Personal Life Media

Jiun Foster, is a Senior Dharma Teacher with the Five Mountain Zen Order. Jiun began practicing Buddhism in 1988, and in 1993, after serving a tour of duty in the Army as a combat medical specialist where his one thousand-man rapid deployment Cavalry unit led the VIIth corps invasion of Iraq, he entered into training at the Tibetan Karma Triyana Dharmachakra monastery as a student of Bardor Tulku Rinpoche.

In 1994, he received monastic ordination from His Holiness, the Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche, and had the good fortune to reside at Kagyu Changchup Chuling in Portland Oregon when he was not traveling for teachings or retreat. At the turn of the century, during a weeklong intensive Vajrakilaya retreat with H.E. Garchen Rinpoche, he met one of his boyhood idols, Stephen K. Hayes – a legendary martial arts master, and an ordained practitioner and teacher of the Japanese esoteric Buddhist tradition of mikkyo. Jiun undertook an apprenticeship with Rev. Hayes, receiving Deshi Kanjo (esoteric disciple ordination), Shukke Tokudo (priest ordination), and training in the East Asian esoteric and meditative practices.

In 2008, as a dharma heir of Rev. Hayes, he began koan training with Paul Lynch, and in 2009 was formally brought into the Five Mountain Zen sangha by Rev. Lynch as a Bodhisattva priest and Dharma Holder. Installed as the school Abbot, he is the founder and president of the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary–a non-denominational Mahayana distributed learning institution. Jiun has served as director and teacher for dharma centers in the Tibetan Kagyu and Japanese Tendai traditions, and is currently the local abbot and teacher for Great Cloud Zen Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Jiun is currently pursuing his doctor of clinical psychology degree, and is the research assistant at the Center for Clinical Mindfulness and Meditation.