 It is the first Zen monastery established outside Asia.The name is a corruption of "Tasajera", a Spanish-American word derived from an indigenous Esselen word, which means ‘place where meat is hung to dry.’"

The 126-acre mountain property surrounding the Tassajara Hot Springs was purchased by the San Francisco Zen Center in 1967 for the below-market price of $300,000 from Robert and Anna Beck.They improved the property and renamed it The Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, or Zenshinji (Zen Mind Temple), during Shunryu Suzuki's tenure as its first abbot.