Minneapolis, Minnesota

Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen priest and Dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage. He also teaches mindfulness in a wide variety of secular contexts including police training and addiction recovery groups. He works with multifaith groups focused on intersectional liberation, racial justice, and climate justice, and has served on the SZBA DEIA committee for three years. Ben is based at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, travels to teach across the United States, has written for Tricycle and Lion’s Roar magazines, and is author of Inside the Grass Hut, Inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara, and Mindfulness and Intimacy.

Washington D.C.

Inryu Bobbi Ponce-Barger is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. The name Shin Chi Inryu, (身知隱竜) “Body Wisdom Hidden Dragon” was the Dharma name given to her by Dairyū Michael Wenger Roshi in 2005. Inryū received Dharma Transmission from Dairyū Wenger Roshi in July 2017. She is a founding member of and serves as the Guiding Teacher and resident priest for All Beings Zen Sangha which is a Branching Streams affiliated Sangha located in Washington DC. Inryū enjoys viewing the horizon and the poetry of Shide and Hānshān.

Portland, Oregon

Thomas has 25 years of executive level organizational leadership, a master’s degree in clinical psychology, a diversity management certificate from Cornell, numerous awards and recognition and a substantial portfolio of civic volunteer engagement.

Through Bruner Strategies, Bruner helps businesses and organizations do great work in the areas of Leadership & Governance, Development, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. As a consultant, he has worked with 50 organizations in the U.S., India and Venezuela.

Bruner is a lay disciple at Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland, Oregon, where he has been a member since 2003.

Long Beach, California

Born in 1978 in Aichi pref. Japan, Gyokei studied English at age 16 in Winnipeg, Canada, and continued to travel to Canada until he moved to Ontario, Canada, in 2012. He moved to Long Beach, California, in 2014 and served the Long Beach Buddhist Church. He now serves Sozenji Buddhist Temple as head priest.
He studied inter-cultural communication and was involved in interfaith community at Sophia University in Tokyo and trained at Eiheiji Monastery in 1999 during his school years. He worked in Tokyo as a paralegal translator till 2006. Then, he served Iwoji Temple in Shinshiro City, Aichi, as a vice abbot while teaching English to local children till 2011.
He is also a secretary of Soto Zen Buddhism North America Office (ASZB) and Zen meditation instructor at Osher Life-Long Learning Program at California State University. He also taught Japanese at the community center in Long Beach until 2016.

Ortigueira (La Coruña), Spain

Teresa Bouza is a journalist, a caregiver, and a Zen practitioner. She was born in Latin America, grew up in Spain, and spent most of her professional career in the US. A recipient of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford, she worked for The Wall Street Journal, Spain’s global news agency EFE, and TV station Univision. She is a co-author with her teacher, Les Kaye, of “A Sense of Something Greater: Zen and the Search for Balance in Silicon Valley.” Teresa is grateful for the beauty she found while practicing with her sangha at Kannon Do Zen Center in Mountain View (California). She loves spending time outdoors, subtle things in the world, and her Dharma name (Zen Breeze.) She is a member of SZBA's DEIA committee.

(Secretary) Delray Beach, FL

Geido was introduced to Zen practice at Village Zendo and became a student of Roshi Enkyo O’Hara. She relocated to Florida in 2017, and became a member of the Southern Palm Zen Group. Under the guidance of Sensei Jane Jishin Faysash, Geido’s practice path turned towards serving the Sangha as Priest and she received priest ordination in November of 2019. Geido resides in Delray Beach with her husband, Bernie, and their cat, Izzy.