Older Zen Related Guests Podcasts

When ⇵	Then	Who/Links ⇵	Later
2023-12-17		JJ Wilson | Podcast - JJ Wilson founded the Women's Studies program at Sonoma State U. Her husband Phillip Wilson was one of Shunryu Suzuki's early ordained disciples. They came to Sokoji, Suzuki's SF temple, in 1961. She wrote her thesis on Virginia Woolf there and is a leading authority on Virginia Woolf.
2023-12-10		Daigaku Rumme | Podcast - Daigaku Rumme is the teacher at the Confluence Zen Center (confluencezen.org) in Maplewood, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. He was ordained by and received transmission from Seikkei Harada and practiced for 27 years at Hosshinji in Obama, Japan. He was with the Soto Zen International Center for seven years while living at the SFZC City Center. For five years he was director of the Soto Zen Buddhism North America Office and the Head Priest of Zenshuji in LA. In 2015 he moved to St. Louis and has been teaching there ever since. In this podcast, Daigaku fills in the blanks on all that, and talks about the latest book he's translated working with the author: The Formless Record of the Transmission of Illumination: a Contemporary Commentary on Keizan Zenji's Denkoroku - volume 1" by Gien Inoue.
2023-12-03		Neil Rubenking | Podcast - Neil Rubenking came to the SF Zen Center in the seventies and had this interest in computers that benefitted the SFZC when hardly anyone knew anything about them, and he sailed into a career with PC Magazine that continues to this day as their senior security analyst. He also worked for the CIA as a student summer job. Listen to this podcast and you'll learn more vital information about Neil and so forth.
2023-11-26		Vicki Austin | Podcast - Shosan Vicki Austin is a priest and teacher at the SF Zen Center whose reach has spread further due to her knowledge of ceremonies, meditation, and Iyengar Yoga. Her practice began in 1971 with a near death experience. She has studied and taught in America, India, Japan, and Australia where she became fascinated with the aboriginal ways . Listen to this podcast with her and find out what she has to say about all this—and more.
2023-11-17		Jane Hirshfield | Podcast - Jane Hirshfield is a renowned poet. She first came to the SF Zen Center, showing up at Tassajara in 1974 when I was head monk, a good day for us both. In this podcast she talks about her life as a poet, a Buddhist, a lover of life and this planet and all that is living. She reads from her recently published The Asking: New and Selected Poems (from fifty years of poetry).
2023-11-12		Shamsul Bahari | Podcast - Shamsul Bahari was born in Penang, Malaysia, and through a circuitous route through Denis Kelly ended up at Green Gulch Farm. He's back in Penang now. Check him out in this podcast and at cheeseburgerbuddha.blogspot.com.
2023-11-05		Jacob Fishman | Podcast - Jacob Fishman had a rough childhood on the streets of Brooklyn on his own from a young age. He escaped via the US Navy which took him to San Francisco where he became a student at the SF Art Inst. where he heard about Suzuki Roshi and the Zen Center where he started practicing in 1968. He's still living near the ZC but a lot happened in between. See the photos he took in the zendo while people did zazen on shunryusuzuki.com, and linked to from his cuke page and the photo page on cuke.com.
2023-10-29		Dwite Brown | Podcast - Dwite Brown was sitting at Sokoji and sending his brother Ed Zen stories. Ed and Alan Winter came to check the West Coast out and started sitting at Sokoji too. Dwite worked with Silas Hoadley in Silas's importing business. He became an Episcopalian minister, taught computer science at a college. He and his wife Judy converted to Catholicism over three decades ago. Now they live near and are involved with the Abbey of New Clairvaux, a rural Trappist monastery located in Northern California in the small town of Vina in Tehama County. Dwite is a tour guide for the abbey.
2023-10-23		Joanna Bull | Podcast - Joanna Bull was a student of Shunryu Suzuki, became a psychoanalyst and, as a result of having Gilda Radner as a client, went on to be a founder of Gilda's Club and the Cancer Support Community. She’s got a neat ghost story too which led to her coming to the Zen Center.
2023-10-15		Therese Fitzgerald | Podcast II - Therese Fitzgerald came to the SF Zen Center in 1976, was ordained as a priest by Richard Baker in 1986, with her husband Arnold Kotler founded the Community of Mindful Living applying the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn who ordained her as a dharmacharya in 1994. She worked with Maxine Hong Kingston's Veterans Writing Group. Now Therese is a hospice chaplain in Maui where she and Arnie moved to long ago. There's more to her story you can hear about in this podcast and last weeks' part one. To read the piece her hubby Arnie Kotler wrote for Inquiring Mind on his relationship with his father, Richard Baker and Thich Nhat Hanh, click here.
2023-10-07		Therese Fitzgerald | Podcast - Therese Fitzgerald came to the SF Zen Center in 1976, was ordained as a priest by Richard Baker in 1986, with her husband Arnold Kotler founded the Community of Mindful Living applying the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn who ordained her as a dharmacharya in 1994. She worked with Maxine Hong Kingston's Veterans Writing Group. Now Therese is a hospice chaplain in Maui where she and Arnie moved to long ago. There's more to her story you can hear about in this podcast and then next week's part two.
2023-10-02		Ted Tripp | Podcast - Ted Tripp heard Shunryu Suzuki speak at Stanford in 1967 and met him the next year at Tassajara, where Suzuki let him stay longer in order for him to prepare himself to go to prison for anti-war activities. He's recently retired from teaching English at San Jose State and UC Santa Cruz. He says, "A solid foundation of dharma and ability to practice meditation is a good preparation for what comes next."
2023-09-24		Rico Provasoli | Podcast - Rico Provasoli came to the SF Zen Center in 1971 to visit his brother Paul Provasoli who'd been there already a year or two. Rico got a taste of Tassajara and set out on a long path that took him to many teachers and places. He's written two books: Please Don't Tell My Guru and Golf Between the Ears. His website is ricoprovasoli.me. For the last couple of decades he's been a student of Cheri Huber.
2023-09-18		Jeff Sherman | Podcast - Jeff Sherman came to the San Francisco Zen Center in 1968. He practiced with Shunryu Suzuki, Richard Baker, and Katharine Thanas. Now he's with Josho Pat Phelan at the Chapel Hill Zen Center. This is the 2nd podcast with Jeff and focuses on his role in preparing Shunryu Suzuki's ashes site. There's a brief memory of Suzuki and a cool ghost story as well.
2023-09-09		Charlie Pokorny | Podcast - Charlie Pokorny is now a teacher at the Brooklyn Zen Center. He and his wife Sarah were head teachers at Stone Creek Zen in Sebastopol, CA, for 8 years. He was at the SFZC, mainly Tassajara and Green Gulch farm, for 12 years during which time he and Timothy O'Conner Fraser got Shunryu Suzuki lecture audio and transcripts up on the SFZC website. He teaches at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley—and he's done a lot more but you can get at least some of that from the podcast.
2023-09-03		Michael Papas | Podcast - Michael Papas came to the San Francisco Zen Center in 1980 at the age of 25 ready to kill himself if Zen didn't work. Thus begins his way-seeking mind story.
2023-08-27		Mark Foote | Podcast - Follow Mark Foote's unique way-seeking mind story and thought. Delve into it at zenmudra.com and at Zazen Notes on Facebook. Transcript of this podcast.
2023-08-20		Eric Larsen | Podcast - This is part 2 of the podcast with Eric Larsen who came to the SFZC in 1970. Aside from his Zen studies, he apprenticed with master sculptor, blacksmith, etc. Alex Weygers, and learned chain saw sculpting etc. from JB Blunk, and studied with Yurok shaman Harry Roberts. In recent years he's been immersed in Butoh dance in Japan and the US. See ericlarsendance.com. More at Eric's cuke.com page.
2023-08-14		Eric Larsen | Podcast - Eric Larsen came to the SFZC in 1970. Aside from his Zen studies, he apprenticed with master sculptor, blacksmith, etc. Alex Weygers, and learned chain saw sculpting etc. from JB Blunk, and studied with Yurok shaman Harry Roberts. In recent years he's been immersed in Butoh dance in Japan and the US. See ericlarsendance.com. More at Eric's cuke.com page. This is part one. Next week part two.
2023-08-06		Bob Shuman | Podcast - Robert Shuman was a student of Shunryu Suzuki in the San Francisco Zen Center and at Tassajara, and then a student of Joshu Sasaki in LA and at Mt. Baldy, and then of Philip Kapleau in Rochester. He and his wife Hennie went to Raleigh to lead a Zen group long ago, and they're still there now, though their group hasn't met since Covid began.
2023-07-31		Micah Sawyer | Podcast - Micah Sawyer was born at Green Gulch Farm. He talks about growing up in and around the farm and the SF Zen Center but mainly about Micah's Hugs which he and his wife Michelle founded after their son, Micah Jr. tragically died at 22 of a Fentanyl overdose. Check out micahshugs.org.
2023-07-21		Jim Mussman | Podcast - Jim Mussman came to Zen Center in 1970 via Japan where he attended his third year of medical school and got close to Suzuki students Carl Bielefeldt and Fred Stoeber. We hear about his Buddhist life and his anti-nuclear activity. He's a doctor now in New Rochelle, New York, and practices there with the Empty Hand Zen Center.
2023-07-16		Alan Senauke | Podcast - This is the second podcast with Alan Senauke. It picks up where we left off on the last one, #91. He is the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center and author of the recently published Turning Words, Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers. He has a long involvement with Buddhist peace work and music.
2023-07-09		Leland Smithson | Podcast - Leland Smithson was a logger from Vancouver who came to the SF Zen Center in 1972 while still a teenager and practiced there for a number of years. He's written some books in the fantasy realm - check him out on Amazon etc. - and has a few neat pieces on cuke.com as well. I, DC, talk about what's going on with us here in Bali for a while and then at 21 minutes get ready to call Leland into the podcast.
2023-07-02		Laura Burges | Podcast - Laura Burges, in her second appearance as a podcast guest, talks about her latest book, The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction. Laura is a retired school teacher and current Zen teacher who specializes in recovery. Her prior books are Buddhist Stories for Kids and Zen for Kids.
2023-06-26		Rob Gove | Podcast - Rob Gove started practicing with Shunryu Suzuki at Sokoji in the early 60s. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and brought a number of other students from there to Sokoji. He became a stone sculptor and has been working away at that in Italy for about half a century. See robertgovesculpture.com.
2023-06-18		Lee Klinger Lesser | Podcast - Lee Lesser was for many years a student and assistant to sensory awareness teacher Charlotte Selver. Lee was a student at the SF Zen Center and with Chris Fortin founded Veteran's Path (veteranspath.org).
2023-06-11		Tim Burkett | Podcast - Tim Burkett, early Shunryu Suzuki student and retired abbot of the Minneapolis Zen Meditation Center, talks about his new book, Enlightenment Is an Accident: Ancient Wisdom and Simple Practices to Make You Accident Prone.
2023-06-04		Chris Miller | Podcast - Chris Miller returns to read excerpts about Tassajara and Shunryu Suzuki from Searching for the Path Within: From Poetry to Zen in the Sixties, which he wrote under the pen name Christopher Lennox.
2023-05-29		Chris Miller | Podcast - Chris Miller was a student of Shunryu Suzuki. Herein he talks about the path that led him there. He was at the first practice period at Tassajara. He's retired now from teaching college level composition. He published a book: Searching for the Path Within: From Poetry to Zen in the Sixties, under the pen name Christopher Lennox - the Zen part is on cuke.com.
2023-05-21		Iva Jones | Podcast - Iva Jones was a Shunryu Suzuki student who came to the SFZC in 1970. She's done civil rights and peace work. She became an acupuncturist and is now retired.
2023-05-15		Alan Senauke | Podcast - Alan Senauke is the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center and author of the recently published Turning Words, Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers. He has a long involvement with Buddhist peace work and music.
2023-05-08		Doris Wolter | Podcast - Doris Wolter has been active in European, especially German Buddhism for decades. She is a student of Khentse Norbu and arranged for Crooked Cucumber to be republished in German by Manjughosha as Krumme Gurke Leben und Lehre des Zen-Meisters Shunryu Suzuki. Twelve years or so ago I attended a seminar led by Richard Baker and David Schneider that Doris hosted for the German Buddhist Union. Recently she was in Bali for a solo retreat and Katrinka and I were fortunate to meet with her a number of times.- dc
2023-04-30		Linda Lehrhaupt | Podcast - Linda Lehrhaupt is an American Zen teacher, mainly in Germany, and the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (IMA). She began teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1993. See institute-for-mindfulness.org. Her group in Germany is zen-herz.de (Zen Heart). She's a teacher in the White Plum Asangha. See openmindzen.com. She's a co-author of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: The MBSR Program to Enhance Health and Vitality, and author of Tai Chi as a Path of Wisdom.
2023-04-24		Lawrence Burns | Podcast - Lawrence Burns is a professor of clinical psychology and personality at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. As a kid, he and his siblings went to Tassajara with their mother who, after ten years of research, made a scrapbook on Tassajara history that we turned into a book named A Brief History of Tassajara - published by Cuke Press.
2023-04-17		Dot Kostriken | Podcast - Dorothy Kostriken will be remembered by some old-timers as Dot Luce back in the very beginning of Tassajara as Zen Mt. Center. In more recent decades she's been up around the Arcadia zendo.
2023-04-02		Elaine Maisner | Podcast - Elaine Maisner was a student at the San Francisco Zen Center who retired last year from 35 years in the world of university publishing, the last 28 being at the University of North Carolina Press.
2023-03-26		David Cohen | Podcast - David Cohen is the brother of the late great Zen teacher Darlene Cohen. David was around the SFZC a lot in the past—doing electrical and mechanical work. He's been Cuke Archives tech support at times. He's been a fly on the wall at times and at others, a fly in the soup. So let's hear what he has to say.
2023-03-19		Frank Simmons | Podcast - Frank Simmons is an old friend of mine, DC, who came out to California to visit me and got the Zen bug. He has been taking care of a meditation center in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico for over twenty years. Check it out at meditationsma.org and at their Facebook page.
2023-03-12		Narcissus Quagliata | Podcast - Narcissus Quagliata was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and an artist who has had an impressive career with stained glass. See him on cuke.com and at narcissusquagliata.com. Also check his books out at Amazon.com.
2023-03-04		Joe Cohen again | Podcast - Joe Cohen is a musician and audiophile and spiritual seeker who first heard Shunryu Suzuki speak in 1967. He's got a high end audio store in Novato, CA, and his business is The Lotus Group USA.
2023-02-26		Joe Cohen | Podcast - Joe Cohen is a fine musician and audiophile - see Lotus Group USA. He came to the SF Zen Center during the Shunryu Suzuki era.
2023-02-19		Jerry Bolick | Podcast - Jerry Bolick is a practitioner of Jodo Shin Buddhism and a poet. His poetry blog is Meditations from the Slow Lane.
2023-02-11		Robert Anderson | Podcast - Robert Anderson came to the SF Zen Center in the 70s. - Podcast removed as per Robert's request.
2023-02-05		Alan Block | Podcast - Alan Block practiced Zen at the San Francisco Zen Center and now has a Zen group with no internet presence. One may contact him at alanblock510@gmail.com.
2023-01-29		Chris Fortin | Podcast - Chris Fortin is the founding teacher of Dharma Heart Zen (dharmaheartzen.com) and a co-founder of Veteran's Path (veteranspath.org).
2023-01-22		Ken Spiker | Podcast - Ken Spiker was an early student of Shunryu Suzuki who lives now in Mendocino.
2023-01-15		Emma Bragdon | Podcast - Emma Bragdon is the founder of IMHU, the International Mental Health University. She was a student of Shunryu Suzuki. See emmabragdon.com and IMHU.org, read more at cuke.com, and find her on Facebook too.
2023-01-08		Upasama | Podcast - Upasama (formerly Reuven be Yuhmin) was a student of Shunryu Suzuki, a great gardener at Tassajara, who's been living in a Theravada monastery near Perth, Australia, for the last ten years.
2023-01-01		Podcast - Happy New Year 2023 with Shunryu on New Year. DC update and Shunryu Suzuki on New Year.
2022-12-24		Meister Eckhart | Podcast - A Christmas Eve podcast reading quotes from Meister Eckhart and commenting some.
2022-12-18		Laura Burges | Podcast - Laura Burges is a lay entrusted Zen teacher and author of Buddhist Stories for Kids which we'll be discussing among other things.
2022-12-10		Kelsang Tsogtor | Podcast - Kelsang Tsogtor whom many would remember as Van Vorheis, was a Shunryu Suzuki student and now in Oaxaca is a priest in the Kadampa tradition. See kadampa.org.
2022-12-04		Brit Pyland | Podcast - Brit Pyland came to the SF Zen Center in the mid sixties. Here's what led him there and what's been up with him since.
2022-11-27		In Memorium Layla Bockhorst | Podcast - Reading about and commenting on Shunryu Suzuki student, Zen teacher, and friend Layla who died this November 3, 2022.
2022-11-20		Michael and Barbara Wenger | Podcast - Michael Wenger founded Dragons Leap, a Zen group in San Francisco, after many years with the SF Zen Center. Barbara Wenger also was with the Zen Center for many years and is the founder of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group.
2022-11-12		Annette Lorenzo | Podcast - Annette Lorenzo has practiced at the San Francisco Zen Center and currently is involved with various projects on social media such as her Soto Zen Warrior on Instagram and Accidental Buddhist on Facebook.
2022-11-05		Paul Shippee | Podcast - Paul Shippee was one of our first guest podcasts. He's an old Suzuki and Trungpa student. In this podcast he talks about his workshops in NVC, Nonviolent Communication, and Buddhism. To learn more about it go to paulshippee.com.
2022-10-29		Berry Crawford | Podcast - Berry Crawford is an ordained Zen practitioner /teacher with Clear Mind Zen and also practices with Valley Streams Zen Sangha in Sacramento, California. He does video podcasts, one with yours truly, that one can find at simplicityzen.com. This week we delve into the substance of his other two websites: sierrafoothills.com and mainly scienceofzen.org.
2022-10-22		Berry Crawford | Podcast - Berry Crawford is a lay Zen practitioner/teacher with Valley Streams Zen Sangha in Sacramento, California. He does video podcasts, one with yours truly, that one can find at simplicityzen.com.
2022-10-15		Lawrence Shainberg | Podcast - Lawrence Shainberg is the author of Ambivalent Zen and in 2019 Four Men Shaking: Searching For Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher and other books you can see on his cuke page.
2022-10-09		Eric Arnow | Podcast - Eric Arnow came to the SFZC toward the end of Shunryu Suzuki's life. For the last 15 years or so he's been living in Thailand with a lot of time spent in China practicing Zen - and a few trips to Russia. You can find more on and by Eric at his Bumble Buddhist Blog on Wor Press. There are links to that and stuff he's written about Asia etc and photos on his cuke.com page.: cuke.com/people/arnow-eric.htm
2022-09-30		Ken Knabb | Podcast - Ken Knabb is famed for his Bureau of Public Secrets (bopsecrets.org), his writings on the Situationist movement and Kenneth Rexroth. He's had a long time association with the Berkeley Zen Center.
2022-09-24		Peter van der Sterre | Podcast - Part 2 - Peter van der Sterre came to the SFZC in 1972, was ordained by Richard Baker, received transmission from Norman Fischer, and is the founding teacher of the Oak Street Zendo in San Francisco and the 7th Street Zendo in Boise, Idaho.
2022-09-17		Peter van der Sterre | Podcast - Peter van der Sterre came to the SFZC in 1972, was ordained by Richard Baker, received transmission from Norman Fischer, and is the founding teacher of the Oak Street Zendo in San Francisco and the 7th Street Zendo in Boise, Idaho.
2022-09-10		David Silva | Podcast - David Silva arrived at Tassajara in 1971. He and his wife Linda spend about a third of their time these days hiking and traveling. He takes great photos that we see on davidsilvaphotography.com and David Silva on Flickr.
2022-09-03		Gloria Simoneaux | Podcast - Gloria Simoneaux founded Drawbridge and Harambee Arts to use art to work with homeless and sick kids and rescue women as we learned last week. We talk about her experience with Vipassana retreats herein—and some other subjects.
2022-08-27		Gloria Simoneaux | Podcast - Gloria Simoneaux is the founder of Harambee Arts (harambeearts.org) which works with children in Kenyan slums and rescue women in Nepal through art. In the eighties she founded Drawbridge in San Francisco working with children with cancer and homeless children.
2022-08-20		Howard Klein | Podcast - Howie Klein is an old friend who was at Millbrook and practiced at the SFZC and studied with Trungpa and is an all around cool guy.
2022-08-13		John Bailes | Podcast - John Bailes practiced 13 years at the San Francisco Zen Center and is the founding teacher of One Heart Zen - oneheartzen.org in Somerville, MA.
2022-08-06		Nonin Chowaney | Podcast - Nonin Chowaney died July 29, 2022. He was the abbot of the Omaha Zen Center for many years. His teacher was Dainin Katagiri. He's the Norman in Thank You and OK! A dear friend. Farewell Nonin.
2022-07-30		James Ishmael Ford | Podcast - James Ishmael Ford is a Zen Priest and a Unitarian minister who's written a number of books. His website is jamesishmaelford.com.
2022-07-23		Helen Tworkov | Podcast - Helen Tworkov is founder and was long-time editor of Tricycle Magazine.
2022-07-16		Willem Malten | Podcast - Willem Malten came from Holland to the SFZC in the mid-seventies. In 1983 he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and, among other things, started the Cloud Cliff Bakery. He talks herein about that, about his anti-nuke work, Ayahuasca ventures, relationship with Kobun Chino and more.
2022-07-09		Peter Levitt | Podcast - Peter Levitt is a Zen teacher in the Shunryu Suzuki lineage who has published many books of poetry. He's worked with Kazuaki Tanahashi on translations of Dogen and more for years and with others on other translations. His website is peterlevitt.com and his Zen group is Salt Spring Zen Circle - saltspringzencircle.org.
2022-07-02		Carolyn Morton | Podcast - Carolyn Morton came to the SF Zen Center in the sixties, married Rick Morton. In 1974 they went to Japan. She has worked with Rick in his fine art and antique restoration, refinishing, and finishing in the Sausalito shop and continued her Zen practice. This is the third and last podcast of the Morton Trilogy.
2022-06-25		Rick Morton | Podcast - Rick Morton came to the SF Zen Center in 1966, married Carolyn, they went to Japan in 1974, studied Zen, learned some things like Rick studied how to work with urushi, Japanese lacquer. He and Carolyn live in Sausalito where he does fine furniture and art restoration, refinishing and finishing. His business is Richard Morton Fine Antique Restoration. His brother Jim was last week's guest and Carolyn will be next week's.
2022-06-18		Jim Morton | Podcast - Jim Morton came to the SF Zen Center from Vermont and was at Tassajara the first year. He lived in Japan for many years, studying Zen and Calligraphy and more.
2022-06-11		Mayumi Oda | Podcast - Mayumi is an acclaimed artist, activist, and Buddhist teacher, and a dear friend. See mayumioda.net.
2022-05-28		Bruce Fortin | Podcast - Bruce Fortin started off with Shunryu Suzuki, joined Steve Gaskin at The Farm, circled back to the SF Zen Center, became a priest, is the founding teacher of the Occidental Laguna Sangha, has been quite involved with hospice, teaching in prison, and recently a documentary: Embers of Awakening: From Firestorms to Climate Healing.
2022-05-21		Larry Hansen | Podcast - Larry Hansen was an early Shunryu Suzuki student who teaches sailing by the stars and gets around quite a bit.
2022-05-15		David Padwa | Podcast - David Padwa helped us to obtain Tassajara. You'll hear some about his many roads herein like his venture out in the Be Here Now trip to Nepal and India and about his upcoming new book, The Tetralemma.
2022-05-07		Susan Moon | Podcast - Sue Moon is a Zen teacher and writer and humorist. Her latest book is Alive Until You're Dead: Notes on the Final Stretch, released this April 2022 by Shambhala.
2022-05-04		Pat McMahon | Podcast - Pat McMahon came from Reed College to the SF Zen Center in the Shunryu Suzuki days. He has a business in Oakland, CA, called Rocksolid Gardens and Landscaping.
2022-04-30		Kamala Cesar Buckner | Podcast - Kamala Cesar Buckner was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and Indian dance, dance from India. I say that because she's also of Mohawk ancestry. She founded and is the artistic director of Lotus Music and Dance in New York City.
2022-04-23		Daishin David Sunseri | Podcast - Daishin David Sunseri had heard Shunryu Suzuki lecture as a young man and later was close with Issan Dorsey. Daishin was ordained as a monk in the Rinzai tradition. He now lives in the San Francisco, the city of his birth.
2022-04-16		Andy Ferguson | Podcast - Andy Ferguson joins us again to talk about climate change and the development of Buddhism especially in China.
2022-04-09		Len Brackett | Podcast - Len Brackett was a founding practitioner and resident in the Reed College Zen house where people could come and practice zazen. I met him at Tassajara in 1967. He practiced Zen and learned temple carpentry in Japan and founded East Wind Inc in the US, a company that built traditional Japanese homes and so forth.
2022-04-02		Tim Burkett | Podcast - Tim Burkett is a retired long time guiding teacher of the Minneapolis Zen Center. He was an early Shunryu Suzuki student who got the South Bay sitting going that evolved into the Los Altos Zendo and now Kannondo.
2022-03-26		Lewis Richmond again | Podcast - Lew Richmond is a disciple of Shunryu Suzuki who founded the Vimala Sangha in Mill Valley, CA, and who has written a number of books such as Aging as a Spiritual Practice.
2022-03-19		Jon Joseph | Podcast - Jon Joseph is a teacher in the Pacific Zen Institute who studied Zen in Japan and the US.
2022-03-12		Andy Ferguson | Podcast - Andy Ferguson is the author of Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings, and Tracking Bodhidharma: A Journey to the Heart of Chinese Culture. As founder of South Mountain China Tours, he led many Buddhist tours of China.
2022-03-05		Ken Berman | Podcast - Ken Berman practiced with us from the late sixties. He was one of the youngest males to do so, staring when he was sixteen. Great stories.
2022-02-26		Tracy McCallum | Podcast - Tracy McCallum began his Zen journey in 1965 at Sokoji with Tim Buckley and Shunryu Suzuki.
2022-02-19		Brad Warner | Podcast - Brad Warner is the author of Hard Core Zen and 8 other books. He does daily podcasts one can find at Hard Core Zen on YouTube. And that's not all.
2022-02-13		Charles Hoy (again) | Podcast - Charles Hoy was a Shunryu Suzuki then a Chogyam Trungpa student who now lives in New Mexico.
2022-02-04		Gaetano Kazuo Maida | Podcast - Gaetano Kazuo Maida is the founder of the Buddhist Film Festival and much more that you're about to learn.
2022-01-29		Ann Overton | Podcast - Ann Overton practiced with Shunryu Suzuki and Richard Baker and with Sekkei Harada in Japan and there's more to her story than that.
2022-01-23		Elizabeth Horowitz | Podcast - Elizabeth Horowitz was a student at the Berkeley ZC originally, arriving in the Shunryu Suzuki era, and married the priest there, Mel Weitsman. She talks about some pros and cons of practice at the SFZC.
2022-01-15		Mystie Brackett | Podcast - Mystie Brackett talks about her time at the SFZC Green Gulch Farm and City Center, her life in Colorado, and how sangha is still with her.
2022-01-07		Ken Campbell | Podcast - Ken Campbell was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and Chogyam Trungpa.
2022-01-01		Dennis Marshall | Podcast - Dennis Marshall was born in Yorkshire, England 90 years ago. About forty years later he went to a lecture at the City Center of the SFZC and was right away sold on Suzuki and the general communal feeling there. About thirty years ago he moved to Crestone, Colorado, and since then has been involved with Richard Baker and Dharma Sangha.
2021-12-27		Dennis White | Podcast - Dennis White was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and then of Chogyam Trungpa and then of other Tibetan teachers.
2021-12-18		Richard and Alice Haspry | Podcast - Richard and Alice Haspry take us on a journey from Nova Scotia where they live now, back in time to how they got involved in Buddhist practice, coming to the SF Zen Center and practicing with Shunryu Suzuki, becoming Chogyam Trungpa students and more.
2021-12-06		John Tarrant | Podcast - John Tarrant is the founding teacher of PZI, the Pacific Zen Inst. located in Santa Rosa CA. PZI is a fiscal sponsor of Cuke Archives. John wrote The Light Inside the Dark and Bring Me the Rhinoceros.
2021-11-28		Shohaku Okumura Roshi | Podcast - Shohaku Okumura Roshi is the head teacher at the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, Indiana. Their website is sanshinji.org. He also founded the Dogen Institute.
2021-11-20		Shindo Gita Gayatri | Podcast - Shindo Gita Gayatri is from south India. After years of study and practice there, sixteen years ago she came to the SF Zen Center. She continues to be involved with practice on both shores.
2021-11-14		Natalie Goldberg | Podcast - Natalie Goldberg was a student of Chogyam Trungpa then for twelve years of Dainin Katagiri. She's written many books and is best known as a teacher of writing.
2021-11-06		Paul Shippee | Podcast - This is a rerun of one of the first phone chats--with Paul Shippee--from May 15, 2020. Paul studied with Shunryu Suzuki and Chogyam Trungpa and has done much more. He tells a way-seeking mind story of his life. Some excellent comments on meditation.
2021-10-31		Jeff Broadbent | Podcast - Jeff Broadbent who's been our guest several times. Jeff was a student of Shunryu Suzuki who became a sociologist and lived for years in Japan. He's spent years focusing on the sociology around climate change. He retired earlier this year from teaching at the University of Minnesota.
2021-10-23		Amertat Cohn | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us - Amertat Cohn who in 1970 filmed Sunseed featuring prominent gurus, among them Shunryu Suzuki at Tassajara. In 2019 Cohn re-released the film again with a narration by Peter Coyote. Cohn talks about Sunseed and the project he's just now embarking on. See Sunseed the Journey at sunseed.org.
2021-10-16		Tony Patchell | Podcast - Tony Patchell joins us as a guest. He arrived in the Bay Area with Darleen Cohen in the late sixties. They got involved with the SF Zen Center, practiced with Shunryu Suzuki, Darleen moved toward being a Zen teacher and Tony a social worker. They founded the Guerneville Zen Center. In this podcasts Tony tells rather heavy stuff about his experience as a social worker.
2021-10-03		Jed Linde | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us, Jed Linde, who came to the SFZC in the late sixties and who recently published an excellent little book, Three Charles Stories.
2021-09-26		Norm Randolph | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us. Norm Randolph, a Shunryu Suzuki and Dainin Katagiri student who teaches at the Dharma Field Zen Center in Minneapolis.
2021-09-19		Tony Patchell | Podcast - Tony Patchell joins us. He and his late wife Darlene came to the SFZC in 1969 and founded the Guernville Zendo in Sonoma County.
2021-09-12		Dennis Samson | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us, Dennis Samson, who first practiced with Bill Kwong and through involvement with Bill's Monday morning group in Mill Valley became a student of Shunryu Suzuki. There's more to his story. He's a good buddy of mine too. - dc
2021-08-08		JJ Wilson | Podcast - JJ Wilson founded the Women's Studies program at Sonoma State U. Her husband Phillip Wilson was one of Shunryu Suzuki's early ordained disciples.
2021-07-30		Jeanne DiPrima 2 | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us, Jeanne DiPrima, daughter of Diane DiPrima and step-daughter of Alan Marlowe. All three were students of Shunryu Suzuki. This is the second of two podcasts with Jeanne.
2021-07-25		Jeanne DiPrima | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us, Jeanne DiPrima, daughter of Diane DiPrima and step-daughter of Alan Marlowe. All three were students of Shunryu Suzuki. This is the first of two podcasts with Jeanne.
2021-06-26		Jeff Broadbent | Podcast - Jeff Broadbent returns for his third podcast, this time talking about his specialty - climate change and society - and reading a paper he wrote on the subject in between he and I chatting.
2021-06-12		Jeff Broadbent | Podcast - Guest Jeff Broadbent on Taihaku Priest who founded Shao Shan Temple in Vermont.
2021-05-29		Joshu Sasaki | Podcast - Joshu Sasaki was the founding teacher of the Cimarron Zen Center in Los Angeles in the mid-sixties. He died not that long ago at 107.
2021-05-22		David Schneider | Podcast - David Schneider, author of Street Zen on Issan Dorsey and Crowded by Beauty on Philip Whalen, talks about his new book--Goods: Short Stories.
2021-05-15		In Memory of Jay Simoneaux | Podcast - Jay Simoneaux remembered by DC while reading Peter van der Sterre's Everyday Zen talk on Jay.
2021-05-09		Sandy Hollister (Memorial) | Podcast - Sandy Hollister began practicing at the SFZC in 1967. She died last month April 7, 2021.
2021-05-01		Ed Brown | Podcast - Edward and DC talk about Tassajara ghost stories.
2021-04-17		Eugene Bush | Podcast - A Cuke Archives guest joins us--Eugene Bush of the Arcata Zen Group. A rerun from 2020 early May but this time not embedded in a long podcast. Gene shows us how he washes his hands in the pandemic.
2021-04-10		Mary Quagliata | Podcast - Mary Quagliata was an artist who became an early Shunryu Suzuki student. She's still both.
2021-04-03		Barrie Mason (RIP) | Podcast - Barrie Mason was a student of Shunryu Suzuki who died a few days ago. I read from her cuke.com page. She tells about her experience with living at Zen Center and with our teachers and of how we first came in contact with Green Gulch Farm.
2021-03-27		Carl Bielefeldt (reading) | Podcast - Reading from a Carl Bielefeldt talk on Dogen's Mountains and Waters Sutra
2021-03-21		John Palmer | Podcast - John Palmer, the younger brother of Loring, came to San Francisco at his brother's insistence to enjoy the psychedelic scene at its very beginnings. This almost four hour podcast is his shaggy dog story filled with highs, dealing, women, children, wandering, and arrests and incarceration. He's been on a lot of trips but the one that's stayed with him the longest is zazen - and the memory of Shunryu Suzuki saying to treat ones thoughts as clouds in the sky and let them pass.
2021-03-13		Michael Phillips | Podcast - Michael Phillips is an old friend and for decades a key advisor to the SF Zen Center. Herein he tells about how Greens Restaurant got going and how it developed.
2021-03-07		Nicole Baden | Podcast - Nicole Baden is a disciple of and teacher under Zentatsu Richard Baker who's working with him in Colorado on a book for a couple of months, after which she'll return to Johanneshof, the Dharma Sangha center in the Black Forest of Germany, where she is the director.
2021-02-27		Jeff Sherman | Podcast - Jeff Sherman came to the San Francisco Zen Center in 1968. He practiced with Shunryu Suzuki, Richard Baker, and Katharine Thanas. Now he's with Josho Pat Phelan at the Chapel Hill Zen Center. And there's more to his story.
2021-02-21		Charles Hoy | Podcast - Charles Hoy was a student of Shunryu Suzuki, Richard Baker, Chogyam Trungpa, and others and life who now lives in Santa Fe where he takes a nice cold bath outdoors every morning.
2021-02-12		Elizabeth Sawyer | Ken Sawyer | Podcast - Elizabeth and Ken Sawyer have the Back Porch Zendo in Sonoma County, California. They were students of Shunryu Suzuki and Dainin Katagiri and there's more to them than that.
2021-02-06		Jeff Broadbent | Podcast - Jeffrey Broadbent was a student of Shunryu Suzuki, Robert Bellah, and Lewis Lancaster who studied and taught at the university level in Japan and studied Zen there as well. He's a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota.
2021-01-29		Judyth Weaver | Podcast - Judyth Weaver is a Tai Chi and Sensory Awareness teacher who studied dance in New York and Tokyo and Zen in Kobe and came to the SF Zen Center in 1968. And much more. Check her out further at judythweaver.com.
2021-01-24		Tim Ford | Podcast - Tim Ford was a student of Shunryu Suzuki. He recently retired after forty years of general contracting.
2021-01-14		Joan Amaral | Podcast - Joan Amaral is the founding teacher of the Zen Center North Shore in Beverly, Massachusetts. In 2005 she was the jisha, attendant, to Mel Weitsman for a practice period at Tassajara. After getting to know her some, she'll share some memories of Mel who recently retired as the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center, died at home just a week ago at the age of 91. Photo of Mel and Joan (if you can see it) by Shundo David Haye.
2021-01-08		Mel Weitsman (Memorial) | Podcast - Mel Weitsman died yesterday, January 7, 2021. He was 91. Mel was in charge of, then priest of, then abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center from 1967 to the summer of 2020. Herein I read some tributes from his Carling Bridge page and Facebook and then play a brief phone chat he and I had back in April when he was our first podcast guest. Mel was a great priest, person, and dear friend. - dc
2021-01-02		Ken Ireland | Podcast - Ken Ireland is a Buddhist now living in Dharamsala who was a Jesuit initiate, studied with Claudio Naranjo, Issan Dorsey, Richard Baker, and John Tarrant.
2020-12-25		Steve Frost | Podcast - Stephen Frost is a Catholic priest, artist, and writer on spiritual matters who has studied art, Buddhism, and world religions deeply. Learn more at wp.nepsis.com. The early photo is from his 1985 ordination.
2020-12-24		Warren Lynn and Jerry Ray | Podcast - Warren Lynn and Jerry Ray are friends of mine from Fort Worth, Texas, my home town. They studied with a spiritual teacher there named Alden Truesdell. Christmas piano music by Bonny playing at Riviera Sanur Xmas eve.
2020-12-19		Yehudah Alan Winter | Podcast - Yehudah Alan Winter was the first Zen student to live at Tassajara. He talks about that, being a nurse in Covid days, Compassionate Listening. and his and his wife's experience doing Your Personal Ceremony dot com.
2020-12-13		Liz Wolf Spada | Podcast - Liz Wolf Spada was an early and young Tassajara student. She shares memories of Shunryu Suzuki and also talks about Chogyam Trungpa. She became a Christian as she said she would back then and still practices zazen. She was an elementary school teacher and is now retired.
2020-12-05		Mark Lewis | Podcast - A phone chat with Mark Lewis who practiced with Shunryu Suzuki, Dainin Katagiri, and Jean Ross in Carmel, starting while in high school in Carmel.
2020-11-28		Paul Discoe | Podcast - Paul Discoe is a master builder and designer, ordained by Shunryu Suzuki, who studied temple carpentry for years in Japan and brought it back to the US. Check out his O2 Artisan's Aggregate at O2aa.com.
2020-11-21		Robert Halpern | Podcast - Robert Halpern was an early student of Taizan Maezumi, Shunryu Suzuki, and Chogyam Trungpa who now lives in Halifax.
2020-11-15		Mel Weitsman (another chat) | Podcast - Mel Weitsman recently stepped down as abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center where he first went to be the head of in 1967. Seems like 91 is a good age for retirement. Today we talk about, among a few other topics, Shunryu Suzuki's radiation belt.
2020-11-08		Erik Storlie | Podcast - A phone chat with Erik Storlie, early Shunryu Suzuki student and author.
2020-10-30	Paul Lee | Podcast - Paul Lee is a theologian, humanitarian, and visionary who taught philosophy at UC Santa Cruz, an old and dear friend of Richard Baker, an early friend of Zen Center & Tassajara. See ecotopia.org.
2020-10-24		Arnie Kotler | Podcast - Arnie Kotler studied Zen with Shunryu Suzuki, Richard Baker and Thich Nhat Hanh, founded Parallax Press and how has Arnie Kotler Editing services - arniekotlereditingservices.com. He comes is at 12:20.
2020-10-10		Richard Levine | Podcast - Richard Levine practiced with Shunryu Suzuki, was the great Buddhist scholar Edward Conze's secretary, an assistant to Richard Baker, and became a medical doctor.
2020-10-03		Loring Palmer | Podcast - Loring Palmer was an early mentor of mine who began practicing with Shunryu Suzuki in 1964. He later became a student of Chogyam Trungpa. He didn't stop there.
2020-09-26		Daya (Dianne) Goldschlag | Podcast - Daya Goldschlag is a Zen teacher and body worker who studied with Shunryu Suzuki and was my first wife and mother of our son Kelly. - dc
2020-09-19		Jack Elias | Podcast - Jack Elias was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and Chogyam Trungpa who now is a transpersonal hypnotherapist.
2020-09-12		Lew Richmond | Podcast - Lew Richmond is a disciple of Shunryu Suzuki, founded the Vimala Sangha in Mill Vally, has written books on aging and practice, and is a fine musician.
2020-09-05		(Remembering) Della Goertz | Podcast - Della Goertz started practicing Zen with Shunryu Suzuki a few weeks after he first arrived. This podcast takes her from way back then to her last days at 99.5 years old.
2020-08-29		Barton Stone | Podcast - Barton Stone joined Shunryu Suzuki for zazen very early on. He's a peace activist, expert carpenter, gardener, poet, and now practices Zen with Jisho Warner. We'll have the phone chat, read his poems and an old interview and hear his late son Alan on lead guitar with a DC song named Fooled by Everything.
2020-08-22		(Remembering) Yvonne Rand | Podcast - Yvonne Rand, who died on August 19th of this year, was a close student and advisor of Shunryu Suzuki who studied with many teachers and taught many students - and a dear friend.
2020-08-15		Les Kaye | Podcast - Les Kaye is the abbot of the Kannondo Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View south of San Francisco. He's the author of three books including Zen at Work. Les wrote a piece which I, DC, read. Next I read an interview with him from Zen & Business dot com, then from my own notes, then from his Sweeping Zen Interview. Good stuff.
2020-08-08		Bill Porter | Podcast - Bill Porter is a translator and interpreter of Chinese Buddhist and Taoist poetry and texts, with books on Chinese Hermits and travel. His pen name is Red Pine.
2020-08-01		Steve Tipton | Podcast - Steven M. Tipton is C.H. Candler Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion and Senior Research Fellow at Emory University, Candler School of Theology and is a dharma brother who studied with Shunryu Suzuki and a close friend.
2020-07-25		Willard Mike Dixon | Podcast - We know him as Mike, a very early Shunryu Suzuki student. His professional name as a quite successful artist is Willard Dixon. He's also an excellent jazz musician, playing the sax. The phone chat is sandwiched between my comments on him and reading from his interview on cuke.com. The podcast ends with a song I wrote in 1978 for a work of his called The Painting on the Wall. - dc
2020-07-18		Peter and Jane Schneider | Podcast - Peter and Jane Schneider were Shunryu Suzuki students and are the founding teachers at the Beginner's Mind Zen Center in Northridge, on the edge of Los Angeles. They were both at the first practice period at Tassajara in 1967 and lived in Japan for 22 years.
2020-07-11		Danny Parker | Podcast - Danny Parker is a Zen Priest in Florida who studied at the SFZC when he was 21 then got involved with Zen again years later, becoming a student and dharma heir of Ed Brown. He recently edited a book of Ed's lectures called The Most Important Point. He's done and is doing a lot more.
2020-07-04		Paul Rosenblum | Podcast - Paul Rosenblum was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and is the vice abbot of Johanneshof, Richard Baker's retreat in the Black Forest. Paul comes in at 20:57 after some intoductory words, Dear Dave, and Pause to Meditate.
2020-06-27		Vanja Palmers | Podcast - Hans Vanja Palmers is a Zen teacher who was at the SFZC centers for years, ordained by Richard Baker, transmission from Kobun Chino. He talks about his life, Zen story, work with animal rights, and psychedelics, and dangerous flying. He has a center in the Alps near Lucerne and another in the mountains of Austria. After a tangent filled introduction by DC, Vanja comes in at 21:25.
2020-06-20		Mel Weitsman | Podcast - A phone chat with Mel Weitsman, abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center.
2020-06-13		Richard Jaffe | Podcast - A phone chat with Richard Jaffe who is an alum of the San Francisco Zen Center and a Buddhist Scholar who's focused on clerical marraige and family life in Japan and on the writings of DT Suzuki.
2020-06-06		Kazuaki Tanahashi (and Fred Harriman) | Podcast - Kazuaki Tanahashi is a calligraphic artist, a translator of Dogen and a peace activist. Both are long time friends of mine who are just now meeting.
2020-06-06		Fred Harriman | Podcast - Fred Harriman is a translator of Japanese who helped a great deal with Crooked Cucumber.
2020-05-30		Taigen Dan Leighton | Podcast - Taigen Dan Leighton is the founding teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago, a translator and author of a number of books.
2020-05-24		Edward Brown | Podcast - DC with Zen teacher and dharma brother Edward Brown, author of the Tassajara Bread Book among others on food and Zen and life.
2020-05-15		Paul Shippee | Podcast - Paul Shippee, Shunryu Suzuki and Chogyam Trungpa student and much more, tells a way-seeking mind story of his life.
2020-05-05		Peter Schneider and Fred Harriman | Podcast - At 30:40 - Zen teacher Peter Schneider. At 1:41:52 - Talk with Fred Harriman, master translator
2020-04-21		Eugene Bush of the Santa Cruz ZC and Arcata Zen Group | Podcast - At 16:47 we have a guest, Eugene Bush of the Arcata Zen Group in CA with a novel approach to hand washing.
2020-04-14		Paul Discoe and Mel Weitsman | Podcast - Zen stuff begins at 18:22 with a phone conversation with Sojun Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center in CA.

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