After taking English classes, Maezumi began holding zazen for Western students early in the 1960s, founding the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1967.

After studying koans with Hakuun Yasutani and lay-teacher Koryū Osaka,[note 1] in his teachings and practice Maezumi combined Sōtō-style shikantaza with Harada Daiun Sogaku's kōan-curriculum, which uses both Rinzai and Soto kōan-collections.

His dharma-successors, including Tetsugen Bernard Glassman, Dennis Merzel, John Daido Loori, Jan Chozen Bays, Gerry Shishin Wick, Joko Beck, William Nyogen Yeo, and Charles Tenshin Fletcher have gone on to further develop western Zen with traditional Japanese influences.

Maezumi was born in Japan on February 24, 1931, to Yoshiko Kuroda-Maezumi and Baian Hakujun Kuroda, a prominent Sōtō priest, in his father's temple in Ōtawara, Tochigi.

He was ordained as a novice monk in the Sōtō lineage at age eleven, and in high school began studying koans under a lay Rinzai instructor, Koryū Osaka.

Early in the 1960s, Maezumi began holding zazen at Zenshuji for Western students, which eventually led to the opening of the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1967.

[6] In 1976, Maezumi founded the non-profit Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values, promoting academic scholarship on Buddhist topics.

In 1984 another student, Dennis Merzel, left ZCLA to establish the Kanzeon Sangha, an international network practicing in the White Plum lineage.

This coincided with revelations that he had been having sexual relationships with some of his female followers at the Zen Center of Los Angeles despite being married to his wife, Martha Ekyo Maezumi, "including one of the recipients of his dharma transmission".

[9] According to Kirsten Mitsuyo Maezumi, this "caused the separation of my parents and was the reason my mother left the Zen Center of Los Angeles with my brother and [me] in 1983".

Some members who stayed described themselves as forced to see Maezumi on a more human level, even seeing this period as a breakthrough for them, no longer deluded into thinking a teacher could be beyond imperfection.

Maezumi used a range of kōans from different Zen traditions, including the Blue Cliff Record, The Gateless Gate, Transmission of the Lamp, and the Book of Equanimity.