Meet Ancient Oaks

In Savannah:

Ancient Oaks is a Savannah based Zen training center and community of The Zen Garland Order for Zen practice, education, healing, and service. Zen Garland currently has centers in the USA, Germany, and South Africa. Ancient Oaks is home base to the founders of The Zen Garland Order, Roshi Paul Genki Kahn, Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn, and other assistant teachers from the Order. Ancient Oaks provides a warm, safe, and welcoming learning and practice environment. We are actively working to develop a multicultural and diverse community here in Savannah.

Our Practice

Ancient Oaks brings the Zen Garland Way to Savannah, a thorough, holistic, and modern approach to Zen training. Our teachers guide each student to apply Zen skills and perspectives to their personal lives – their goals, motivations, relationships, work, and play. Our teachings are carefully crafted and integrated, reflecting the venerable tradition of Zen complemented by modern psychology, science, and philosophy and expressed in language and practices appropriate to our present moment.

Ancient Oaks Teachers

Roshi Paul Genki Kahn

” Zen is not an escape from self, but an inclusive expansion of self into chosen spheres of attention, care, and identity.

We do not awaken from our wounds—we awaken through them.

Zen practice makes room for the whole person. Nothing is left behind—not our grief, not our longing, not even our confusion. Everything becomes the path. Head for the dark, the light will come.“

One of the living Zen masters of our time, Roshi Genki augments traditional Zen practices with modern psychology, philosophy, science, and socially engaged service to marginalized and disadvantaged communities. Roshi Genki is a Dharma Successor and full Zen Priest in the Japanese Soto Zen lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi and Zen Master Bernie Glassman. He served as personal attendant (Jisha) to both.

Roshi Genki has developed a thorough and profound holistic approach to Zen practice that offers personal and inter-relational development for skillful living in the world with love, service, and joy. Roshi Genki describes this approach to spirituality as The Practice of Presence and Reclaiming the World As Sacred. Roshi Genki emphasizes that the Zen training hall is our daily life, our way of being in the world with ourselves, our intimate circle, our work, and our communities.

Dharma Successors of Roshi Genki in ZGO

Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn
Co-Founder of The Zen Garland Order and Ancient Oaks Zen in Savannah, GA. Master Zen Teacher, Board Member of the Zen Garland Order

Grandfather Shoko Sings-Alone, Roshi
Master Zen Teacher, Founder of Red Path Zen

Roshi Paul Kisho Stern
Master Zen Teacher, President of the Zen Garland Order & Spiritual Director of Dharma River, Winona, Minnesota

Roshi Wolfgang Okami Schmachtenberg
Master Zen Teacher & Spiritual Director of Eternal Way in Germany

Sensei Yves Ensho Calderone
Zen Teacher & Spiritual Director of Deep Blues Zen Community in Memphis, TN

Sangha Coordinators with Roshi Genki

David Ando Rosenstein
Senior Practitioner & Coordinator of Two Oceans Zen Community, Cape Town, South Africa

Kai Hoshiko Starn
Senior Practitioner & Coordinator of Clear Lake Zen Community, Bridgeport, CT

Dharma Holders of Roshi Genki

Rev. Sydney Nonin Sims
Dharma Holder & Zen Priest, Camarillo, California

Rev. Iain Tucker Sansui Brown
Dharma Holder & Zen Priest, Savannah, Georgia

Rev. Joanne Kyouji Cacciatore
Dharma Holder & Zen Priest, Cornville, Arizona

Zen Priests with Roshi Genki

Rev. Scot Taikai Robinson
Senior Practitioner & Zen Novice Priest, North Carolina

Rev. Thomas Kian Senegeto
Senior Practitioner & Zen Priest, New Jersey (deceased)

Dharma Successors of Roshi Genki outside of ZGO

Roshi Eran Junryu Vardi
Master Zen Teacher and Founder of the Eiryu-Ji Zen Community in Wyckoff, NJ. Junryu holds the rank of 6th degree black belt, and is a senior instructor under the United States Aikido Federation.

Roshi Greg Zenshin Noble
Master Zen Teacher, Founder of the Zenshinkai Association. Zenshin https://www.zenshinkai.org/holds the rank of Rokudan (6th degree black belt), awarded by Aikikai Foundation in Tokyo, Japan.

Roshi William Jikai Greenberg
Retired Master Zen Teacher and Priest.

Sensei Kathleen Kanno Dowd
Retired Zen Teacher and Priest

*Roshi Ann Ankai Wagner
Master Zen Teacher & Spiritual Director of Christian Zen (deceased)

*Sensei Phil Sengetsu Kolman
Zen Teacher & Priest (deceased)

Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn

“Surrender notions of self with a softening heart, gently smoothing the edges until every ounce of being – skills, strengths, flaws and vulnerabilities – is offered freely. Let go and take hold, no way out, no way back, nothing lingering.”

Roshi Monika Genmitsu Tara-Singer Kahn is a Zen Master Teacher and Zen Buddhist Priest ordained and empowered by Roshi Paul Genki Kahn, in the lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. She is Co-founder and Secretary of the Board of Directors of The Zen Garland Order and co-Founder of Ancient Oaks Zen, Savannah, Georgia. As Tara-singer, Roshi Genmitsu is Spiritual Director of Red Path Zen, successor to Grandfather Shoko Sings-Alone, Roshi, a Lakota trained Medicine Ceremonialist and also Dharma successor to Roshi Genki. She works as a professional Compassionate Bereavement Care Counselor and Family Services Coordinator for the MISS Foundation and the Selah Carefarm, providing services and aid to traumatically bereaved families in their difficult grieving process. Roshi Genmitsu is a former Alpine mountaineer and Co-Directed two government supported schools in Switzerland for 24 years training young adults for farming and trade careers.

Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn

Dharma Successors of Roshi Genmitsu

Sensei Trish Baishin Johnson
Zen Teacher & Priest, Co-Founder of the Dharma River Zen Community in Winona, MN, Board member of the Zen Garland Order

Sensei Susan Kijin Bruce
Zen Teacher & Priest in the Zen Garland Order. Monroe Township, NJ

Dharma Successors of Roshi Genmitsu outside of the Zen Garland Order

Sensei John Mitsudo Mancuso
Zen Teacher & Priest, Founder of the Infinite Circle Zen Community in Fishkill, NY.

Sangha Coordinators & Priests of Roshi Genmitsu

Kai-Uwe Juushin Trollmann
Dharma Holder & Zen Novice Priest, Founder of the Dharma Herz Zen Community in Duisburg, Germany

Emily Yushin Parr
Zen Novice Priest, Ancient Oaks Zen Community

Rev. Iain Tucker Sansui Brown

Rev. Iain Tucker Sansui Brown was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He has a P.h.D in pastoral care and clinical mental health counseling. He began practicing meditation during college. After earning his Ph.D. in 2012, Sansui and his wife, Yushin, accepted an invitation to join an interfaith community in New Mexico. They became AmeriCorps volunteers in Las Cruces and joined The Order of Clear Mind Zen (OCMZ).

After a time of moving around with his young family and In the search of a new spiritual home, Sansui discovered the Zen Garland order.

He began studying with Roshi Genki in 2019 and received Denkai in 2020 (i.e., a public ceremony was held in 2023). He was Shuso for the spring ango and sesshin in 2021. Sansui currently serves as a priest and assistant teacher of the Ancient Oaks Zen Community in Savannah, Georgia where he also works for the VA and as a Chaplin for the military. Rev. Tucker Sansui Brown is in charge of the introduction to Zen Meditation at Ancient Oaks.

Travis Bukai Dodd

“Zen is a path to fully mature as a human being (although that might not be quite what you expect.)“

Travis Bukai Dodd is a student of Roshi Paul Genki Kahn, the Co-Founder of The International Zen Garland Order and Ancient Oaks Zen Community in Savannah Georgia. Bukai began formal Zen practice in 2008 at the Savannah Zen Center, which had an affiliation with the Zen Center of San Francisco, a Soto Zen organization. He also studied at various centers throughout the southeast including the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and the Southern Dharma Retreat Center. He joined the Ancient Oaks Zen Community in 2023 and has been with them ever since. A native Savannahian, he is co-director of the Gretchen Greene School of Dance. He lives with his husband of 25 years, Chris, and is active with the LGBTQ+ community.

Travis Bukai Dodd

Paul Jōshu Goeman

“Zen is a grounding form of self-care for me, a way to build and nurture intimacy with myself and to connect more genuinely and fully with others and the world around me just as it is.”.

Paul Jōshu Goeman is a retired Army combat medic and healthcare administrator with over 22 years of service, including one tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. For a decade, he served as a Master Resilience Trainer and Facilitator through the Army and University of Pennsylvania, teaching skills in mindfulness, meditation, and emotional resilience. Raised in both evangelical and Catholic traditions and confirmed Catholic, Jōshu also participated in sweat lodges with the Tule River Tribe in California. He began practicing Zen in 2024 with Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn at the Ancient Oaks Zen Community and took the Vows in April 2025 as a member of the Zen Garland Order. Jōshu is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Social Work at Columbia University and is locally active with the LGBTQ+ community .