Mushin Abby Terris founded the Corvallis Zen Circle and has been the primary teacher and guide since 1992. Initially practicing in rented space, she and the early members built a small Zen hut, Dharma Garden Zendo, in 2004 and expanded the practice schedule. Outgrowing this, too, the group began efforts to establish a larger practice home and renamed the group Sangha Jewel Zen Center, which opened in March of 2019. This allowed for a full schedule of Dharma offerings — zazen, sanzen, retreats and formal study. In March of 2020 a new, larger sanctuary was completed, just in time for the onset of the Covid shut-down. This introduced us also to Zoomdo practice, which now continues to be offered for some services.

     Mushin began her Zen study with Glen Webb and the Seattle Zen Center in 1975, after practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) for several years. She met Robert Aitken Roshi in 1976 on his visit to Seattle, and went for residential training at the Maui Zendo with him the following winter. She found his kindness, Dharma clarity, straight-talking commitment to social action, and his laughter quite inspiring. After returning to the mainland, she continued daily practice with Takabayashi Genki Roshi, who had arrived from Japan to lead the Seattle Zen Center while she was on Maui. She also studied briefly with Joan Rieck Roshi, Aitken Roshi’s Dharma sister, and sat a number of retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh and Korean Zen master Sueng Sahn.

     Married and the mother of two daughters, working as a psychotherapist, she continued to practice and lead a small sitting group in the attic of her home. In spite of her other responsibilities (and joys!) she was always determined to carve out some time for zazen and even managed, with the kind permission of her family, to attend regular retreats.

     In 1983 she began Zen study with Jan Chozen Bays who was leading a sesshin at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center. After that initial meeting, the experience of continuous, systematic practice with a mature teacher enriched her ability to step into a more formal teaching function in Corvallis. At her Jukai ceremony she received the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts and the Dharma name, Mushin. Her name means “no mind”, which can be understood as “clear and open heart-mind”. Mushin received formal transmission to teach in the White Plum Dharma lineage in 2013.

     On April 13th, 2005, I gave Sangha Jewel Transmission to Sogen Ken Vance-Borland, a committed zen student of fifteen years.

     After holding a variety of early career jobs, he worked as a journeyman electrician for twenty years before returning for a BS in Zoology and an MS in wildlife science. During that time he worked as a Geographic Information Systems analyst, mapping genetic variation of Douglas Fir across the Pacific Northwest, and tracking salmon habitat quality in relation to human land use across Western Oregon. He was the founding director of The Conservation Planning Institute, taking on projects for the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion of Southern Oregon and Northern California, the Greater Yellowstone ecoregion, the Great Sandhills of Saskatchewan, and the Central and Northern Coast of British Columbia, the last of which contributed to protection of over six million acres of coastal temperate rainforest.

     In 2009, he began a full Zen practice with Mushin Abby Terris and also attended sesshins at Great Vow Monastery with Chozen and Hogen Bays. From 2016 to 2020, he was the property development supervisor for the building of Sangha Jewel Zen Center. Sogen has also served as both shuso and tenzo, and was the SJZC board president from 2021-2024. He and his wife have a son, daughter, three grandchildren, and a good dog, Max.