My Lost Teacher
Photo © Marisa Gerard When the news came to me on Monday about Genki Roshi’s death, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen him in twenty-seven years. The last time was when we sat together in the early...
View ArticleGenki Takabayashi Eulogy
Photo by Brian Erbach This piece is a reprise of remarks I gave at the 49th Memorial Day Celebration, April 14th, for Rev. Genki Takabayashi, the retired founding abbot of the Dai Bai Zan Cho Bo Zen...
View ArticleMy Colleague Myogen Steve Stücky and Why I Love Zen
I have written before of Zen’s need to squarely face institutional inadequacies, but have I said enough about why I love Zen? I don’t love Zen for the robes and the folderol; I love it for where the...
View ArticleRecalling Nichidatsu Fujii
In 1982, I was one of a small group of Zen students who were invited to an audience with Nichidatsu Fujii. Guruji, as he was affectionately known, was making a short visit to Los Angeles on his way...
View ArticleFloating Onward: Honoring Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma
The following article by Mushim Patricia Ikeda was published with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in December, shortly after the death of Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma. Mushim wanted to provide the...
View ArticleNishijima is Dead, Are You More Alive Than He?
I almost didn’t come to zazen today. I had considered going to Santa Monica where Brad Warner’s group is having zazen as they always do at 10 o’clock, to be followed by a memorial service for his...
View ArticleDear Gudo Nishijima Roshi
I recently returned home from our Sunday zazenkai here in Umeå in the north of Sweden. Everything is white outside my window and snowflakes keep falling from the sky — unimaginable numbers of them,...
View ArticleEight Ways GUDO WAFU NISHIJIMA Will Help Change ZEN BUDDHISM
My Teacher, GUDO WAFU NISHIJIMA ROSHI, died this month, age 94. In manner, he was a soft spoken, gentle, conservative man of his times, born nearly a century ago in Taisho era Japan. In action, he was...
View ArticleKyogen Carlson: A Brief Remembering of a Zen Master
The following piece, by James Ishmael Ford, originally appeared at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkeymind/2014/09/kyogen-carlson-a-brief-remembering-of-a-zen-master.html I was shocked to learn that...
View ArticleMissing Kyogen Carlson and His Dharma
At my Zen Center last Sunday we read and discussed a beautiful teaching from Kyogen Carlson, one of my Zen teachers. It was from the chapter “Dharma Realm” in a little booklet Kyogen wrote called Zen...
View ArticleZenshin Tim Buckley dies at 72 of lung cancer
Zenshin Tim Buckley, founder and teacher at Great River Zendo in West Bath, Maine, passed away today at 72 years due to lung cancer. He was a student of Yozen Peter Schneider in California and in 2014...
View ArticleRemembering Daigan Lueck: Painter, poet, monk
Daigan Lueck was born in Minneapolis in 1931. He served as a medic in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict and remained in Asia for some years, living in Japan. He was married twice to Japanese...
View ArticleOne hundred and eleven years ago today, Shunryu Suzuki was born
Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring. High winds blew across the green hillside, driving rain into the storm doors of Shoganji, an obscure Japanese country...
View ArticleRemembering Zenshin “Tim” Buckley
Jokan Zenshin Thomas “Tim” Buckley was a Buddhist for more than fifty years. He became one on reading D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and Paul Reps in his high school days. A few years later, after...
View ArticleIn Rememberance (A poem in honor of Kyogen Carlson)
Preface: This touching poem is by Gyokuko Carlson in memory of her late husband Kyogen Carlson, who passed away on this day last year due to a heart attack. – Editorial Staff In Remembrance The silence...
View ArticleA Cracked Bowl: The Zen Teachings of Genki Takabayashi
Muho Genki Takabayashi Roshi departed this life on Sunday, February 24th, 2013. He was 81 years old and died from the complications of an automobile accident and congestive heart failure. He lived in...
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