Please visit my primary website – https://rbmcdaniel.ca/ – for profiles of contemporary Zen teachers I have interviewed.

Toni Packer

In his book, Zen Master Who, James Ford described Toni Packer as a “Zen teacher minus the ‘Zen’ and minus the ‘teacher.’”

Philip Kapleau had identified her as his heir at the Rochester Zen Center, but in 1980 she broke with him, informing him that she could no longer teach as a Buddhist. She established what was originally called the Genesee Valley Zen Center and would later became the Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry.

Toni was stubbornly nondirective. There was, she pointed out, no “technique” for what they were doing. Naturally, some people found the approach discouraging. They wanted direction, and she refused to define procedures. There were, she insisted, no “authorities” who could lead one to what she called “awareing” or the “work of the moment.” One needed only to attend simply and directly to what was happening moment to moment.

Cypress Trees in the Garden: 385-408

The Story of Zen: 313-17, 355, 370, 371, 430-31