Tassajara Zen Mountain Center

The San Francisco Zen Center bought a 126-acre hot springs property at the end of a 13.7-mile dirt road in the Ventana Wilderness in 1967 and renamed it Zenshinji, the Zen Mind Temple, during Shunryu Suzuki's tenure as its first abbot; it is described as the first Zen monastery established outside Asia and the oldest Japanese Soto Zen monastery in the United States. Life follows monastic rhythm: winter is a closed practice period, and each spring a Gate Opening Ceremony begins the four-month guest season, when visitors come for the hot springs baths, the creek, vegetarian cuisine and retreats alongside resident students.

The valley's isolation cuts both ways. The one-lane dirt road over 5,082-foot Chews Ridge makes access an event, and fire is a recurring reality: in 2008 the Basin Complex Fire reached the monastery and five monks stayed behind to protect it, after which the Zen Center formed a trained team known as the fire monks; later fires threatened the valley again. Tassajara is where American Zen institutionalized itself, and the entry holds both the practice history and the fire-road reality.

Visiting

Guest season runs Memorial Day to Labor Day, reached only by the steep one-lane road (or the center's shuttle); reservations for the next season open in January; during the winter practice period the valley is closed.

Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tassajara_Zendo_(San_Francisco_Zen_Center,_SFZC,_Soto).jpg), CC BY-SA 2.0.