Author Archives: Rick McDaniel

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”

In spite of the stern – one could say ascetic – facial expression on almost all the photographs I have seen of him, Meido Moore smiles easily and laughs frequently. In fact, he’s fun to talk to. Part of that fun comes from the fact that he has clear opinions about current controversies in WesternContinue reading “Meido Moore”

[Bill Humphreys, Wes Burnett, Diane Fitzgerald, Karen Burnett] When Leslie Gajdukow was ten years old, her parents moved from Massachusetts and bought a mountain outside Farmington, Maine. “The plan was to live off the land but then, within a month of moving in, my dad found a job at a local paper mill.” Living offContinue reading “EcoSattvas Downeast”

Winifred (Shokai) Martin was raised in Dublin, Ireland, in an environment she tells me was “ingrained by Catholicism.” Now she is an ordained priest with the Buddhist Temple of Toledo. Students at the Toledo Temple commit to the Precepts – the ethical guidelines of Buddhism – before they begin the wisdom teachings and koan study.Continue reading “Winifred (Shokai) Martin”

David Petterson is a participant in Dosho Port and  Tetsugan Zummach’s  “Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training.” For the last nine years, well before the pandemic, Dosho and Tetsugan have been experimenting with online training. In the Afterward to my book, The Story of Zen, Dosho wrote: “The number of people interested inContinue reading “David Petterson”

The work of Anthony de Mello – a Jesuit from India who sought links between Eastern and Western spiritualities – is generally not well known to Zen practitioners, but I have always admired him. So it was a pleasant surprise to hear Sensei John Pulleyn of the Rochester Zen Center tell me that Anthony DeMelloContinue reading “John Pulleyn”

Michael Leizerman  is a shoken student at the Buddhist Temple of Toledo, studying with Rinsen Weik, with whom he co-wrote The Zen Lawyer [published by Trial Guides, 2018]. When he tells me that the law is his Zen practice, I suspect at first it is one of those hyperboles Zen practitioners can fall prey to,Continue reading “Michael (Hoshi) Leizerman”

The Vermont Zen Center is located in Shelburne, a small, artistically inclined community outside Burlington. Perhaps because there had been one outside my office for several years, I notice the Peace Pole at the foot of the Center’s drive before I see the official sign set in a small flower bed. The sign bears theContinue reading “Sunyana Graef”

There are those – whether ordained or not – for whom teaching Zen is a career. Other teachers – again, lay or ordained – need to have a job on the side to pay the bills. Still others pursue an entirely different professional life while teaching on the side. And there are those who teachContinue reading “Eshu Martin”