7-day Hua-Tou Retreat, 10/20-10/27, DDVC, Vancouver
Zarko Andricevic
Founder of the Buddhist Center in Zagreb, Croatia. Zarko first encountered Buddhism in 1975 and has been a martial arts and yoga teacher since the 1970s. In 1985 he started the first Buddhist study and meditation group in Croatia which in time grew into the first Buddhist community there. This community is known as Dharmaloka nowadays. In 1996, while seeking a new teacher, he met Chan Master Sheng Yen, attended his seven-day retreat and became one of his students. Seeing Chan as the very core of the Buddha Dharma and Master Shen Yen as the man whose teaching stems directly from the meditative experience, he has dedicated himself to the practice of Chan meditation and has attended Master Sheng Yen's retreats regularly. In June 2001, during a two-week retreat in the USA, Zarko received Dharma transmission from Master Sheng Yen, thus becoming one of his five Dharma heirs in the West.