Author Archives: Rick McDaniel

Like Tenney Nathanson, Sarah Bender is a Dharma heir of Joan Sutherland  and teaches within her Open Source network. Sarah is the resident teacher of the Springs Mountain Sangha in Colorado Springs. “I started out in 1979 with Robert Aitken Roshi in Honolulu. I practiced in that sangha for four years, but then we movedContinue reading “Sarah Bender”

Roger Brennan is a priest in the Scarboro Mission Society who – until COVID restrictions were imposed – sat regularly with Patrick Gallagher’s Oak Tree in the Garden Sangha. “I grew up in a typical Catholic ambiance. Went to Catholic schools; had nuns for teachers. So we got a lot of stories of the saintsContinue reading “Roger Brennan”

The person who organized my first visit to the Morgan Bay Zendo in Surry, Maine, was Susan Guilford. We speak about how she first learned about Walter Nowick and what was then still called Moonspring Hermitage. “I was living in a commune in Cambridge,” she tells me. “It  was a Zen group. We had aContinue reading “Susan Guilford”

Hadrian Abbott is an occasional participant in the sitting group I host in Fredericton. He spent 7 months – December 2009 to June 2010 – at Shodo Harada’s temple, Sogenji, in Japan. He’s a nurse, and a year after he returned to Canada, he spent another six months at Enso House, the hospice associated withContinue reading “Hadrian Abbott”

The original Zen (Chan) masters in China were, at times, difficult to access. Their temples were often hidden away in the mountains, intentionally located far from larger population centers. Nor were they necessarily welcoming. Prospective students who found their way to the temple gates could be refused entry for days on end in order toContinue reading “Hugh Curran”

Seiju Mammoser is the abbot of the Albuquerque Zen Center, as he was when I visited it in 2013. “My interest in starting the center here in the city was basically working man’s Zen. You had a job. You had a family. You had responsibilities. You wanted to do practice. I wanted something you couldContinue reading “Seiju Bob Mammoser”

When I visited Sunyana Graef’s Vermont Zen Center in May 2013, she introduced me to Dharman Rice who, at that time, taught the “Metta” course at the center. “There are many practices in Zen,” he tells me. “Zazen is the main one. There is chanting practice. The Metta practice is a practice of Loving Kindness,Continue reading “Dharman Rice”

Debra Seido Martin and her husband, Bill Booth, operate Hortan Road Organics in Oregon, a working farm and apprenticeship program for people seeking to learn organic techniques. Seido is also a Dharma heir of the late Kyogen Carlson in Jiyu Kennett’s lineage, and the farm is the location of her Zen West Empty Field zendo.Continue reading “Debra Seido Martin”

When I first wrote to the Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry, I said that I was aware it was not directly affiliated with Zen. Wayne Coger wrote back to me: “While we are not a Buddhist Center we are incorporated as a Zen Center. The late Roshi Kapleau once wrote that the ‘spirit of ZenContinue reading “Wayne Coger”