Ava Louise Stanton ’72

ZEN TEACHER  On Jan. 19, at the moment that a lengthy chant of metta toward all beings ended, Ava Louise Stanton ’72, of Saint Paul, Minn., passed away. Toward the end of her time at Brown, she began her Zen practice in the Korean Zen tradition as a student of Zen Master Seung Sahn and was a founding member of the Providence Zen Center, where she studied and practiced for 10 years. She served as the Zen Center’s director, wrote its practice manual, and co-authored the introductions to two of Seung Sahn’s books prior to moving to Los Angeles. In 1991, she earned a master’s of social welfare from UCLA and became a licensed clinical social worker. She maintained a psychotherapy practice in Los Angeles for more than 20 years and during that time co-authored The Breast Cancer Notebook: the Healing Power of Reflection. In 2009, she founded Just Show Up, her own meditation group in Santa Monica. She was certified to teach mindful self-compassion by the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness in 2018 and taught various classes and led retreats on mindfulness and self compassion at Insight LA. In 2024, she moved to Saint Paul to be with her life partner, Robert Zeglovitch, who survives her. She is also survived by a son and two brothers.