From Roshi’s death and Spiritual Steppingstones August 8, 2008

When the founder of Zen Center of Los Angeles, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, died in 1995, his first successor, Bernie Glassman, became the Abbot of the temple. Since Bernie lived in New York and his already full plate of responsibilities greatly increased when Roshi died, he appointed three people to manage the Center in his absence. Bill Nyogen Yeo became the Head Teacher, Grover Genro Gauntt became President of the Board of Directors, and I became the Chief Administrator. That was my job from August 1995 to August 1997. It was a rather turbulent period, in part because of Nyogen’s fiery temperament. 

I became the first Dharma Holder empowered by Nyogen, in a ceremony in February 1997. But in July of that year Nyogen got himself in trouble for an incident involving alcohol and inappropriate intimacy with a female student. Nyogen left and established the unaffiliated Hazy Moon Zen Center. Bernie, still the Abbot,  brought Egyoku Nakao with him from New York, and installed her as the third Abbot of ZCLA, after Maezumi Roshi and himself.