people
Wild Ivy origin
Wild Ivy – Integral Practice House builds on a 5-year integral zen teacher training guided by Daicho Roshi - Zen Master in Rinzai lineage. The project begun in 2020, with a small townhouse zendo "Doshinji" dedicated to advanced meditators. With the expansion to a spacious 10-bedroom retreat house and the 2025 transfer of ownership, the name evolved to engender the vision for our integral training and retreat centre: honouring the roots of our Zen tradition, whilst reflecting the diverse patterns of human wholeness - interlacing vertical and horizontal growth vectors.
Welcome from the Host
Welcome to Wild Ivy!
Over the years, I’ve come to see that Wild Ivy—our integral practice house—is a uniquely safe space for deep inner work.
Safe for stirring the depths of practice. Safe for that rare feeling of “being alone, but together.” Safe—even—for pulling the tiger’s whiskers.
Nestled in a serene village between mountain ridges and caves, this house was shaped for serious, joyful practice— for solo retreats and intimate group rhythm.
Paradoxically, one of the first koans I received was: “safety is the most unsafe spiritual path you can take.” Safety, when clung to, robs us of vitality—it “keeps you numb and dead.” But to dare, I’ve learned, we first need to feel truly safe—enough to leap, to come alive. Are you, truly, 'at home' anywhere?
Wild Ivy is a place for that kind of 'homecoming'.
You are the host of your own practice, and we’re here to support one another on that path. Here, we train to become more fully ourselves—by gently, fiercely undoing ourselves.
We meditate. We study. We rest. We shed old skins. We flourish.
So come. Find your ground. Root here. Grow bravely.
I'm here to support you - with friendly rascality.
Doyu
Name source
The name draws from Zen Master Hakuin’s Wild Ivy (Itsumadegusa) — a title relating to the Japanese type of ivy, symbolising the resilient nature of practice and the enduring, regenerative force of Dharma. The Wild Ivy deity, invoked by Hakuin, is said to safeguard Dharma even when “the winds of false teachings sweep the land” — a mythic emblem of ethical tenacity, “brevity of worldly existence” and inevitable renewal.
Hakuin is regarded as one of the most influential figures in Japanese Zen Buddhism, working for the benefit of others, as the ultimate concern of Zen-training. He is acclaimed for singlehandedly reviving his Zen school from a period of stagnation. Wild Ivy House aspires to hold space for the rigorous training ethos handed down by Hakuin: his strong emphasis on continued meditative cultivation and fierce resolve to help other beings awaken.
Collaborators
Wild Ivy Host and Retreat Facilitator
