Rinsen Weik – jazz guitarist, Aikido instructor, and abbot of the Buddhist Temple of Toledo – is in what he calls his library. There is a stick of incense burning on the altar to the left of his desk. There is a figure of Manjushri (the Bodhisattva of Prajna/Wisdom) and another of Guanyin or KannonContinue reading “Jay Rinsen Weik”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Albert Low
Albert Low, the Director of the Montreal Zen Center, died in 2016 at the age of 87. In 2013, I had arranged to interview him and four of his students for Cypress Trees in the Garden; however, three of the chapters, including the one on Albert, were omitted to keep the book under 500 pages.Continue reading “Albert Low”
Brother Phap Vu
The last movie my wife and I went to see before the corona-virus outbreak was “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” a movie which is less about Mr. Rogers than it is about the reporter who wrote a cover story about him for Esquire magazine. In the film, the reporter is portrayed as a fairlyContinue reading “Brother Phap Vu”
Zenshin Michael Haederle
Zen communities – sanghas – come in many forms. There are residential monastic communities such as Shugen Arnold’s Zen Mountain Monastery. There are groups who work with resident teachers in cities and towns, like Paul Cooper’s community in Holmesdale, or in isolated areas like Mitra Bishop’s Mountain Gate. And then there are groups of individualsContinue reading “Zenshin Michael Haederle”
David Loy
David Loy is a Dharma heir of Yamada Koun in the Sanbo Zen tradition. “According to Zen,” he tells me, “we are not fully awake. There is something we need to realize about ourselves and about the world, and the path is to help us wake up.” I ask what that “something” is. “There’s aContinue reading “David Loy”
Domyo Burk
Shortly before I was scheduled to interview her in December 2019, Domyo Burk – the Guiding Teacher of the Bright Way Zen Center in Portland, Oregon – was arrested and spent the night in jail. “I heard through my network of climate activist groups that something was going to go on and that if peopleContinue reading “Domyo Burk”
Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat
My hosts at Zen Mountain Monastery had told me that Dai Bosatsu was just on “the other side of the mountain.” But when I arrive, I feel like I’ve travelled much further. All things, of course, are relative. I had thought that the Morgan Bay Zendo in the Maine woods had been isolated, but toContinue reading “Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat”
Elaine MacInnes
Sister Elaine MacInnes – who was born in Moncton, New Brunswick – begins her autobiography on the beach at Shediac, a place significant to my family. My wife spent her summers there as a child, and it was one of the places she was most eager to introduce me to after we’d met. When ourContinue reading “Elaine MacInnes”
Myo On Susan Linnell
Myo On Susan Linnell is a Zen priest in the Rinzai-ji order living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is also a studio artist. “I think of myself as a monk/artist,” she tells me. Her hair is cropped, and she is wearing meditation robes as we speak. “Studio artists are an isolated group of people. IContinue reading “Myo On Susan Linnell”
