Joan Iten Sutherland

Who is Joan Iten Sutherland?

Joan Sutherland is a senior teacher of Zen Buddhism and the founder of The Open Source, a network of Zen Buddhist practice communities in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she teaches through Awakened Life, the center of The Open Source. Awakened Life emphasizes non-hierarchical co-creation, the development of authentic American expressions of Zen, and the confluence of koans and creativity. Joan Sutherland is engaged in an intensive re-imagining of the koan tradition. She teaches frequent meditation and koan retreats as well as other innovative programs, such as artists’ retreats and retreats devoted to the practices of sleeping and dreaming; she holds a weekly koan salon, the first program of its kind anywhere. She is regularly invited to teach in other venues around the country. She is a writer whose work appears regularly in Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma, and has often been included in Shambhala’s annual Best Buddhist Writing anthologies. A translator from Chinese and Japanese, she is currently under contract with Wisdom Books to produce, with John Tarrant, a new translation of the major Chinese koan collections.