Denkyo Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, Roshi

Training Centers

Three years later, 1970, Rinzai-ji's main training center, Mt. Baldy Zen Center was opened high in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles. Located in the middle of the Angeles National Forest, Mt. Baldy Zen Center operates under a 99-year lease from the U.S. government. Formerly an abandoned Boy Scout camp, the pine-shaded property has been refurbished to accommodate resident monks and nuns, as well as visitors attending Dai-sesshin. When Roshi is not in residence the center hosts groups and workshops.

Mt. Baldy Zen Center has gained a reputation in American Zen circles for its rigorous practice, which includes 19-hour-a-day sesshin schedules. Most of Rinzai-ji's monks and nuns have received some or all of their training at Mt Baldy Zen Center.

With the establishment of the Rinzai-ji and Mt. Baldy Zen Centers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Joshu Roshi had laid the groundwork for a corps of ordained monks, nuns, and priests to help him carry out his work.

When a Mt. Baldy student named Michelle Martin asked Roshi to come to New Mexico to conduct a Dai-sesshin, he playfully replied, "You find hot springs, I come." After she returned to New Mexico, Martin and a friend found an old Catholic monastery for sale in Jemez Springs. They invited Roshi to inspect the facilities to see if they were appropriate for a Zen community, and, in 1974, Jemez Bodhi Mandala was founded, now known as Bodhi Manda Zen Center.

Bodhi Manda became Roshi's second training center, offering daily Zazen and communal work practice. Like Mt. Baldy, Bodhi Manda's setting is magnificent. The property borders the Jemez River, in a dramatic, steep-walled canyon. The facility includes dormitories, a communal dining hall, and a small guest house. Bodhi Manda residents have extensively renovated the property over the past two decades, expanding the hot pools, piping geothermally heated water through the living quarters to provide heat, and planting an orchard and an extensive garden, which provide fresh vegetables and fruit for the residents.

Financially, the center draws income from hosting Dai-sesshins, renting the guesthouse, and leasing the entire facility to various groups for retreats and workshops. Bodhi Manda passed a major milestone in the fall of 2001, when it paid off its mortgage.