David Schneider

Born in 1951 in Louisville, Kentucky, David Schneider was the first child of Marc, a Jew and engineer and Georgia, his southern Baptist sociologist mother. David, rapidly acquired three sisters, the rudiments of a standard boomer education, and a bi-religious, Southern upbringing, involving Saturday School and Sunday School. He grew up in Pittsburgh, PA.

During the "Summer of Love" in 1967, he became interested in spirituality, and commenced as a Buddhist practitioner. He studied Zen and attended seshins with Joshu Sasaki Roshi. In January, 1971, he met Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, and he says, that did it. I April of the same year, he saw Suzuki Roshi and Trungpa Rinpoche together; that really did it.

David dropped out of Reed College to move into San Francisco Zen Center. He took up studies under Richard Baker Roshi, and in 1977, he received ordination as a "monk"-actually unsui or "cloud-water person." He did many academic and practical jobs as part of community life there, which ran in total from 1972-85. The "explosion" at SF Zen Center led to the departure of Baker Roshi. In 1984, in the formal zen shuso ceremony, David was ordained as a head monk at the Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco.

In 1985 David was accepted by Trungpa Rinpoche as a student. He attended Vajradhatu Seminary in 1986 and staffed Seminary again in 1988.

David wrote a book about Zen teacher Issan Dorsey called Street Zen, published in 1993 by Shambhala Publications. 1994 followed with a book of collected poems, Essential Zen, which he co-edited with Kazuaki Tanahashi.

In 1995, David was appointed director of Shambhala Europe by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.

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