Louisville Zen Center
Venerable Jissai (Jeanette) Prince-Cherry
Jissai was born in North Carolina in 1967. She served in the United States Air Force for eight years and earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Southern Illinois University. She worked in engineering for nearly 15 years before dedicating her life to the Buddhadharma.
Jissai began practicing Zen in 1994 and has since maintained a daily personal practice, regularly participating in group sittings, residential training, and intensive Zen meditation retreats (sesshin). She has also undertaken residential training and participated in sesshins at Sogenji, a Rinzai Zen monastery in Japan. She now offers meditation workshops, group and one-on-one instruction, Zen talks, and leads sesshin.
In 2022, she ordained as a Zen Buddhist Priest of the Three Jewels Order of the Cloud-Water Sangha. The name "Jissai" (pronounced JEE-sigh) means “true encounter". Here are photos of her ordination ceremony. Click here to listen to her 50-minute "Coming to the Path" talk about her journey to the Dharma.
On August 16, 2025, in a hybrid ceremony at Rochester Zen Center's Chapin Mill Retreat Center, Ven. Jissai-Prince Cherry will be formally sanctioned by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede as a fully authorized Zen teacher. She will serve as one of the three teachers for the Rochester Zen Center in addition to her teaching role at Louisville Zen Center.
You can support her Dharma work through financial gifts via PayPal.Me or Cashapp (cash.app/$jissaipc) or by contributing personal items or study materials on her Amazon wish list.