Draft:Mountain Rain Zen Community

Mountain Rain Zen Community is a cooperative and independent community of Zen students and teachers in Vancouver, British Columbia, practicing Sōtō forms in the tradition of Shunryū Suzuki, while also drawing upon other Buddhist traditions. It is registered as a non-profit organization as well as a religious organization in British Columbia.

The community offers drop-in meditation practice, multi-day residential and non-residental Sesshin meditation intensives, and long and short-term residential practice. All practice sessions are live-streamed for online attendance, and dharma talks are published to a podcast.

History
In 1983 the Zen Practice Group of Karuna Mediation Society invited Zoketsu Norman Fischer to Vancouver. This led to the founding of MRZC in 2002, with Fischer as Founding Teacher. Myoshin Kate McCandless and Shinmon Michael Newton were later installed as Guiding Teachers in May 2017, after receiving priest ordination from Fischer in 2003 and dharma transmission in 2011.



Facilities
MRZC operates two practice locations:
 * The Wall Street Zendo, a storefront space in the Vancouver urban core, opened in April 2012.
 * Kōryūji (Bright Stream) Temple in a South Vancouver residential neighbourhood, a gift received in 2023 from the now-defunct Vancouver Zen Centre.