Maezumi Roshi, who died in 1995, has 12 direct lineage holders, each of whom studied under him. One of them is Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi — who as Dennis Merzel was a California competitive swimmer and high school teacher, and as Genpo Roshi (the title "Roshi" means "old master") established the Kanzeon sangha in Europe and later the Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City. The White Plum lineage, which Genpo Roshi now leads, is one of the largest Zen lineages outside Asia. The Kanzeon Center in Salt Lake City attracts Zen Buddhists from around the world, who move to Utah to study with him.

One of Genpo Roshi's own successors is Daniel Silberberg, a former psychotherapist from New York City. On a recent early morning, as a room full of people meditated upstairs, Silberberg led a visitor on a tour of the center, beginning with the "ancestors' room" and its pouch containing some of Maezumi Roshi's remains. Later, after Zimmerman and Hamilton had delivered their koans to him, Silberberg talked about the center. It seems very formal, the visitor observed, remembering the way the people upstairs had bowed when they entered the room, had bowed again before they lowered themselves onto their cushions, had repeated a chant three times, had sat with their backs straight.

Oh no, said Silberberg. "This is informal. This is the wild version." In Japan, there would be more bowing and chanting. But whatever formality there is, he said, "is intended to express our appreciation for this practice. It's not a gesture of authority but of appreciation."

Zimmerman was raised Presbyterian, in Illinois and then Arizona. As a child, he had what he calls a "strong religious impulse," but as he grew older, he says, "the sense of mystery disappeared" for him. "One day I'm riding along in the car with my parents," he remembers. "I had seven years perfect attendance in Sunday school when I was younger and my mother had headed the Sunday school, and one day I'm riding along in the car when I'm about 15 and I say, 'What if Jesus isn't divine?' " Later he explored Unitarianism, and after he and Lynne, who was Catholic, were married they attended the Episcopal Church. "Particularly in this community," he says, "you have to address the question of 'Are you going to raise your kids something?' "

Hamilton was raised LDS in Tooele. When she was 17, seven of her classmates at Tooele High died, prompting her to ask questions about suffering and meaning and the meaning of suffering. What she liked about Buddhism, she explains, is that "it works with the mind as an entry point to understanding, as opposed to faith, or as opposed to a service-oriented path."

"There's no theology, because there isn't a theo," says Zimmerman. "You just cut through to your own experience. . . . It's very much a practice. It's not something where you go once a week and hear a talk. Because you're not going to get the insight without the practice. It's not about abstract belief."