The Chicago Zen Center was founded in the early 1970's, and incorporated as a not-for-profit in 1974.

Roshi Philip Kapleau gave a large public workshop in the early 1970's in Chicago. From this workshop a small core group was formed. Our current facility was acquired in the mid 1970's. Roshi Kapleau is best known for his books on Zen, most especially The Three Pillars of Zen. Roshi founded the Rochester Zen Center in Rochester, NY in the 1960's after training in Japan under Harada Sogaku-roshi (1870-1961) and his disciple, Yasutani Hakuun-roshi (1885-1973), and after receiving permission to teach in the US from Yasutani-roshi.

For many years the CZC was an affiliate sitting group of the Rochester Center. In 1998 Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, Dharma Heir of Kapleau-roshi and Director of the RZC, sanctioned Sevan Ross as the resident teacher at the CZC, thus making the CZC an independent Zen Center. The CZC and RZC still have an ongoing relationship, however, since both are part of a larger association of Centers that have developed around the teaching of Kapleau-roshi and his successors. This greater association is known as the Cloud-Water Sangha, and while its various Centers are financially independent and have their own teachers and training styles, the Centers stay in close contact and have parallel approaches to training and practice.

Ven. Sevan Ross was ordained in 1992 as a Zen Buddhist priest by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, director of the Rochester Zen Center in Rochester, New York. Sevan has been training in Zen since 1976, has served on the resident staff of the Rochester Zen Center for eight years where he served both as the administrator of the Center, and as its Head of Zendo (Head priest in charge of training under the Sensei).

Sensei Ross moved to Chicago to become the director of the Chicago Zen Center in Evanston, IL in 1996. He has trained extensively in Zen including koan training under Roshi Philip Kapleau (author of The Three Pillars of Zen and other works), Toni Packer, and Sensei Bodhin Kjolhede. In January of 1998, Sevan became Sensei Ross in a ceremony wherein he was sanctioned to teach by Roshi Kjolhede. He was made a Dharma Lineage holder in 2002. He currently lives in Skokie with his wife Kathleen.

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