Big Mind, Inc./Kanzeon Zen Center
Salt Lake City, UT 84102
Telephone: (801) 593-1771
Description of Organization
Kanzeon International was founded in 1982, bringing together individuals and groups studying with Genpo Merzel Roshi throughout Europe and America.
The “Big Mind” process was developed by Zen Master Dennis Genpo Merzel after 30 years of formal Zen training and 25 years of Zen teaching and counseling. The technique comes out of both the Western psychotherapy tradition and the Eastern Zen tradition, a 2600-year-old teaching of self-realization and actualization. The “Big Mind” technique is a simple yet powerful and rapid way to help a person shift perspective and realize the wisdom that may take a meditator more than 15 or 20 years to accomplish. The process is designed to fast-track participants towards achieving self-realization. This process allows participants to awaken to a universal mind consciousness, creating a major shift in perspective: from a self-centered view of the world to one where all beings are seen as connected with one another.
Grant(s) Awarded
In 2009, a grant in the amount of $6,000 was awarded to fund costs associated with the training six of Genpo Roshi’s successor teachers in the Big Mind process and to enable the teachers to use the work more effectively with their students and pass the training along for others to use.
In 2008, a grant in the amount of $100,000 was awarded to create a series of five DVD sets which hold five hours each of material on three discs per set. The series provided a deeper and broader Big Mind learning experience to a wider and more diverse community.
In 2005, a grant in the amount of $200,000 was awarded to support operating expenses so that the Big Mind Organization could expand to wider and more diverse communities, to accelerate the training of workshop facilitators, and to raise the level of awareness of the Big Mind process.
In 2003, a grant in the amount of $165,000 was awarded to support operating expenses including trainer development, program expansion and administrative costs so that the focus can shigt to training facilitators and expanding the reach of the “Big Mind Process.”