Experiences in the Zen Monastery (2007)

I have been asked to write about my experiences in the Zen monastery in Japan. Here is a little bit about what for me was a magnificent life-changing experience. Read More

Getting to Mu (2005)

At our first meeting, the abbot of Shofukuji, a 300-year-old Zen monastery in Kobe, asked me about myself. I was 26, I told Yamada Mumon Roshi, and was a dancer. I’d come to Japan to study traditional dance, and I’d come to him because I wanted to experience Zen more fully. Mumon Roshi laughed. “Now you will be learning the highest form of dance,” he said. “Movementless dance!” Read More

About One of the Tibetan Buddhist Nuns in Exile that I Sponsor

Lobsang was my first Tibetan nun sponsored. I received the sponsorship of her through the Tibetan Nuns Project here in California. They sent me her photograph with a biography. She was number 437. She looked so young in her photograph, with her round face and slightly questioning expression. Read More