Dojin Sarah Emerson (she/her) serves as co-Head Priest at Stone Creek Zen Center in Graton, California. Her formal Soto Zen practice began in 1996, and from 1998 to 2007 she lived and trained at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and other sites of the San Francisco Zen Center. In 2015, she received Dharma Transmission from Abbott Konjin Gaelyn Godwin of the Houston Zen Center.
Sarah holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies and has worked in mental health and pastoral care with both children and adults. As a priest in the U.S., she is deeply committed to centering anti-racist practice, and she sees Bodhisattva Zen as a vital path for examining, challenging, and transforming systems of oppression, especially racial inequities and the harm they create within convert Buddhist sanghas and in U.S. society more broadly.
She has also spent many years supporting grief, both clinically and in community settings, with a special focus on ceremonies for child loss. She lives in Sonoma County with her partner, Korin Charlie Pokorny, their children, and many pets.