provided by Nowick, sometimes living on his farm. These included both individuals and families with children. A student organization was incorporated as Moonspring Hermitage, a non-profit religious group, with a board of officers elected from among the students. The students built a zendo and meeting hall on Nowick's land, with an agreement specifying that the corporation and buildings belonged to the students and that the land would be turned over to them after 15 years. A Rinzai Zen-style practice was established, though Nowick did not practice many of the externals of Japanese Zen, such as chants, robes, Buddhist names, lectures, precepts, and so on. Instead there was just work on his farm and koan study. At its peak in the mid-1970s, the group's membership was around 40 people. In 1975, Janwillem van de Wetering documented his experiences in this community in A Glimpse of Nothingness. His third Zen-book Afterzen was dedicated to Nowick. Surry Opera Company In the mid-1980s, concerned with the looming possibility of nuclear holocaust, Nowick founded the Surry Opera Company, an amateur group that intended to strengthen ties with the Soviet Union at a citizen level. This group went to the USSR a number of times and received national attention. In 1985, shortly after the founding of the opera company, some of his students became concerned that he was spending too much time on the project. He offered his resignation as a teacher, which was accepted by the student committee, and devoted himself to music full-time. After some legal wrangling, the property reverted, as had been agreed before the student committee accepted his resignation, to the corporation, which had been reconstituted as the Morgan Bay Zendo (MBZ), with Nowick reserving some rights of usage. The MBZ has used and maintained the property ever since, with Walter visiting occasionally. Nowick continued to live in Surry much of his life, spending some of the winter in Japan and Russia. In the summer, he gave piano concerts and received Russian guests for extended visits. Nowick suffered a stroke in 2012 and also developed pneumonia. In declining health, he removed his feeding tube shortly before his death in the early hours of February 6, 2013. He was 87 years old. See also Buddhism in the United States List of Rinzai Buddhists Timeline of Zen Buddhism in the United States References Sources External links Article on Walter Nowick featured in ellsworthamerican.com Photograph