Joko Beck : Ask Biography

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Charlotte Joko Beck (March 27, 1917 - June 15, 2011) was an American Zen teacher and the author of the books Everyday Zen: Love and Work and Nothing Special: Living Zen. Born in New Jersey, she studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and worked for some time as a pianist and piano teacher. She married and raised a family of four children, then separated from her husband and worked as a teacher, secretary, and assistant in a university department. She began Zen practice in her 40s with Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi in Los Angeles, and later with Yasutani Roshi and Soen Roshi. Having received Dharma transmission from Taizan Maezumi Roshi, she opened the San Diego Zen Center in 1983, serving as its head teacher until July 2006.

Joko was responsible for a number of important innovations in Zen teaching. In particular, she taught students to work with the emotions of everyday life rather than attempting to avoid or escape them. Because she was adept at teaching students to work with their psychological states, she attracted a number of students who were interested in the relationship between Zen and modern psychology. Several of her Dharma heirs are practicing psychologists/psychiatrists. In 1995 Joko, along with 3 of her Dharma heirs, founded the Ordinary Mind Zen School. In 2006 Joko moved to Prescott, Arizona, where she continued to teach until she retired as a teacher in late 2010. In the spring of 2010, Joko announced that she had chosen Gary Nafstad to be her Dharma successor.

Shortly after Joko’s departure in 2006 a controversy arose over the future of the San Diego Zen Center. Joko Beck sent a letter in which she stated that she was revoking Dharma transmission from two senior students: Ezra Bayda and Elizabeth Hamilton. Joko also stated that the San Diego Zen Center should not claim to represent her or her teaching. Joko’s actions caught some long-time students off guard and led one of her Dharma heirs to question her judgment.

After years of declining health, Beck was placed under hospice care in June 2011 after her health rapidly deteriorated, she stopped eating and was dramatically losing weight. According to Beck's daughter, Brenda, up until the end “She is happy as a clam and, as she told me, will die when she’s ready. She says it’s soon.” Her last dying words were 'And this too is wonder'. Beck died on June 15, 2011.