About
Clear Mountain Zen offers the path of awareness and mindfulness, one that integrates both body and mind. We rely on the authority of the teacher, while respecting the sacred role of the student.
Our practice is respectful of the great traditions and rituals of Zen. However, in keeping with our western heritage, it is also integrative, ecumenical and dynamic in its application of those great traditions.
Clear Mountain sangha members also cooperate with and support the activities of other local Zen sanghas, including . Morning Star Zendo, Jersey City; Empty Bowl Zendo, Morristown, NJ; the Heart Circle Sangha in Ridgewood, NJ; and the Moon Water Sangha of the Empty Hand Zen Center.
Our Heritage
Zen has a rich history. The historical Buddha lived and taught in India in the 5th century BCE, and in the following centuries his teachings spread.
Japanese visitors to China studied Buddhism and brought it back to their own land beginning in the 12th Century CE. As Buddhism continued its eastern pilgrimage, it absorbed much of its surrounding context, taking much of value from Taoism and Shintoism. However, it maintained its strong emphasis on the role of meditative sitting, and on the role of the teacher in passing down lessons and practices.
Zen practice blossomed in the United States in the 1960s, facilitated by a group of master teachers and priests who arrived from Japan, Vietnam and China.
Clear Mountain is a member of the White Plum Asanga lineage. White Plum is a Zen school that was formed in the late 1970s from the inspiration of the late Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi, a master from Japan who founded the Zen Center of Los Angeles in the 1960s. The White Plum concept was fostered and made concrete by Tetsugen Bernard Glassman, Roshi,
Our Teachers
Carl Bachmann, Sensei
Carl Genjo Bachmann, Sensei, is a therapist in private practice. He Is a former inner city inner city social worker and social work administrator at a county board of social services.
Carl was introduced to Zen practice in the early 1970s. He studied with Roshi Bernie Glassman and Roshi Robert Kennedy, who formally transmitted dharma authority to Carl in 2010, recognizing him as Sensai. Carl took the dharma name “Genjo”, meaning “Original Silence.” At his installation, Sensai Bachmann said, “Zen has helped me experience the intimacy of not knowing, allowing me to live a more connected and open-hearted life. Teaching is an opportunity to help others experience this for themselves and to serve the greater community that is us."
Sensei Carl Genjo Bachmann
Robert Kennedy, S.J. Roshi (Left) and Carl Bachmann, Sensei (Right)
Guiding Teacher, Robert Kennedy, S.J.
Robert Kennedy, S.J. directs a number of communities practicing interfaith Zen in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area. Roshi Kennedy, a Jesuit Roman Catholic priest, teaches Theology at St. Peters College in Jersey City, NJ and is a psychotherapist in private practice. He is the author of several books, including Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit and Zen Gifts to Christians. He was ordained a priest in Japan in 1965 and studied Zen with Yamada Roshi in Japan, Maezumi Roshi in Los Angeles, and Tetsugen Bernard Glassman Roshi in New York. In 1991 he was installed as a Sensei in the White Plum Asanga lineage and was given the honorific title Roshi in 1997.