• Zen Is Eternal Life

• The Wild, White Goose: Volume I and II

• How To Grow A Lotus Blossom, Or How A Zen Buddhist Prepares For Death

• The Book of Life (with Rev. Daizui MacPhillamy)

• The Liturgy of the Order of Buddhist Contemplative for the Laity

• The Denkoroku or The Record of the Transmission of the Light (Ed.)

• Buddhist Writings on Meditation and Daily Practice: The Serene Reflection Meditation Tradition (Ed.)

• The Monastic Office (Ed.)

• Roar of the Tigress (with Rev. Daizui MacPhillamy (Ed.) )

British-born Soto Zen master, writer.
 

Born in 1924, England as Peggy Teressa Nancy Kennett.

She studied at Trinity College of Music, London, where she was awarded a Fellowship and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Music from Durham University.

She became a Buddhist in the Theravada tradition and spent her early Buddhist studies in London Buddhist Vihara and Buddhist Society. She began her priest training in 1962, having been ordained into the Chinese Buddhist Sangha in Malaysia by the Very Reverend Seck Kim Seng, Archbishop of Malacca. She was later introduced to Rinzai Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki in London where she held membership and lectured at the London Buddhist Society. She then went to Japan at the invitation of the Very Reverend Keido Chisan Koho Zenji, Chief Abbot of Dai Hon Zan Soji-ji, one of the two chief training monasteries of Soto Zen, in order to train there in that tradition. In 1963 she received the Dharma Transmission from Koho Zenji and later was certified by him as Roshi (Zen Master). She also received a First-Kyoshi and a Sei Degree, roughly equivalent to a Master and a Doctor of Divinity in Buddhism. She held several positions during her years in Japan including that of Foreign Guestmaster of Soji-ji and Abbess of her own temple in Mie Prefecture.

It had always been Koho Zenji's sincere wish that Soto Zen Buddhism be successfully transmitted to the West by a Westerner. He worked very hard to make it possible for her to train in Japan and, after his death, she left Japan in order to carry out his wish. In November 1969, she came to San Francisco on a lecture tour. The Zen Mission Society was founded the following year and moved to Mount Shasta for the founding of Shasta Abbey in November of 1970. In 1978 the name "Zen Mission Society" was changed to "The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives."

In addition to being the First Abbess of Shasta Abbey, she was an instructor at the University of California and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and a lecturer at universities throughout the world. She founded numerous Buddhist temples and meditation groups in Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.