Louise (Ava) Collier Stanton

Louise (Ava) Collier Stanton died on January 19, 2026, age 75, at her home in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She took her last breath at the precise moment that a lengthy chant of mettā (loving-kindness) toward all beings ended. It was a fitting and beautiful end to a life dedicated to extending kindness and compassion, in many ways, to numerous beings. Ava Louise was a devoted mother, loving partner, warm-hearted friend to many, social worker, psychotherapist, and fully authorized Zen teacher.

Ava Louise was born in Bronxville, New York on September 26, 1950. She grew up in Bronxville’s Lawrence Park neighborhood. Ava Louise attended Brown University, graduating in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in religious studies. Toward the end of her time at Brown, she met the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn, who had recently arrived in Providence. Ava Louise became one of his first American students, and along with a small group of fellow students from Brown, a founder of the Providence Zen Center. She practiced Zen intensively and lived at the Zen Center for ten years. She served as the Zen Center’s Director, wrote its practice manual, co-authored the introductions to two of Seung Sahn’s books (Only Don’t Know: The Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn and Bone of Space: Zen Poems by Master Seung Sahn), and traveled throughout the world with him as he established the Kwan Um School of Zen.

Ava Louise left the Zen Center and moved to Los Angeles, where early on she worked at Playmates of Hollywood, a legendary lingerie shop on Hollywood Boulevard, and met all manner of interesting people. Later, she worked in an administrative capacity in the Psychology Department at UCLA. In 1991, she received a Master of Social Welfare degree from UCLA and became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Social work was in Ava Louise’s blood from her early years, when an experience working at the East Harlem Tutorial Program struck a deep chord in her. She was passionate about being of service to others. As a social worker, she worked at the American Cancer Society, the Skid Row Housing Trust, the SOVA Community Food and Resource Program of the Jewish Family Service LA, and Helen’s Room, a resource center for women cancer patients. Ava Louise co-authored The Breast Cancer Notebook: The Healing Power of Reflection.

Ava Louise maintained a solo psychotherapy practice in Los Angeles for more than twenty years. In her work as a therapist, she emphasized mindful self-compassion and the Internal Family Systems model, encouraging her clients to discover and honor the rich multiplicity of autonomous personalities within their psyches. She was especially interested in supporting people who suffered from trauma and mothers of adult children with severe mental illness.

In 2006, Ava met Darlene Cohen, a Soto Zen teacher in the Shunryu Suzuki lineage, and resumed her active Zen practice with a passion. After Darlene died, her husband and fellow Zen teacher Tony Patchell gave Ava lay entrustment, which authorized her to lead Zen retreats. Ava founded her own meditation group in Santa Monica, Just Show Up Zen Sangha, in 2009. Just Show Up continues as an online sangha and is a legacy of her warm style of guiding meditation students. Ava was given dharma transmission (full authorization as a Zen Teacher) in the Shunryu Suzuki lineage by Teah Strozer at the San Francisco Zen Center in 2022. She was certified to teach Mindful Self-Compassion by the University of California-San Diego Center for Mindfulness, and she taught various classes and led retreats on mindfulness and self-compassion at Insight LA.

Ava unexpectedly found “late life love” in 2021. She and Bob Zeglovitch taught a practice period together at Just Show Up Zen Sangha, and over the course of many long Zoom conversations they realized that they had a deep affinity. After several years of going back and forth between California and Minnesota, Ava decided to take a great leap and move to Saint Paul to live with Bob in 2024.

Ava was a highly relational person, with a wide circle of friends and colleagues. She had a broad smile and a warm heart. She had a keen curiosity about herself and others. Ava connected at a heart level with others, often quickly. One of her dharma students said that the term that came to mind when thinking of Ava was “radical acceptance”, and that by accepting him just as he was, she showed him that it was possible for him to do the same. This was not an uncommon sentiment.

Ava Louise is succeeded by her son, Benjamin Stanton Lewis of Santa Monica, her brothers Mark of Bolton, Vermont, Tom of Solvang, California, and Pierce of Tacoma, Washington, her nephew Ben Quigley of Chicago, her nieces Nina Orellana of Melbourne, Florida, Sarah Stanton of Ocala, Florida and Kathryn Eckart of Jacksonville, Florida, her life partner Robert Zeglovitch of St. Paul, and her former spouses Larry Sichel (Dae Bong Sunim) of Mu Sa Sang Temple, South Korea and David Lewis (father of Benjamin) of Los Angeles. She was preceded in death by her parents, Henry T. Stanton, Jr. and Rosamund Wilfley Stanton, and by her sister, Kay Quigley.

There will be a Buddhist 49-day ceremony for Ava via Zoom on March 9, 2026. The Zoom room will open at 7:45 a.m. (PST) and the ceremony will begin promptly at 8:00. Please arrive no later than 7:55. The ceremony should take approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. The Zoom link is here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89056997403?pwd=fvRj9MVMsLTBujNBU30j8s3FJe8WwB.1

A memorial service will be held at the First Presbyterian Church, 1220 2nd Street, Santa Monica, California on Sunday, March 29 at 11:30 a.m. PST. The service will also be livestreamed, and a recording will be available. Further information about the service will be posted at caringbridge.org (Ava Louise Collier Stanton) or you can contact Bob Zeglovitch at yozeglo@gmail.com.

Memorials preferred to: American Indian College Fund, ACLU, or Earthjustice.