Governance
Mission Statement
The mission of the Brattleboro Zen Center is to foster a community centered in Soto Zen ritual, zazen, and the study of Buddhist teachings as transmitted through the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. We offer refuge to anyone looking for guidance, friendship, and structure on the Buddhist path. We wake up together, not alone.
Brattleboro Zen Center Board of Directors
Qayyum Johnson – Board Chair
Qayyum Johnson was born into an American Sufi family. He lived for 12 years at San Francisco Zen Center, primarily at Green Dragon Zen Temple, where he trained as an organic vegetable farmer and served as Head Monk of a practice period in 2015. He has tread a few different paths since leaving SFZC (hospice volunteer, prison meditation group leader, postal worker, sometime carpenter, arts non-profit co-director) and sitting zazen with compassionate open awareness is what weaves the journey together. Qayyum returned San Francisco to attend grad school in 2024 to become a marriage and family therapist. He’s graduated and is now seeing clients and accumulating hours toward licensure. He has more trust than ever in cause and effect, loving-kindness and the liberating practices of mindfulness and compassion. Qayyum warmly invites your feedback about how to best serve the well-being and flourishing of Brattleboro Zen Center.
Alison Bundy – Secretary
Alison Bundy grew up in Maine and France, and lived most of her adult life in Rhode Island. She joined BZC in April of 2021 and has continuing gratitude for the practice and community found there. She has worked as a short-order grill cook, waitress, bartender, house cleaner, dog walker, cat wrangler, reference- metadata- and acquisitions- librarian, and has taught ESL, basic writing skills, and welding and drafting for plumbers. She is the author of two books of short fiction, A Bad Business, and, DunceCap, and of a miniscule novel, Tale of a Good Cook.
Shorin Lisa Plantefaber – Treasurer
After three decades of Theravadan practice, I moved to Zen through the San Francisco Zen Center. Since retiring from college teaching and administration, I have been able to participate in retreats at Green Gulch and a practice period at Tassajara. I received the precepts from Furyu Schroeder in 2024. I have been practicing with BZC since 2022, grateful to have a sangha closer to my home in Amherst, MA. I joined the Board of Directors as treasurer in 2025 as an opportunity to support BZC and the study of the Dharma in our community.
Suiko McCall – Board Member
Suiko McCall founded the Art Monastery Project in 2007, an international arts organization dedicated to applying the collaborative and intentional “social sculpture” of monastic life to art-making and creativity. She lived at Green Gulch Farm / Green Dragon Zen Temple in California on and off between 2014 and 2018. Studying and practicing in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi, Suiko received her dharma name and the bodhisattva precepts from Green Gulch Abbess Fu Schroeder in 2019. Suiko’s central life practice is the bridging of Buddhist philosophy with creative-making and her meditative paintings have been exhibited from San Francisco and New York to Amsterdam and Rome. Garnering degrees from Yale University and San Francisco Art Institute, she published the book Hosting Transformation: Stories from the Edge of Changemaking, followed in 2015 with a workbook Live Your Dream: Start Here. Start Now.
Sarah Tsalbins – Board Member
Sarah Tsalbins (aka T-bird) joined the Brattleboro Zen Center in 2022. She is grateful for the opportunity to practice with the sangha and to awaken with the hills and streams of the Connecticut River Valley. Sarah lived in Oregon and California for two decades before returning to her roots in the northeast. In the San Francisco Bay Area she practiced at the East Bay Meditation Center and later, the Berkeley Zen Center. She also ran in the hills, milked goats, taught in museums and public schools, and served as a union rep. Since returning to her New England roots, Sarah has worked as a naturalist-educator and high school teacher. She enjoys serving as a kokyo (chant-leader) and meeting facilitator with BZC. She also delights in biking, books, baking, bird-nerding, botanizing, and bailando bachata y salsa.
Hakusho Johan Ostlund – Guiding Teacher
Hakushō Johan Ostlund is a Soto Zen priest ordained in the Shunryu Suzuki Roshi lineage. Hakusho trained in residence at the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) for 14 years, both at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center and at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. He was ordained as a priest in 2012 by Green Gulch Farm Abiding Abbess Furyu Nancy Schroeder and received Dharma Transmission from her in 2023. During his residence at SFZC, Hakusho held numerous temple administrator positions, including as Tanto (Head of Practice), Ino (Head of the Meditation Hall), Treasurer and Guest Student Manager. As BZC’s Guiding Teacher, Hakusho seeks to convey the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha as it continues to be transmitted to him through his teachers. He founded the Brattleboro Zen Center in 2021 and has been consistently amazed by the enthusiastic response of new and seasoned Zen students in the local community and beyond.