Koshin Paley Ellison

Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion

KOSHIN PALEY ELLISON BIO

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, is an author, Zen teacher, and Jungian psychotherapist who has devoted his life to the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism. After a decade working as a psychotherapist, Koshin co-founded the New York (NY) Zen Center for Contemplative Care. The non-profit center offers contemplative approaches to care through education, carepartnering, and Zen practice. Today, NY Zen Center’s methodologies are internationally recognized and have touched the lives of thousands of people.
Koshin’s work has been featured in the New York Times, PBS, and CBS Sunday Morning among other media outlets. He is the author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up (Wisdom Publications, 2019), and the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care (Wisdom Publications, 2016). His newest book, Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion, launches with Grand Central/Hachette on November 8, 2022.
Koshin grew up in Syracuse, NY, and began his spiritual journey after a troubled childhood filled with abuse and bullying for his identities as a Jewish, gay man. He met his first meditation teacher in a karate class, and then his first Zen master at the age of 17 who inspired his journey to become an ordained Zen monk.
Koshin began his formal Zen training in 1987, and is now a recognized Soto Zen Teacher by the American Zen Teachers Association, White Plum Asanga, and Soto Zen Buddhist Association. He serves on the Board of Directors at the Soto Zen Buddhist Association and Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He has also completed six years of training at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association as well as clinical contemplative training at both Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Medical Center.
Koshin was his grandmother’s primary caregiver for the last 5 years of her life, and she inspired him to open the NY Zen Center so more people could have the compassionate and spiritually based support he provided. Most of their patients have been diagnosed with a terminal or chronic illness, and Koshin and his team of specialists offer an extra layer of emotional and spiritual support during a difficult and exhausting time. The center also works with grieving family and friends who have lost people to suicide or to illness.
Koshin and his co-founder (who is also his husband and a fellow monk!) transform people’s lives through Zen practice, contemplative caregiving, and learning. The Center also offers a Contemplative Care training program, a Contemplative Medicine Fellowship, community support groups, and various Zen and meditation training classes and courses.
Koshin currently lives in New York with his husband and their two Maine Coon cats. In his free time, he enjoys working out, traveling, and reading. Koshin is also a charitable contributor to The Trevor Project.

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