PRESS RELEASE

From the best-selling author of the biography of Shunryu Suzuki (Crooked Cucumber), comes the story of creating the first Zen monastery in the West, in 1967—at Tassajara, 150 miles south of San Francisco.

A group of hippies and meditators worked in the Ventana Wilderness, inland from Big Sur, building what became a cultural milestone of the Sixties.

“For those who care about the genesis of Tassajara and Zen in America,
this is a fun read. David serves up a rich well of details and
memories and a window into a very creative time.” —Jack Kornfield

Publishing September 23, 2025, TASSAJARA STORIES: A Sort of Memoir/Oral History of the First Zen Buddhist Monastery in the West—The First Year, 1967 (Hardcover with black-and-white photographs: 978-1-958972-89-2, US $32.99) is peopled like a Sixties film of Buddhist invasion, with hippies, dreamers, lovers, and the first serious Zen practitioners in the U.S.

A distinctive Sixties spiritual enterprise is presented in TASSAJARA STORIES as a California story worth remembering—and honoring. Nyogen Senzaki, D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and of course Shunryu Suzuki and Richard Baker are all here. This is what happened at the founding of the first Zen monastery in the West.

Galleys for TASSAJARA STORIES are now available, so let me know if you’d like to see a review copy. The egalley can be accessed here as well.

“David Chadwick is one of the pioneers spreading dharma in the West. All my students study his books. I know all readers will love this book and these stories.” —Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

“David Chadwick, widely known as one of Suzuki Roshi’s favorites, captures the wacky spirit, the dedication, and the courage required to leap into the unknown that characterized the earliest Zen students surrounding Suzuki Roshi. (Full disclosure: David became one of my earliest friends when I began my practice in 1974.) Fifty-one years later, an ordained priest and transmitted teacher, I still look up to David as an original member of the A-team. This book, in his authentic and unduplicable voice, is an absolute treasure.” —Peter Coyote, actor, director, author

About the Author

DAVID CHADWICK, at the age of 21, in 1966, first rang the bell of Sokoji, a Soto Zen temple and the original home of the San Francisco Zen Center. Thus began his serious study under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Ordained a Zen priest in 1971, he later wrote Suzuki's biography, Crooked Cucumber. Chadwick is the primary preserver of the legacy of Shunryu Suzuki and those whose paths crossed his. See cuke.com and shunryusuzuki.com for more information. He now lives in Bali. He will be on a media tour from September 22 – Thanksgiving.

I hope you’ll be in touch.

JON M. SWEENEY / Religion Editor

Monkfish Book Publishing, Rhinebeck, New York

Phone 802-595-4497; Email jon@monkfishpublishing.com