Peter van der Sterre

San Francisco Zen Center / Beginners Mind Temple
San Francisco, CA

Peter van der Sterre was ordained by Richard Baker in 1975 and practiced at Zen Center in San Francisco, Tassajara, and Green Gulch, returning to the marketplace in 1983 to establish a construction company and support his family. Prior to his arrival at Zen Center in 1972, he lived with extended families and practiced the solitary path of unguided meditation and rough carpentry in San Francisco, Custer, South Dakota, Bolton, Mass. and Zuni, New Mexico.

He joined the Everyday Zen Community in 2001, and was the first Bay Area Shuso. Since receiving transmission from Norman in 2011, he has been exploring the challenges and opportunities that poses, with the intention to extend his practice and support to others.

In San Francisco, less than three blocks from Zen Center, he has created, in association with the Everyday Zen Community, The Oak Street Zendo, which offers a daily morning schedule, as well as several weekly classes and monthly half-day sittings since its dedication in January 2015. The power and engagement of group sitting and study has formed the core of his activity, both within and without the Everyday Zen practice calendar. Recently he joined the Dharma Sangha practice group at San Quentin.

A few years ago he discovered an old Basque boarding house in the North End of Boise, Idaho. With others, he renovated one of the existing units and extended the new space up into the attic level to create a zendo. Boise has several Buddhist groups, and he has connected with the Floating Clouds Sangha, who now have a place called The 7th Street Zendo to meet and hold weekly classes and monthly half-day sittings.