Zen Group of Western Australia Zen Group of Western Australia The Zen Group of Western Australia (ZGWA) is an organization of lay zen practitioners located in Perth, Western Australia. The ZGWA is formally affiliated with the Diamond Sangha tradition of Zen Buddhism, which was founded in Hawaii in 1959 by Robert Aitken Roshi. In keeping with Diamond Sangha tradition, the ZGWA uses rituals from both the Soto and Rinzai schools. Mediation practices of Shikantaza from the Sōtō school and koan training from the Rinzai school are typical forms of practise employed by students in the group, under the guidance of the groups roshi. ZGWA's senior
Buddhism in Vietnam and a new Thiền style has "no affinity with or any foundation in traditional Vietnamese Buddhist practices" and according to Alexander Soucy (2007) his style of Zen Buddhism is not reflective of actual Vietnamese Buddhism. Thích Nhất Hạnh often recounts about his early Thiền practices in Vietnam in his Dharma talks saying that he continued and developed this practice in the West which has a distinctive Vietnamese Thiền flavor. Thích Nhất Hạnh's Buddhist teachings have started to return to a Vietnam where the Buddhist landscape is now being shaped by the combined Vietnamese and Westernized Buddhism that is focused more