Our Dharma Teachers
Dharma teachers
JULIAN DAIZAN SKINNER
Matt Shinkai Kane
MARK KUREN WESTMOQUETTE
Keith Fuso Alker
HOGETS BAERNDAL
SEAN RINRYU COLLINS
PENNY SEIZAN CLAY
RICCARDO SHUNZAN BONAITI
APRIL GENSEI MANNINO
LLOYD SHOREN CLATER
SHINZAN MIYAMAE ROSHI (1935-2021)
JULIAN DAIZAN SKINNER
Zenways founder, Zen Master
Julian Daizan Skinner is the first Englishman to go to Japan and become a Roshi or Zen Master in the rigorous Rinzai tradition of Zen. Over twenty years ago, he gave up a promising career as a scientist in the pharmaceuticals industry, sold his house, gave all his money away and entered a Zen monastery.
Over many years of strict training, in Japan and the west, Daizan Roshi received Dharma Transmission and permission to teach in both the Rinzai and Soto lineages of Zen. He has also undergone training as an enlightenment intensive master with Lawrence Noyes, leading student of the creator of enlightenment intensives, Charles Berner. In 2007 Daizan Roshi received inka from Shinzan Miyamae Roshi of Gyokuryuji.
Upon returning from Japan, Daizan Roshi went on walking pilgrimage up the centre of the island of Britain from the south tip of the Isle of Wight to the north tip of Scotland, living solely on alms food. He met many of his students from different parts of the UK during this time. Daizan Roshi currently offers sanzen (‘interviews’ or training encounters with his students) at Yugagyo Dojo (Zen Yoga) in London as well as using Skype for remote students. Together with his students, he has established, “Yugagyo Dojo”, a Zen training place in London. Daizan Roshi was teaching at The Buddhist Society, the oldest non-sectarian Buddhist Society in Europe, until December 2011.
His Zen study incorporated yoga practice. He has also studied yoga in Europe, America and Asia. He brings this wide range of yoga experience to sharing a practice that combines physical challenge with mental and spiritual development. He is registered with the Yoga Alliance at the 500-hour level and is registered with the Independent Yoga Network as a Yoga Elder with more than 5000 hours of teaching experience. Daizan trains yoga teachers to find an expression that is authentically their own and will bring them success when they teach. His knowledge and training in Zen gives him the background to guide you on your spiritual journey.
MATT SHINKAI KANE ROSHI
Zen Master
Matt Shinkai Kane, M.A., studied Zen in Japan for over seven years, and received permission to teach as a Zen master (Roshi) from Shinzan Roshi in 2016. In 2014 he founded the Blue Cliff Zen Center in Eugene, Oregon, and is the lead teacher there. He currently lives in an east-Eugene apartment rather than within a celibate monastic setting.
Shinkai has taught yoga for over 7 years to a variety of groups including kids, elementary school teachers, university students, people who are vision or hearing impaired, and elderly folks. His teaching style integrates this experience and emphasizes being grounded and awake.
MARK KUREN WESTMOQUETTE
Ino (director of training)
KEITH FUSO ALKER
Keith met Zen Master Daizan Skinner in 2011 and is now an active member of his Rinzai Zen group at the Yugagyo Dojo in Camberwell. He is a qualified Zenways teacher of Mindfulness Meditation. Keith became a lineage teacher of Rinzai Zen in 2017 and continues to develop under Daizan Roshi’s guidance.
HOGETS BAERNDAL
Hogets is also a visual artist with an MA. She combines photography, digital media with craft techniques and a wide variety of materials, showing her artwork in international exhibitions.
Hogets became a lineage teacher of Rinzai Zen in 2022 and continues studying under Daizan Roshi’s guidance.
SEAN RINRYU COLLINS
Seán was first introduced to a formal Mindfulness and Meditation practice in 2009. Since then he maintained a regular daily practice and was drawn to sharing the benefits he had experienced with others. He began doing this with work colleagues in 2011 and became fully qualified through the Zenways Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Training programme with Daizan Roshi in 2012.
Seán has been continually teaching mindfulness ever since and qualified as a junior-level Zen teacher in 2022.
He shares the dharma in a variety of settings such as hospices, large corporations and out in woodlands. His passion is making the benefits available as easily and widely as possible by encouraging and supporting students to develop a mindful approach to living.
PENNY SEIZAN CLAY
Penny met Daizan in 2016 when she trained as a Zen Yoga teacher and found this experience to be a turning point in her practice. Rinzai Zen seemed to provide a sense of coming home and she continues to deepen her practice with the Zenways sangha under Daizan’s guidance. She is also a Zenways trained Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher and received authorisation to teach Zen at a junior level in 2022. Penny is a qualified Mountain Leader, Open Water Swim Coach and wild yogi. She is a passionate advocate for nature connection, sharing and exploring what is means to ‘stand like a mountain, flow like water’.
RICCARDO SHUNZAN BONAITI
Riccardo has always been very fond of sports and competed in both cycling and running for many years. After leaving the world of competition, he cycled in many solo tours around Europe. Now, he loves taking his meditation out on his bike or out on the road whilst running or walking.
In May 2023, Riccardo became a Junior Zen teacher receiving permission to teach by Daizan Roshi. He continues studying and practising with Daizan and all the Zenways Sangha.
APRIL GENSEI MANNINO
April came into Zen and joined Zenways in 2018. She trained with Daizan Roshi and completed Mindfulness and Meditation teacher training in 2022.
Having faced many challenges in her early years, April started her journey into spiritual life through the contemplative practices of Christianity. And finally finding her Zen Way, with Zen and Zenways. Drawing on her extensive experience, April has supported people from various backgrounds to meet their own challenges in life, helping create the conditions in which they can grow. Through these experiences, April’s desire as a teacher is to help people wake up to the reality of who they are and find happiness, peace, and freedom.
April was given authorisation to teach Zen at Junior Level in 2023 and continues studying under Daizan Roshi.
LLOYD SHOREN CLATER
Lloyd has been a practicing Buddhist for well over 20 years. He was a leader, study lecturer and follower of the Lotus Sutra for 13 years before beginning to study with Daizan Roshi at the beginning of 2017.
Lloyd is a Buddhist Prison Chaplain with the Buddhist charity Angulimala under the guidance of Luang Por Khemadhammo, he is currently visiting 4 prisons weekly. He is also a trained Mindfulness and Meditation teacher and runs regular classes.
Lloyd qualifed as a junior-level Zen teacher in 2023.
SHINZAN MIYAMAE ROSHI (1935-2021)
Zen Master
Born in 1935 in Niigata, Japan, he graduated from Doshisha University with a degree in Economics. In his twenties he failed in three business ventures, experiencing great hardships. Contemplating suicide, he was by chance transformed upon meeting a Zen nun. He was 31.
He was ordained a Zen monk by Mitsui Daishin Roshi who sent him to train at Shogenji monastery with his own master, the formidable Kajiura Itsugai Roshi. Shogenji, known as the devil’s dojo, had the reputation of being the strictest training monastery in Japan. It was founded in the mountains of Gifu-ken on the spot where Zen ancestor Kanzan Egan (1277-1360) in his post-monastery training worked as a cow herder by day and sat zazen on a precipice by night. Recognising his understanding, Itsugai Roshi wished Shinzan to succeed him at Shogenji.
Shinzan Roshi instead went on to study at Kokutaiji in the north of Japan. The resident teacher, Inaba Shinden Roshi, requested Shinzan to become the next Zen Master of Kokutaiji.
After completing his koan study, Shinzan Roshi took the unusual step of visiting every Zen Master in Japan seeking to test and deepen his insight. Later he restored Gyokuryuji, the hermitage of the great Zen master Bankei. He has become known for protesting against institutional abuses and Zen teachers without insight. He parted ways with the Myoshinji branch of Rinzai Zen over excess charging for funerals and focussed on working with lay practitioners. Shinzan Roshi went on to found Zendo Kai (Zenways), a primarily lay-based Zen organisation dedicated to fostering true awakening in the modern world. He has taught in the US, Canada and Europe and has written two books in Japanese, one about true Buddhism and one about finding happiness.