Tony Bland

Tony Bland (born 1946, Starkville, Mississippi) is a dharma heir of Robert Livingston Roshi and the founder of the Starkville Zen Dōjō. A counsellor and psychotherapist by profession, he began training with Livingston at the New Orleans Zen Temple in 1984, took lay ordination in 1985, monastic ordination in 1992, served as shusso (head trainee) in 1998, and received shihō (dharma transmission) from Livingston in 2004 — becoming a fully authorised lineage holder and an independent teacher in the Deshimaru–Livingston line. He returned to Mississippi in 1994 and established the Starkville Zen Dōjō, beginning regular teaching in 1995 and assuming full teaching autonomy after the 2004 transmission. With Richard Reishin Collins he is one of the two documented dharma successors of Livingston Roshi^[1].