Membership List

Koshin Kyōgaku Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Zen-based organization to offer fully accredited ACPE clinical chaplaincy training in America, which delivers contemplative approaches to care through education, direct service, and meditation practice. Paley Ellison is the academic advisor for the Buddhist students in the Master in Buddhist Care and Counseling program at NYZC’s education partner, University of the West. He has served as the co-director of Contemplative Care Services for the Department of Integrative Medicine and as the chaplaincy supervisor for the Pain and Palliative Care Department at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center, where he also served on the Medical Ethics Committee. He is currently on the faculty of the University of Arizona Medical School’s Center for Integrative Medicine’s Integrative Medicine Fellowship, and he is a visiting professor at the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, of the University of Texas Health Science Center of Houston Medical School.

Paley Ellison is a dynamic, original, and visionary leader and teacher. He is the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care (Wisdom Publications, 2016). He is the author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up (Wisdom Publications, 2019; and Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage and Compassion (Hachette, 2022).

He received his clinical training at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center and the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. Koshin began his formal Zen training in 1987, and delightfully continues to study with Dorothy Dai En Friedman, Zen teacher in the White Plum Soto Zen Lineage. He is recognized as a Soto Zen Teacher by the White Plum Asanga, Soto Zen Buddhist Association, and the American Zen Teacher Association. He is a senior Zen monk, Soto Zen teacher, ACPE Accredited Educator, and Jungian psychotherapist.