The Buddha said the entirety of his teaching
was about suffering and its end.
Applying this to our lives, we can ask ourselves
before we act, “Will this help or will it harm?”

OMS Guiding Teacher
Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

Zuisei is a writer and lay Zen teacher based in Playa del Carmen in the south of Mexico. Zuisei lived and trained full time at Zen Mountain Monastery from 1995 to 2018, and was a monk for fourteen of those years. In 2018 she received shiho or dharma transmission (empowerment to teach) from Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Roshi, and after a short stint in New York City, moved back to Mexico, where she is originally from, and began teaching virtually.

She has served as the Teachings Editor at the Buddhist journal Tricycle, and her dharma writing has been featured there as well as in Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, and Parabola. Her books include Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion and the children’s book Weather Any Storm. 

As Ocean Mind Sangha’s Guiding Teacher, Zuisei continues to welcome students for group and private teaching. If you’d like to reach her directly, please send her an email.

*Banner photo by Kathleen Hinkel