Ron Hogen Green, Sensei visits the Buffalo Community July 2024

Ron Hogen Green is a husband, father, grandfather, sports-enthusiast, retired podiatrist, and a lay teacher in the Mountains and Rivers Order. Hogen Sensei formally began practicing Zen in 1978 with Philip Kapleau Roshi, shortly after graduating medical school and entering private practice. In time, Hogen and his wife, Cindy Eiho Green, helped run the Denver Zen Center, an affiliate of Kapleau Roshi’s Rochester Zen Center. He attended his first retreat at Zen Mountain Monastery in 1988, and not long after began studying with Daido Roshi. In 1993, Hogen completed his training in the Kapleau Lineage and was designated a senior student in the Mountains and Rivers Order. He and Eiho left Denver in 1995 and entered full time residency at ZMM. At the Monastery, Hogen served as Director of Operations for Dharma Communications for 10 years and, in 2000, ordained as a monastic.  In 2007, Hogen Sensei returned to lay life, spending time with family while continuing to play an active role in the MRO, its practice centers and affiliates. In 2016, he received dharma transmission from Shugen Roshi, becoming the first lay teacher in the Order. He served as co-director of the Zen Center of NYC for a number of years and currently divides his time between rural Pennsylvania and South Florida.

Sensei Green arrived in Buffalo on the 23rd of July and started the long weekend event with a public talk about how lay practitioners can incorporate an authentic Zen Buddhist practice into their lay life.  On the 24th, there was a concentrated period of meditation (zazen) for the majority of the afternoon with Sensei Green offering Daisan (private face-to-face teaching).  That evening he gave another public talk but this time on what exactliy Zen practice was. That Saturday, he gave instruction on karma and how it intimately affects our life and those around us.  There was a break for lunch and socializing between the morning and afternoon sessions.  His time in Buffalo ended with a Sunday morning liturgy, zazen/Daisan, and a mondo (question and answer period) before heading back to Pennsylvania.  

The Buffalo Zen Dharma Community (BZDC) is an affiliate of the Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) of Zen Buddhism here in the United  States with affiliates in not only Buffalo, New York, but also a very large one in New Zealand.  The MRO is headquartered at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY in the beautiful Catskill Mountains.   The MRO has made the commitment to send a teacher to support the Buffalo Community (sangha) twice a year as well as supporting the BZDC with helping coordinate senior monastic and senior lay practitioner visits and Zoom talks during other events such as a day-long events (zazenkais).