Zoketsu Norman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, and the founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation. He served as co-abbot of San Francisco Zen Center — the principal seat in the West of the Suzuki Roshi lineage of Soto Zen — from 1995 to 2000.
He is the founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation, which supports a wide-ranging set of practice groups, lay-ordination programs, and inter-religious projects, including substantial work with Jewish meditation communities and chaplaincy. He has written extensively on Zen, on poetry, and on the integration of contemplative practice with Jewish tradition.
Fischer's teaching style is famously plain, dry, and deeply rooted in the everyday — the lineage of his teacher Sojun Mel Weitsman and grand-teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He teaches in a tradition where the form of practice and the texture of daily monastic life are the principal vehicles, and he resists almost every attempt to dress the practice in spiritual language.
He is also one of the principal contemporary writers on engaged Buddhism in the West, with substantial work on chaplaincy, environmental activism, and the ethical implications of practice. His books include Sailing Home, Training in Compassion (on Lojong), and What is Zen? — a beginner's manual that has become a touchstone of contemporary American Zen.
Applications for personal time are received through Everyday Zen on a quarterly cadence, with priority for committed lay practitioners and those in the chaplaincy or ordination pathways.
