Teacher

Roshi Robert Althouse is a fully empowered Zen teacher in the White Plum lineage and a fully ordained Zen Buddhist Priest. Roshi and his wife, Rev. June Ryushin Tanoue, co-founded the Zen Life & Meditation Center. Roshi is the Abbot of the Zen Center and it's primary teacher.

Althouse began teaching in Hawaii where he and his wife co-founded the Zen Center of Hawaii in 1993. He has been teaching for over 17 years and has lead countless meditation retreats, workshops, and classes.

While in Hawaii, Althouse started a community garden called "I Ka Pono" (Cultivating the Goodness) with a mission of modeling sustainable agriculture, celebrating biological and cultural diverstiy and nurturing and supporting community. The garden offered fresh organic produce to the town of Waimea on the Big Island every weekend for three years. It received many local grants and a federal grant from the USDA.

He and his wife moved to California in 2001 to work for the Peacemaker Community with Roshi Bernie Glassman, where Roshi Althouse served as the Director of the Zen Peacemaker Order for two years. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship for three years.

Shortly after 9/11, Althouse Roshi began teaching "Inner Disarmament" workshops all over the country. These workshops, based on much of the teachings from Nonviolent Communication (NVC) as taught by Marshall Rosenberg, taught how to use language pro-actively to deal more skillfully with conflicts and disagreements.

Althouse has studied with the following Zen Masters: Roshi Taizan Maezumi, Robert Robert Aitken, Roshi Bernie Glassman, and his transmission teacher, Roshi Nicolee Jikyo McMahon. He has also studied with the following Tibetan Vajrayana Masters: Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Gyaltrul Rinpoche. He also studied Nonviolent Communication with Marshall Rosenberg.

Althouse currently lives in Oak Park, Illinois with his wife June Tanoue, where they run the Zen Life & Meditation Center.