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Teacher profile

Julie Seido Nelson

Zen · Zen, Honestly Examined

Zen sensei in the Maezumi lineage who writes about the pitfalls of Zen practice from inside a community that lived through them.

ZenUnited States
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About the teacher

Julie Seido Nelson

Julie Seido Nelson is a sensei, a transmitted teacher in the Zen lineage of Maezumi Roshi. She is also an economist and writer, and her blog moves between Zen and the subjects she has worked on for years — economics, ethics, gender, climate and language.

Her book *Practicing Safe Zen: Navigating the Pitfalls on the Road to Liberation*, published in 2025, is written from firsthand experience of a Zen community in greater Boston that went through more than one abuse scandal. She sets the dangers she names against core Zen teaching at every step, and is careful to keep both halves in view: the liberation Zen offers is real, and the practice has to be entered carefully.

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