiko Redding of the Cedar Rapids Zen Center, is co-founder of the Great Sky Sesshin, held annually for eight years at Hokyoji Zen Practice Community in Minnesota. Prior to entering the Zen world, Tōnen had a 40-year career in the professional theater and was managing director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater from 1974-1995. She holds a Bachelor’s degree with high honors from Swarthmore College and an M.A. From Tufts University. Tōnen is the editor of Buddhas Behind Bars, has a response included in The Hidden Lamp and her translation of Kodo Sawaki’s Commentary on The Song of Awakening was published in spring 2015. She was editor of and a contributing author to Milwaukee Zen Center: 30 Years of Reflections, published in August, 2015 and contributed a chapter to The Eightfold Path, published August 2016.. She has two sons, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and lives happily with two splendid cats. |
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David Thompson
Director, Dogen Institute david.thompson@sanshinji.org David joined the board of Sanshin in February 2012. David has been practicing with Okumura-roshi since 2004 in Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Bloomington; he has also practiced at other Zen centers on the East Coast. He began sitting in 2001 with a student of Tenshin Reb Anderson and received the precepts from Reb in 2009. He is currently editing one of Okumura-roshi books-in-progress. David is employed as a policy analyst in a financial institution, and has master's degrees in American Civilization and in Organization Development, with particular interests in journaling, action research, creativity, and working with groups. He is thrilled to be associated with the Dogen Institute and is looking forward to helping move it forward. David is a native of Philadelphia, PA, enjoys hiking, is a second-year student of Japanese and practices his kanji every day. |
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Shoryu Bradley
Representing clergy within Sanshin's lineage shoryu.bradley@sanshinji.org Shoryu is the first to occupy the board seat created this year for clergy within Sanshin's lineage. Directors asked to serve in this role bring their knowledge of Sanshin's practice and operations, connections with the sangha, and personal practice as well as their experience of running or functioning in other dharma centers. Shoryu was ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 2002 by Seirin Barbara Kohn at Austin Zen Center, and in 2004 he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to study with Shohaku Okumura and the Sanshin Zen Community. He has also trained at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California and at Sotoshu International Training Monastery angos held in the US and Japan. In 2010 he received dharma transmission from Okumura Roshi. He holds a B.S. in psychology from Texas A&M University, an M.Ed. in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a candidate for certification in Japanese psychology at the ToDo Institute of Vermont. He is working to establish Gyobutsuji, a mountain practice center in Arkansas offering monthly sesshins in the style of Okumura Roshi and Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. |
