Gyokuko Carlson is a Soto Zen roshi

Roshi

is a Japanese honorific title used in Zen Buddhism that literally means "old teacher" or "elder master" and sometimes denotes a person who gives spiritual guidance to a Zen sangha or congregation...

 and co-abbot of Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, United States, along with her husband, Kyogen Carlson. Carlson and her husband practiced at Shasta Abbey

Shasta Abbey

Shasta Abbey is a Zen Buddhist Monastery, established in 1970 by Houn Jiyu-Kennett in Mount Shasta, California, in the United States. It is a training monastery, and is open to visitors who want to learn about Buddhism....

 when Jiyu Kennett

Houn Jiyu-Kennett

Houn Jiyu-Kennett, , born Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett, was a British roshi most famous for having been the first female to be sanctioned by the Soto School of Japan to teach in the West. Jiyu-Kennett founded Shasta Abbey in Mount Shasta, California in 1970 after many years spent studying Zen and...

 was the abbot (and from whom she received Dharma transmission

Dharma transmission

Dharma transmission refers to "the manner in which the teaching, or Dharma, is passed from a Zen master to their disciple and heir...

), leaving to found their own center in 1986 when celibacy became a requirement there. She has been a practitioner of Zen Buddhism for more than thirty years, and is a member of the American Zen Teachers Association

American Zen Teachers Association

The American Zen Teachers Association was founded in the late 1980s as the Second Generation Zen Teachers Group. 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...

. Gyokuko and Kyogen Carlson have come to be known as the major non-Shasta Abbey line in succession to Jiyu Kennett; their Zen center has become the largest Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

 congregation in Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

. Carlson's main teaching emphasis is the implementation of spiritual practice into daily life. Her family religious education program was developed from Unitarian Universalist practices, transformed by Buddhist principles. It is the largest Buddhist child education program in Oregon, and one of the largest and oldest in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.