Hidden Valley Zen Center

The land came first from a plant nursery. Rosalind E. Sarver (1905-1998) moved from Virginia with her husband to grow cannas under the ancient oaks of North San Diego County, developing new varieties of the flowering plant and selling them around the world. After her husband died not long after, she ran the nursery herself for decades. She was also a student of Lola Lee, and she donated three acres to the Order of the Ancient Wisdom, founded in 1968 by Tien-li Lola Lee, Osho, a long-time student of Dr. Henry Chikuen Kugai Platov, whose primary teacher was Sokei-an (Shigetsu Sasaki), founder of the First Zen Institute of America in New York City.

The kitchen and dining hall went up first. As the group grew, the zendo followed, built on that same donated plot. When Mrs. Sarver died in 1998 she left the rest of her property to the center, and the Sarver Children's Park was dedicated to her memory. A labyrinth was added later, built with help from Three Treasures Zen Community Sangha. The Kannon-do, once a rental residence, now houses residential trainees and sesshin participants, and a smaller building called the Casita is sometimes used as well. Today the grounds are described as 23 acres of open space and meditation gardens.

In 1996, with her health failing, Lola Lee asked her students to find a new teacher. Members went to Commonweal to ask Shodo Harada Roshi, who sent them to Mitra Bishop-roshi, then living in New Mexico. She came to lead a retreat, and by its end both Lola Lee and the students asked her to stay on as teacher. Lola Lee died in 1997. Sozui Schubert-sensei, born in Hildesheim, Germany, in 1965, and trained for some twenty years at Harada Roshi's Sogen-ji in Okayama, Japan, arrived as junior teacher on May 15, 2013. The center, formally Yuukoku-san Sogenji, belongs to the One Drop Zen Sangha founded by Harada Roshi.

Practice here is Rinzai Zen, centered on zazen and on susok'kan, the extended out-breath, which the center calls the basis of practice even for koan students. Sitting periods run in two pairs of 25 minutes, broken by seven to ten minutes of walking meditation. Newcomers begin with a half-day introduction, usually on the first Saturday of the month, before sitting formally. Teaching is free, and the center asks for help with upkeep.

Sesshin runs three to seven days of silent zazen, with sanzen offered twice daily and teisho each day, and is open to those who sit regularly. The longer summer osesshin begins at 5 a.m. and closes with evening zazen at 9.