About Us
Our Community
We are Zen practitioners, some of us longtimers and some of us newcomers, walking the Bodhisattva Path together, sharing our many years of life experience and spiritual learning. Our practice is rooted in the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts with an emphasis on creating compassionate community relationships through various expressions of service, dialogue, ceremonies, and our practice of kindness, generosity and equanimity.
As a virtual and in-person sangha, we are located in a variety of places around the U.S., and Canada. Our main physical meeting site is located on unceded Coast Miwok - Tamal-ko - lands. Many Heart of Compassion Zen sangha members live in the Greater Metropolitan Bay Area communities of Northern California. Others join us from rural places of West Marin County and cities as diverse as Portland, Tallahassee, Montreal and Los Angeles. Recognizing the sovereignty and cultural richness of Indigenous Peoples and their lands, we recognize and offer gratitude for their caring relationships with all beings across time and space.
We ensure a safe practice environment, and welcome everyone regardless of race, color, sex, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation.
Our Teachers
Jaune Evans
Jaune Evans (Ando Kanchi, Peaceful Land, Enduring Wisdom) serves as our Guiding Teacher. She established Heart of Compassion Zen in 2016 with dharma friends from three communities located in the unceded Coast Miwok Territory of West Marin, California. She is a Senior Priest and Transmitted Teacher serving the Everyday Zen Bay Area Sangha under the guidance of Zoketsu Norman Fischer Roshi. Jaune is a writer and photographer.
After many years of working in philanthropy and public health, especially with Indigenous-led communities, she is now formally retired, but continues her involvement as a consultant to earth-protectors and projects supporting cultural lifeways. She also serves on the Board of Directors at Commonweal and volunteers with cancer patients through Healing Circles Global. She is a member of the Branching Streams Advisory Committee of the Shunryu Suzuki Lineage of Sanghas, and a committee member of the DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access) Committee of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association.
Jaune lives with her dog, CeCe, in San Rafael, California.
Wendy Johnson
Wendy Johnson (Ryumon Arti, Dragon Gate, Peaceful Garden), our co-leader, joined Heart of Compassion Zen in 2020. She is an ordained Lay Entrusted Teacher in the traditions of both Thich Nhat Hanh and Shunryu Suzuki. She has been practicing Zen meditation for more than fifty years, and is one of the founders of the Organic Farm and Garden Program at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, California, where she lived with her family from 1975-2000.
Wendy also serves as a teacher at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has been leading meditation retreats, gardening and environmental education programs, and writing workshops in communities nationwide since the 1980s. She lives and farms with her husband, Peter, in Muir Beach, California, and delights in caring for her new grandchildren, Wesley and Rose.
