Practicing Safe Zen

Navigating the Pitfalls on the Road to Liberation

Julie Seido Nelson

Paperback
978-1-958972-78-6
US $24.95 Bookshop Amazon Barnes & Noble
eBook available
June 2025

In a time when abuse at the hands of religious leaders is too common comes this guide to making the most of the Zen tradition while protecting and empowering yourself

“This is a thoroughly engaging exploration based on deep knowledge of the tradition as well as contemporary research.” —Martine Batchelor, author, Principles of Zen

While the liberation that Zen offers is real, it must be engaged with carefully, explains this sensei. Her book is neither a memoir about a single case of abuse nor a bloodless academic study. Nelson reflects on the multiple dangers in Zen, from firsthand experience in Boston—where documented abuse recently took place—integrating her discussion at every step with core Zen teachings.

“Practicing Safe Zen imparts a lesson we all will have to learn if we want to truly mature in our spiritual practice.” —Barry Magid, author, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness

Julie Seido Nelson is a transmitted teacher (Sensei) in the Maezumi Roshi Zen lineage. Her home Zen community is the Greater Boston Zen Center, a sangha which has experienced three major upheavals due to teacher arrogance and abuses of power over the last several years. She is also a teacher at the Great Plains Zen Center in Monroe, Wisconsin. She has written for popular Buddhist audiences in Tricycle magazine and on her blog. Her Zen talks have been published in the Greater Boston Zen Center podcast series.

She is now a professor emeritus after a career in research and teaching. Nelson is the author of Economics for Humans (University of Chicago Press) as well as many academic books, book chapters and articles published by Oxford University Press, Routledge, Springer, Blackwell, and others. Having begun Zen practice in 2004, she has found it to be of immense value. She is deeply saddened when people, either in addition to or instead of realizing the benefits, suffer great harm.

“Julie Nelson has begun exposing the pitfalls of Zen as a Western Community spiritual practice. Through her own personal experiences and her professional expertise, she illuminates the core problem that may steer Zen practitioners into dangerous territory. In order to do the necessary work of Buddhism—lessening the ego’s toxic grip—Zen students need to become vulnerable and allow the Zen teacher to guide them. Yet, in this vulnerable relationship, Zen students may be exploited by their teacher or a community that has succumbed to cult dynamics. In this important work, Julie Nelson points out the underlying problems, how Zen Centers go astray, how practitioners suffer and how to have a healthier practice place.” —Grace Schireson, Zen Abbess, president of Shogaku Zen Institute, and author of Naked in the Zendo and Zen Women

“Practicing Safe Zen fills me with gratitude, because here at last, in clear and compelling language, is precisely the book we need for addressing teachers’ abuses of power, sex, and money, and for building resilient sanghas that exemplify both compassion and accountability. Julie Seido Nelson's vitally important book should be read by every Zen teacher, board member, and student.” —Rev. Steve Kanji Ruhl, MDiv, Zen Buddhist minister, author of Appalacian Zen and The Whole Earth is Medicine

“A must-read manual, born of the author’s long personal experience with misconduct, for how to protect yourself and your sangha from abuse of power, beginning with how to approach and engage safely and wisely with the teachings. Nelson identifies the problem of sexual misconduct in Buddhist communities as rooted in more than one factor, including human psychology, institutional structure and the balance of power. This book belongs on the front shelf of every Zen Center.” —Willa Blythe Baker, author of The Wakeful Body