Rick McDaniel

Bernie Glassman

If one gets off the Interstate and the Turnpike, rural Massachusetts is very picturesque. Small towns, lovely rivers, and trestle bridges. This is Johnny Appleseed country. There are either striking big green hills or small green mountains – perhaps part of the Berkshires – on the horizon. Montague is a village surrounded by farms, someContinue reading “Bernie Glassman”

Morgan Bay Zendo

One of my favorite zendos in the US is located 140 miles northeast of Portland, Maine, in the small coastal community of Surry. The Morgan Bay Zendo is well-hidden. There is a small parking area on the road, but one has to be alert to locate it. I find something pleasing about the idea ofContinue reading “Morgan Bay Zendo”

David Yoshin Radin

As with Mitra Bishop’s Mountain Gate in New Mexico, there is no signage identifying the Zen Center located on the Lieb Road in Spencer, New York, south of Ithaca. One has to know that mailbox 56 marks the drive. A gravel road leads to an area with a cluster of small cabins on one sideContinue reading “David Yoshin Radin”

Tenney Nathanson

Tenney Nathanson – a Dharma heir of Joan Sutherland – is the resident teacher at Desert Rain Zen. He is also a professor in the English Department at the University of Arizona. He briefly worked with Eido Roshi at the Zen Studies Society New York Zendo in the late ’70s but tells me that heContinue reading “Tenney Nathanson”

Mitra Bishop

The image on the cover of my book, The Story of Zen, is of the zendo at Mountain Gate Sanmonji in New Mexico. It is located in a township, Ojo Sarco, that we couldn’t find it on our road map when we drove there. Nor is there signage other than the post box number atContinue reading “Mitra Bishop”

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold

The head of the Mountains and Rivers Order – and the man who succeeded Ryushin Marchaj as abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery – is Geoffry Shugen Arnold. They are both Dharma heirs of the founder of the Order, John Daido Loori. “I wasn’t raised in a religious home,” Shugen tells me, “but, when I wasContinue reading “Geoffrey Shugen Arnold”

Konrad Ryushin Marchaj

When I visited Zen Mountain Monastery in June 2013, the abbot at the time – Konrad Ryushin Marchaj – was leading a wilderness retreat listed in the program calendar as “Born As the Earth: Wilderness Skills Training.” It was described as an opportunity to learn “basic outdoor skills and engage the teachings of the wildContinue reading “Konrad Ryushin Marchaj”

Joan Sutherland

In the Harada-Yasutani koan curriculum as passed down through Robert Aitken and his heirs, when one resolves a particular koan, one may be given examples of responses given by one’s ancestors in the lineage. One of my ancestors – although she is actually younger than I – is Joan Sutherland. Joan is Dharma teacher, butContinue reading “Joan Sutherland”

Seiho Morris

Seiho Morris is an ordained Rinzai priest who was working in an addiction treatment center when I interviewed him in 2018. At the time, he was preparing to lead a retreat in Cincinnati for people engaged in 12 Step programs. I assume the retreat was related to his work at the treatment center, but heContinue reading “Seiho Morris”