Zen Fields, Ames, Iowa – Sara Jisho Siebert is a Soto Zen priest who teaches at Zen Fields in Ames, Iowa. Her back story is striking. “When I was fourteen, a number of people in my life experienced sexual violence and talked to me about it. My mom is a great listener, and I guessContinue reading “Sara Jisho Siebert”
Tag Archives: buddhism
Thomas Hand
Abridged from Catholicism and Zen – In addition to the Soto missions established for the benefit of the immigrant populations on the West Coast, and the Asian-trained teachers who sought to introduce a new spiritual tradition to the West, there was a third route by which Zen came to North America: Catholic missionaries who returnedContinue reading “Thomas Hand”
Bodhin Kjolhede
Rochester Zen Center – At one point in the course of our Zoom conversation, Bodhin Kjolhede has to get up from his desk and leave the room. As he comes back, I notice he is wearing a t-shirt with the Latin phrase: Ego Sum Abbas. “My students give me a lot of gag gifts,” heContinue reading “Bodhin Kjolhede”
Philip Whalen
Adapted from The Third Step East – For many people in the 1950s and early ’60s, their first encounter with Zen came not from reading Philip Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen or Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginners Mind but rather from reading Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel, The Dharma Bums. By the 1940s, information about ZenContinue reading “Philip Whalen”
John Tarrant
Pacific Zen Institute – I first interviewed John Tarrant at his home in Santa Rosa in 2013. His was the third interview I conducted in this project, and I was still finding my way as an interviewer. I did a second interview with him last November; it was my 289th. He is Australian and grewContinue reading “John Tarrant”
Lou Nordstrom
“Memoirs of an American Zen Pioneer” I have not interviewed Lou Nordstrom. This profile is gleaned, in part, from his book, Memoirs of an American Zen Pioneer.[1] My only communication with him was through a student who replied to my request to quote material from that book. The student wrote back: “Lou says of courseContinue reading “Lou Nordstrom”
Stephen Zenki Salad
American Zen Facebook Page Zenki Salad has cycled through a number of careers. He was a New York cab driver, he was a teacher of the deaf, he taught English in Japan, he held a number of adminstrative posts both in hospitals – including the Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles – and with the enterntainmentContinue reading “Stephen Zenki Salad”
Sheng Yen
Conversations with Rebecca Li Rebecca Li is a second-generation Dharma heir of Chan Master Sheng Yen, whose Dharma Drum Foundation now has affiliate centers in fourteen countries. “The first time I met Master Shen Yen in person,” she tells me, “was when I was in grad school, and he visited Los Angeles. It was veryContinue reading “Sheng Yen”
Nelson Foster
Ring of Bone Zendo and East Rock Sangha Nelson Foster begins our conversation by telling me, bluntly: “As I’ve said to you before – fair warning – I really think this is a story of Zen communities and organizations, sanghas. Teachers come and go, but the Dharma stays with the Sangha. I see a focusContinue reading “Nelson Foster”
Richard Bryan McDaniel 