Our Teachers and Lineage
Our teachers introduce themselves and share their thoughts about the Zen teacher role
Jeff Kōgen Seul, Rōshi
Kevin Hunt, Jeff Seul, and Fran Ludwig
Tibetan Buddhist monks taught me to meditate in the late 1980s. Having been raised Roman Catholic and studied with the Jesuits, I soon learned of the Christian contemplative tradition (through a book by a Zen teacher) and met the Trappist monk Thomas Keating, who had participated in some of the first sustained dialogues among Christian monastics and Japanese Zen teachers. I practiced Centering Prayer under Keating’s guidance for a few years, while also sitting with Zen practitioners and practicing Kyudo (Zen archery) as a student of Kanjuro Shibata XX, Sensei, the Imperial Bowmaker of Japan.
After years of formal Zen practice, I ultimately became a student of Kevin Jiun Hunt, Roshi, another participant in those early encounters among Christian monastics and Japanese Zen teachers–and the first North American Trappist monk also to become a Zen teacher himself. I eventually received dharma transmission from Roshi Hunt. I am a teacher and preceptor in the White Plum lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi.
The Zen path is dynamic and ever evolving. I embrace Zen’s ancient forms, practices, and teachings as they have been transmitted to us from China and Japan, as well as contemporary turns of the Dharma Wheel, including Engaged Buddhism and ways in which Zen has been enriched by contemporary encounters with other traditions. As Keizan wrote seven centuries ago, “Don’t just long for the past–avail yourself of the present day to practice Zen.”
I’ve thought and written a lot about conflict and peacebuilding, including the relationships among religion, conflict, and peace. I spent a couple of years at Harvard Divinity School studying comparative religion, ethics, and conflict resolution, then taught conflict resolution full-time at Harvard Law School (where I also studied) for a few years. I still teach part-time at both schools, focusing on transformation of conflicts involving worldview and deeply held value differences, peace and national dialogue processes, and related topics. I also serve as co-chair and contribute to the fieldwork of the Peace Appeal, an NGO that supports inclusive peace and national dialogue processes in countries afflicted by, or at risk of, violent conflict. My day job is practicing corporate law at a big firm, where I lead our tech industry group.
I post most of my Dharma talks and muse about Zen topics on my Turning Words blog.
Fran Jindō Ludwig, Sensei
I came to Zen relatively late in life, having been born into a family with a strong Southern Baptist pedigree. By the time I was in high school, I was becoming disenchanted with those beliefs, and entered an extended period of exploration and agnosticism. It wasn’t until much later in life (I was 59) that I encountered Zen, and finally knew that I was home. I have been a serious Zen student since 2007, and have studied with several Zen teachers in the Soto and Rinzai traditions.
In 2021 I had the good fortune to reconnect with Jeff Kōgen Seul, who I had known casually from previous sesshins. Jeff had become the dharma heir of Kevin Jiun Hunt, Roshi in the White Plum lineage. I immediately found myself feeling very closely aligned with Jeff’s teaching and thinking, became his student, and ultimately received Dharma transmission from him in November 2023. We and others together offer a warm and welcoming community for Zen practice at Full Moon Zen.
My education and professional life have meandered through the worlds of immunology and research, as well as ecology and environmental protection. However, some of the most meaningful work in my life has been in the field of mental health. I am the parent of two adult children, one of whom struggles with significant mental health challenges. As a result, I have been active in the mental health community, and a long-time advocate for adequate funding and enhanced access and support for those with mental illness.
I am a great lover of the natural world, and have found its beauty and refuge an important part of my own mental health and an inspiration for practice. Most mornings and evenings you can find me wandering in the woods around my home in Middlefield, CT.
I have found that my Zen practice, supported by therapeutic work to illuminate unconscious behaviors, together with compassionate work in the world, have all been essential parts of an integrated path toward wholeness and living an awakened life. My wish is to support others on their journey to awakening as we grow together toward greater and greater wholeness.
Our Lineage
Full Moon Zen’s teachers are members of the White Plum Asanga, the association of Zen teachers in the lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, one of the earliest Japanese teachers to migrate to the United States. Maezumi Roshi initially received Dharma transmission in the Sōtō school of Zen from his father, Baian Hakujun Kuroda Roshi, and later studied and took up koan practice with a Koryu Roshi, a Rinzai teacher, and Yasutani Roshi, a Sōtō teacher who had completed a Rinzai koan curriculum. Maezumi Roshi also received transmission from these teachers, embracing a broad and eclectic approach to Zen practice and teaching that incorporates elements of both Sōtō and Rinzai Zen.
Maezumi Roshi’s first Dharma heir was Bernie Tetsugen Glassman Roshi, another innovative and eclectic teacher, who founded the Zen Peacemakers Order and, later in life, emphasized householder (aka “lay”) practice and fully empowered householder teachers with all the authorizations traditionally reserved for monastic Zen teachers. We stand in Maezumi Roshi’s and Bernie Roshi’s line and embrace the Householder Way as students and teachers.
Bernie Roshi attracted students from all walks and ways of life, authorizing dozens of them to teach, including clerics in other traditions. His Dharma heirs include a Jewish Rabbi and the Catholic Jesuit Priest, Roshi Robert Jinsen Kennedy, S.J., in whose line our teachers also stand. Roshi Kennedy has himself given Dharma transmission to two dozen Zen teachers, including the Trappist monk and priest, Roshi Kevin Jiun Hunt, O.C.S.O., from whom Full Moon Zen teacher Jeff Kōgen Seul Roshi received Dharma transmission. Our teachers’ Preceptor transmission (conferring authority to perform the ceremonies in which a Zen practitioner takes up the Zen Bodhisattva Precepts and to perform other ritual functions) runs from Bernie Roshi through his successor Nancy Mujo Baker Roshi and Ray Ruzan Cicetti Roshi.