The American Zen Teachers Association was founded in the late nineteen eighties as the Second Generation Zen Teachers Group. It's first president was Bernard Glassman Roshi. It is a peer-group organization of ordained and lay Zen Buddhist teachers all of whom have received either teaching authorization or dharma transmission from the mostly Asian Zen teachers who brought their practices to America in the second half of the twentieth century, or their heirs. The first meetings of the AZTA were attended by a dozen or so people, male and female.

Today the AZTA has grown to approximately one hundred members, fifty or sixty of whom regularly attend its annual meetings. AZTA members serve sanghas ranging from a dozen or so people who meet and practice in members’ homes or area churches to those composed of three or four hundred members who meet and practice in large temples and monasteries.

While it resists being a "credentialing body," the prominence of the AZTA is such that with the surprising number of people who simply declare themselves "Zen masters" as well as the more difficult situation of others who can claim a technical lineage but have questionable training, its directory has become a defacto list of authentic Zen teachers in the west for people seeking to sort out such things.

The AZTA's second president was Sojun Mel Weitsman Roshi, its third president was Myogen Steven Stucky Sensei, its fourth president is Jisho Warner Roshi.

http://www.americanzenteachers.org/ http://www.impermanent.net/bowz/imagegallery4.html