Our History

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki arrived in the San Francisco Bay area in 1958. During the next decade, San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center were created through his inspiration. In 1966, Suzuki established Haiku Zendo Meditation Center in a private home in Los Altos as an affiliate of the center in San Francisco. His lectures at Haiku Zendo are recorded in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. his biography, Crooked Cucumber, was published in 1999.

In 1970, Haiku Zendo invited the respected Zen monk Kobun Chino to come from Japan to be its spiritual leader. By the late 1970's, the practice at Haiku Zendo had outgrown its facilities. As a result, Kannon Do was established in Mountain View in 1981.

Kannon Do shares this tradition of practice established in Shunryu Suzuki with San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara, Berkeley Zen Center, Sonoma Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County. Centers affiliated with Kannon Do include Zen Heart Sangha in Redwood City/Woodside, Ashland Zen Center in Ashland, Oregon, and the Casco Zen Center in Casco, Maine.

Our Teacher

Les Kaye has been integrally involved in developing an American Zen practice both at Haiku Zendo and at Kannon Do. He was ordained as a Zen monk by Shunryu Suzuki in 1971, and he was appointed spiritual leader of Kannon Do in 1982. In 1986, he was recognized as a Zen teacher and a successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki.

Starting in 1958, Les worked for IBM in San Jose for over 30 years. His book Zen at Work includes stories of how his own meditation practice enhanced the quality of his life and work at IBM. Les has also written a book on Ōryōki, the traditional way of serving and eating meals in Soto Zen Monasteries

Transcriptions of some of his recent lectures are available here