Everyone is a Teacher

Our Zen practice helps us realize: everyone is a teacher. All sentient beings – birds and trees, cabbages and worms – teach us when we have the eyes to hear and the ears to listen.Even bricks and tiles, pebbles and streams preach the dharma. Bob Rosenbaum is currently the guiding teacher at Ordinary Mind Sacramento.

      We need to remedy a record of Zen lineages which historically only listed male priests. Recently, Soto Zen sanghas have begun including women ancestors. At OMZ Sacramento we want to also honor our lay ancestors. Identifying our lay ancestors is a work in progress. You can find biographies of important lay practitioners, dating back to the time of Shakyamuni, along with a list of women ancestors and the traditional Soto lineage on our Ancestors page.

      At OMZ, all positions are open to any practitioner willing to undergo the training for that position. On a practical level, we acknowledge some people have more practice experience than others and can offer guidance. When we are having difficulties, we need to deal with the questions and conflicts which inevitably arise. When we have personal problems – and at OMZ we recognize Zen practice does not by itself automatically free us from our conditioned psychological issues – it helps to talk with a person who has some training in responding skillfully. So we do identify teachers and practice leaders. The current guiding teacher at OMZ Sacramento is Robert Rosenbaum, assisted by other long-time practitioners.

Practice Leaders

Robert Rosenbaum

Bob has been practicing Zen since 1972 but it was not until 1989 that he found his root teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman, at Berkeley Zen Center. Bob received lay entrustment in Soto Zen from Sojun in 2010, and founded a Zen group in the Sierra foothills shortly afterwards. Bob is one of the founding members of the Lay Zen Teachers Association.

Bob began learning Dayan Qigong from Master Hui Liu in 1990 and was in the first group of teachers authorized by Master Hui Liu. Robert then brought Dayan Qigong to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center’s Health Education program, where it has flourished. At the request of Master Liu Robert taught Dayan Qigong at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Francisco. He now carries on Master Liu’s legacy as a senior teacher at the Wen Wu School and offering annual workshops a Kripalu Yoga Center (in Massachusetts) and to his ongoing students in Melbourne, Australia and Lammi, Finland.

At the invitation of Karen Terzano he has been a visiting teacher at the Ordinary Mind Zen sangha in Finland. In 2019 Robert received denkai from Karento offer precepts as a teacher within Ordinary Mind Zen. Robert is currently working to develop an Ordinary Mind Zen practice community in Sacramento, California. Robert’s dharma name is Meikyo Onza – “Clear Mirror, Calm Sitting.”

 Bob received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Boston University in 1980 and was trained in neuropsychology by Edith Kaplan at the Boston VA. In his professional career he divided his time between brief psychotherapy and neuropsychology, working mostly at Kaiser Permanente; he received a Fulbright to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience in Bengaluru, India and also served for several years as the clinical director of the psychology training program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. More information about his professional interests and publications can be found at robertrosenbaumphd.com.

 Bob’s most recent book is That Is Not Your Mind! – Zen Reflections on the Surangama Sutra (2022). Bob is also the author of What’s Wrong with Mindfulness (and What Isn’t) (co-edited with Barry Magid; 2016); Walking the Way: 81 Zen Encounters with the Tao Te Ching (2013); and Zen and the Heart of Psychotherapy (1999)

Jeanne Courtney

Jeanne Courtney is Certified to teach Wild Goose First and Second Sets, Pa Da Gong and Taiji for Balance.

In 1999 she came to Wen Wu School to continue studies of Guang Ping Yang Tai Qi. She had practiced Tai Qi and also Zen Buddhist meditation, and studied Shao Lin with Kuo Yien Ling in Portsmouth Square in the early 1970’s then later Kuo style Tai Chi. Over many years these movement and meditation practices have helped to keep her grounded and healthy while undertaking college studies and working, often in stressful environments!

At Wen Wu School, Wild Goose QiGong captured her attention and has become the heart of her practice.

She first encountered Qi Gong healers and learned basic Qi Gong practices in 1985 while visiting with friends in China but the Wild Goose form is most compelling to her.
After learning the form she enrolled in the teacher’s training in order to study it more closely, while continuing her professional career as LCSW in the medical setting.

As way leads on to way teaching became a natural extension of her practice. She has been teaching first set in various venues in the Bay Area and elsewhere since 2002, and have been honored to teach second set at Wen Wu School since 2009.

In 2013 she retired from her work as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at Kaiser in the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Clinic.

It continues to be a great pleasure to share her Qigong practice as a teacher at Wen Wu School, ACTCM community classes, Energy Matters of the EastBay and private classes. She enjoys individual teaching with students, mixed level groups, small advanced classes and working collaboratively with other teachers in various venues.z