Foundations
Ring of Bone was founded in 1974, under the inspiration and instruction of Gary Snyder. As it has evolved over the decades, we’ve always taken the third of Buddhism’s Three Treasures, the Sangha (community), as seriously as the other two, the Buddha and the Dharma (teachings). We are a community of friends and companions on the Way, and we govern ourselves in keeping with the democratic principles of early Buddhism.
Like its parent organization in Japan, the Diamond Sangha is geared to the needs of lay people, and Ring of Bone has never had anything but lay leadership. Our members tend our own households, raise children, and work in a variety of fields. We take daily life and the challenge of living artfully, resourcefully, and humbly to be basic to our Zen practice.
You can find the Zendo bylaws and governance document in the library.
Teaching
Our teacher, Nelson Foster, belongs to the Diamond Sangha lineage that started with Robert Aitken Rōshi and is one of his first Dharma-heirs. Nelson grew up in Hawaiʻi and began his practice there in 1972 while still a college student. He started teaching Zen in an apprentice capacity in 1983 and was authorized to teach independently in 1989. (Under Japanese custom, he’d be addressed as “Rōshi” but prefers to go by his given name.) Eight years later, he succeeded Aitken Rōshi as master of the Honolulu Diamond Sangha and, since then, has taught Zen full time. After dividing his time between the two groups for nine years, he stepped down from teaching duties in Honolulu, turning them over to his successor, Michael Kieran. Currently, besides serving Ring of Bone, Nelson works with the East Rock Sangha in New England.
Nelson’s previous work included stints as Aitken Rōshi’s personal secretary, high school English teacher and administrator, organizer for social change, and freelance editor and writer. In 1995, he collaborated with Jack Shoemaker in publishing The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader, profiles of 46 Chinese and Japanese masters, with selections from their works. Since then, he’s confined his writing on Zen topics to essays, forewords, and book reviews while gathering material for a second major book, now in progress. He’s been married to Masa Uehara since 1990 and lives with her in the forest near Ring of Bone.
Sangha History
Ring of Bone history begins with Gary Snyder’s work to introduce lay Zen practice to the community on San Juan Ridge. Gary’s own interest in Zen had led him to Japan, where for most of thirteen years, he trained at Daitoku-ji, one of the great complexes of temples and sub-temples in Kyoto, studying principally under Oda Sessō Rōshi.
In 1970, when Gary and his family moved to the San Juan Ridge to build the house they called Kitkitdizze, he promptly initiated sitting with the crew of volunteer builders. After the house was finished, sitting occurred in its main room, but as the group swelled to include neighbors and friends, it outgrew that space, and zazen moved -- first to the Kitkitdizze barn and, in 1982, to the newly built zendo.
By that time, the group had taken shape as Ring of Bone Zendo, so named in 1974 at an “Opening the Mountain” ceremony, in honor of Gary’s old friend Lew Welch, who disappeared in the forest three years before. (See Lew’s poem by that title, on our home page.) Ring of Bone offerings had grown to include month-long visits from Aitken Rōshi, and once Nelson began teaching, the sangha started inviting him to lead periodic sesshin, too, supplementing those held during Aitken Roshi's annual stays. When Nelson became a Ridge resident in 1988, Aitken Roshi withdrew, and the sangha asked Nelson to become its resident teacher.
