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
Zen in the United States expositor of Zen Buddhism and its unofficial ambassador to Western readers until his death in 1966. His 1949 book, "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism", featured a thirty-page introduction by Carl Jung, an emblem of the deepening relationship between Buddhism and major Western thinkers. One American who attempted to establish an American Buddhist movement was Dwight Goddard (1861–1939). Goddard was a Christian missionary to China when he first came in contact with Buddhism. In 1928, he spent a year living in a Zen monastery in Japan. In 1934, he founded "The Followers of Buddha, an American Brotherhood," with the goal of