Valerie Forstman

Valerie "Meikō-an" Forstman (明光庵) is the current Guiding Teacher of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a Sanbō Zen *junshike* authorised within the lineage of Rubén Habito's Maria Kannon Zen Center and the patriarchate of Yamada Ryōun^[1]. A musician and theologian by training, she served on the faculty of Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, eventually as associate dean, before stepping into full-time Zen teaching^[1].

She began formal practice with Rubén Habito at the Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, completing the Sanbō Zen kōan curriculum under him and receiving authorisation as a Zen teacher (*zenkyōshi*) in 2005. In 2015, after additional training under Yamada Ryōun in Kamakura, she was elevated to *junshike* (associate master)^[1]. She was appointed Guiding Teacher of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in 2015 following Henry Shukman's transition to emeritus status, and has since directed weekly zazen, residential sesshin, and the centre's affiliate sangha network across the United States^[1][2].

Her teaching emphasises the silent introspective dimension of kōan work and the Christian-contemplative resonances first explored within the lineage by Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle and Rubén Habito; she also leads programmes in Germany under the international Sanbō Zen network^[1].