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Deep Streams Zen, Los Angeles, California “I first encountered something like Buddhism when I was a freshman at CCNY,” Joseph Bobrow tells me. “I took a psychopathology lecture class with this dynamic teacher who was very Freudian but very open-minded, so I decided to take another class from him, a survey course on contemporary psychotherapyContinue reading “Joseph Bobrow”

Conversations with Genjo Marinello Roshi In 2015, I had the good fortune to spend a few days at Chobo-ji, the Rinzai Temple in Seattle. Each morning I was there, I joined the community for zazen at 5:30. There were usually about a dozen people in attendance, with perhaps twice as many zabutons. First a ritualContinue reading “Dai Bai Zan Cho Bo Zen Ji, Seattle”

Day Star Zendo – Wrentham, Massachusetts Cynthia Taberner helped to arrange my 2016 visit to Father Kevin Hunt’s Day Star Zendo in Wrentham, Massachusetts. The day I spent there became the basis of one the chapters of Catholicism and Zen. Kevin – who is a Trappist monk as well as a Zen master – hasContinue reading “Cynthia Taberner”

Everyday Zen in Berkeley, CA Exciting things were happening elsewhere in the world as I was attending high school in the mid-’60s in LaPorte, Indiana (population 22,000). As the Bob Dylan put it, “There was music in the cafés at night / And revolution in the air.” But most of that passed us by inContinue reading “Alan Block”

A conversation with Dosho Port Dainin Katagiri was born in Osaka in 1928. His birth name—Yoshiyuki—means “Good Luck.” He was the last of ten children, and his family believed him to be the reincarnation of an elder sister who had drowned. He apparently shared this belief. Years later, when a student in Minneapolis confessed thatContinue reading “Dainin Katagiri”

Cuke Archives There are a handful of digital archives I refer to regularly in the composition of these profiles. One of the most useful is cuke.com maintained by David Chadwick. David is the author of Crooked Cucumber, generally accepted as the official biography of Shunryu Suzuki. Cuke.com originated as a supplement to the book, whichContinue reading “David Chadwick”

Ordinary Mind Zen, Sacramento, CA A significant number of the Zen teachers I have interviewed in California grew up in New York City. It’s an interesting migration pattern. Bob Rosenbaum was raised in Mount Vernon, which, he tells me, is an extension of the Bronx. “I was raised Jewish. My parents did not practice religiouslyContinue reading “Bob Rosenbaum”

Still Mind Zendo, New York City During the 1970s and ’80s, as skepticism about Christianity and Western religious traditions was becoming common, there was a corresponding upsurge of interest in Eastern meditation particularly among the young. At the time, Thomas Keating was the Abbot of St. Joseph’s Trappist Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts – the monasticContinue reading “Janet Jiryu Abels”

Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple, Portland, Oregon Kodo Conover is the “temple manager” of the Heart of Wisdom temple in Portland, Oregon. Originally a Methodist Epsicopal Church, the structure was built in 1891. The Methodists sold the building to a Ukrainian Orthodox congregation in 1959, who installed a three-bar cross on the steeple which stillContinue reading “Kodo Conover”