Adyashanti was born Steven Gray in San Jose, California in 1962. He began Zen training in his mid-twenties under Arvis Joen Justi, a lay dharma successor in the Taizan Maezumi lineage, and practised intensively for fourteen years. His own awakening, as he describes it, was a slow series of openings rather than a single moment, culminating in the late 1990s in a stable recognition. He began teaching at his teacher’s encouragement in 1996, taking the Sanskrit name Adyashanti, primordial peace.
His teaching draws from Zen but is not bounded by it. He speaks freely in the vocabulary of Advaita and the Christian mystics as well, and his concern is the universal recognition that all three traditions point to. His delivery is unusually clear and patient, and he has a particular gift for naming the subtler stages of awakening, the shadow material that surfaces afterward, and the long process of integration that the simpler nondual presentations sometimes skip.
He stopped public touring in 2017 to focus on writing and online teaching. The Open Gate Sangha, the organisation he founded, continues to host his recorded talks, courses, and the occasional retreat.
Where to start
- Falling into Grace — his most accessible book; transcribed retreat talks aimed at someone meeting nondual teaching for the first time.
- The End of Your World — the harder book about what comes after the first awakening; the integration process and its difficulties.
- Emptiness Dancing — concentrated transcribed teachings, more telegraphic in tone.
- The official site (Open Gate Sangha) — books, courses, recorded talks archive.
