Online Zoom Forum: Zen and Buddhist Therapy: Towards Healing and Psychological Well-being.
Date: Wednesday 15 July 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 15 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Chanan Tej:
Bio: Chanan Tej is a Buddhist psychotherapist, community herbalist, and yoga teacher, dedicated to the harmonious integration of healing, nature, and spirituality. With over a decade of experience, she skilfully weaves together psychotherapy, yoga, sacred sound, and a profound respect for the natural world.
Her holistic approach emphasises the inseparable connection between spiritual and ecological well-being. Residing on a small farm, Chanan nurtures her bond with the land through practices such as foraging, plant medicine making, forest bathing, and nature resonance. These daily experiences continually enrich her understanding of the spiritual and ethical dimensions of our relationships with ourselves, our communities, and the Earth.
Speakers:
Hakuün Roshi, lay name David Brazier, MA, PhD:
Title: Samadhi, Healing or Awakening.
Description: This talk invites an exploration of how we think about the vicissitudes of life and relates this to the functions that meditation has played in the life and history of Buddhism from abhidharma through to zen. It touches on the increasing medicalisation of how we regard our mental states, on different attitudes to karma and the cleansing of the mind and on the reception of the Dharma in the West in the difficult conditions of the contemporary world.
Bio: Hakuün Roshi, lay name David Brazier, MA, PhD, is a Buddhist monk and lineage holder in the Soto Zen line of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He is an author with fifteen books on Buddhism, psychology and poetry, lead tutor of a two year on-line Buddhist psychology training, <buddhistpsychology.ning.com> and creator of a Dharma Entrustment Programme for serious practitioners. When not travelling internationally he resides in a small private temple in central France.
Mo Bankey:
Title: Brilliant Sanity, Impermanence, and Possibility in Buddhism-Informed Therapy.
Description: This talk explores what is possible when the inherent wisdom of clients is centered in the therapeutic frame. Brilliant Sanity recognizes the inherent clarity, openness, and compassion within human experience. Remembering buddha-nature in the form of Brilliant Sanity opens client and therapist heart-minds to the possibility of insight and wakeful action even in the midst of confusion and suffering.
Bio: Mo Bankey (they/them) is Assistant Professor and Chair of Naropa University's Buddhism-Informed Contemplative Counseling program where they teach Buddhist Psychology courses, counseling skills courses, and lead Maitri Space Awareness retreats in Boulder, Colorado. Mo's 28 years of dharma practice focuses on how meditation can support courageous action in the world and heart-felt tending to our relationships with all beings. Mo is also a social justice-oriented psychotherapist and clinical supervisor with a small private practice focused on working with trauma, chronic illness, grief, and relationship counseling for activists, educators, healthcare providers, and LGBTQIA2s+ populations. Mo's teaching is infused with kindness, clarity, spaciousness, humility, and humor.
Dr Chia-Ying Chou:
Title: Letting Go for Compassion, Connection, and Healing.
Description: This talk will weave the clinical practice of Compassion Focused Therapy with Zen Ancestor, Eihei Dōgen's teaching: "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things". It will attempt to convey how "letting go" plays a role in compassion, connection, and healing. Presenter will exemplify the talk with clinical experiences working with individuals experiencing hoarding. An invitation to consider a Dharma-aligning way of practicing psychology - walking alongside the pain and suffering (and joy) of life - will be offered.
Bio: Chia-Ying Chou, PhD., is founder and director of the San Francisco Center for Compassion Focused Therapies (@SFCompassion), and a Buddhist who received lay ordination in 2018 in the Soto Zen tradition. Born and raised in Taiwan, Dr. Chou obtained her PhD from University College London with a focus on trauma. She spent her postdoc years at University of California, San Francisco working with individuals experiencing Hoarding. Dr. Chou’s interest focuses on the connection between trauma and the blocks and fears of letting-go and letting-in. She provides training and consultation for clinicians on CFT and Hoarding worldwide.
Assoc. Prof. Uğur Kocataşkın, PhD, LPC, CAT:
Title: Emptiness and Non-doing Paradox in Buddhism-based Mental Health Counseling.
Description: This talk examines the apparent paradox between interventionist effort in counseling and a non-doing approach that allows a therapeutic space to arise spontaneously through the relationship. It also considers how action of non-action relates to teachings on emptiness and to the counselor identity within this approach.
Bio: Uğur is a Buddhism-based contemplative social justice counselor in private practice and a Core Associate Professor at Naropa University. He is a dedicated student, educator, and facilitator in Buddhist study and practice, social justice, intersectionality, and multiple areas of focus within the counseling relationship. As a counselor educator and mediation instructor, Uğur loves teaching and strives to cultivate joy in both Buddhist and counseling practice through relationship—and sometimes a touch of mischief.
PhD, Transformative Studies, California institute of Integral Studies, CA. Dissertation topic: Somatic Awareness of Internalized Supremacy and Dominance in Mental Health Counseling and Counselor Education; MA, Buddhism-Informed Contemplative Counseling; Graduate Performance Certificate in Opera Performance, Boston Conservatory, MA; Bachelor of Music, Opera Performance, Boston Conservatory, MA.
Dr Jeffrey B. Rubin:
Bio: Jeffrey B. Rubin is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City and Bedford Hills, New York. who has worked with children, adolescents, and individual adults for over thirty years. He is also an experienced couples therapist with a strong background in both traditional psychotherapy and more contemporary modalities, and has worked in non-traditional ways with troubled families, meeting for several hours at a time or extended periods over a weekend, to break through difficult and long-standing family dynamics that are causing severe dysfunction and heartbreak.
Rubin is a graduate of Princeton University, Columbia University, and Union Institute. He received psychoanalytic training at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and The Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He has published five books, numerous articles and has taught at various universities, psychoanalytic institutes and meditation and yoga centers including Union Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University, The Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, The C. G. Jung Foundation of New York, The American Institute for Psychoanalysis, Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, The Harlem Family Institute, New York Insight and Yoga Sutra. He is a training and supervising analyst at the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
Rubin is widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on the integration of meditation and psychotherapy. In his ground-breaking and critically acclaimed Psychotherapy & Buddhism: Towards an Integration, Rubin forged his own unique synthesis of Eastern and Western thought. He illuminated each discipline's strengths and weaknesses and how they could enrich each other. In a recently published ebook, Meditative Psychotherapy, Rubin deepens and broadens his exploration of how a judicious blending of the best of the Eastern meditative and Western psychotherapeutic traditions offers us unmatched tools for living with greater awareness and freedom, wisdom, and compassion. He is the author of Psychotherapy Case Studies.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Paypal:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If you are having a difficulty paying by Paypal, then you can pay by bank transfer instead.
NB: you must also email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so we can send you the Zoom sign-in details.
Here are the bank transfer details:
Account Name: Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace
Bank: Bank of Scotland
Bank Address: Edinburgh Royal Mile Branch
Account Number: 06131159
Sort Code: 802000
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The IBAN number:
GB70 BOFS 8020 0006 1311 59
BIC:
BOFSGB21168