Peter Schneider (Zen priest) Peter Schneider (Zen priest) Peter Schneider (born 1937) is a Sōtō Zen priest, founder of Beginner's Mind Zen Center, located in Northridge, California. Peter and Jane Schneider were early students of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi in the 1960s. Both served as Suzuki-roshi's jisha (personal attendant) in the early years of the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Peter and Jane also assisted in transcription of his dharma talks for later publishing. Following Suzuki-roshi’s death, they accepted scholarships from the San Francisco Zen Center to study Buddhism in Japan. They lived and studied in Japan from 1973 to 1995. They founded the Beginner’s Mind Zen
Zen organisation and institutions According to Bodiford, "Zen is the predominant form of Buddhism because of dharma transmission": Bodiford distinguishes seven dimension which are discernible in both family relationships and in dharma lineages: The family-model is easier recognized when East Asian languages are being used, because the same terminology is used to describe both earthly and spiritual family relations. In Soto, dharma transmission establishes a lifelong relation between teacher and student. To qualify as a Zen priest, further training is required. In Rinzai, the most common form of transmission is the acknowledgement that one has stayed in the monastery for a certain amount of