“I have great respect for David Chadwick. He is one of the pioneers spreading dharma in the West. All my students study his books. I know all readers will love this book and these stories.” —Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

“Two in three Americans today say they are ‘spiritual,’ while one in four identifies as ‘spiritual but not religious.’ For full immersion in one of the deepest well-springs of this widespread cultural revolution, dive into these stories of free spirits and seekers creating a uniquely western monastic community rooted in centuries of Zen Buddhist practice and led by a teacher true to the moment. No one tells it better than David Chadwick, with a firsthand feel for the high adventure and deep play of mind-changing history embodied in the making.” —Steven M. Tipton, author of In and Out of Church: The Moral Arc of Spiritual Change in America

“For those who care about the genesis of Tassajara and Zen in America, this is a fun read. David serves up a rich well of details and memories and a window into a very creative time.” —Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart

“This book is as priceless as discovering a previously unknown time capsule. David Chadwick, widely known as one of Suzuki Roshi’s favorites, captures the wacky spirit, the dedication, and the courage required to leap into the unknown that characterized the earliest Zen students surrounding Suzuki Roshi. (Full disclosure: David became one of my earliest friends when I began my practice in 1974.) Fifty-one years later, an ordained priest and transmitted teacher, I still look up to David as an original member of the A-team. This book, in his authentic and unduplicable voice, is an absolute treasure. Read it. Give a copy to a friend.” —Peter Coyote (Hosho Jishi), actor, director, author

“I had a good time reading Tassajara Stories and hoped they would never end. Just as you can’t learn Zen from a book, you can’t really know the Tassajara experience even through this amazing memoir. But you can get caught up in it, especially when it is written with such immediacy and love as David Chadwick has done it. There are valuable lessons galore and more colorful personalities that you could ever hope to find in a faraway haven in the enchanting but haunted woods.” —Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul

“An engrossing account of the people and antics that defined the Tassajara monastery in 1967.” —Kirkus Reviews

“David Chadwick’s latest book on the expansion of Buddhism in America—Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir/Oral History of the First Zen Buddhist Monastery in the West—The First Year, 1967—takes readers back to the early days of the monastery founded by Buddhis master Shunryu Suzuki in a mountainous California forest…. [H]e introduces people who hammered the Tassajara facility together, baked the bread, meditated, mediated, and created ‘a community and a commune’ where they could study and practice.” —Cathy Lynn Grossman, Publishers Weekly, July 8, 2025

“Chadwick has set out to tell Tassajara Stories about the first Zen monastery in the West, founded by Shunryu Suzuki and others in a mountain valley inland from the Big Sur coast of California. His book combines memoir (Chadwick was there), oral history, lively color and storytelling, and a documentarian’s attention to detail. . . . Highly recommended.” —SpiritualityandPractice.com

“Tassajara Stories is a marvelous and entertaining book and David Chadwick is a tremendous storyteller. We have here a record of his lifelong passion to record the arrival of Zen in California. I opened the book to check it out, sat down at the kitchen table and there went my afternoon, reading and reading. The best thing, though, is that these stories touch on the core of practice, and the reason you might want to turn your heart toward the great matter. David encourages us to Zen practice in a subtle and amusing way. I’m giving it as a gift and reading it again myself.” —John Tarrant, author of The Story of the Buddha

“I just finished reading Tassajara Stories. I liked it. Engrossing. Alive.” —Jerry Brown, former governor of California, current chair of the California-China Climate Institute