Cuke Audio Podcast

Richard Jaffe was a student at the San Francisco Zen Center for years. He went on to become a leading Buddhist scholar who has spent a lot of time in Japan and knows Buddhism and especially Soto Zen there thoroughly in Japanese. He’s a professor of religion at Duke University retiring this or next year. His first book was Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism follo...

Shinshu Roberts was at the SFZC for years and 18 years ago founded the Ocean Gate Zen Center on 41st Avenue in Capitola next to Santa Cruz with her partner Jake Kinst. The website is oceangatezen.org She recently published Meeting the Myriad Things: A Zen Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s Genjokoan. She worked for years on the Shunryu Suzuki archives. Hear about that and more in this podcast.

June Crow began her study and practice of Buddhism in l968 when she met Shunryu Suzuki. She was known as June Omura back then. I, DC, remember her from Tassajara in the early seventies. She met Chogyam Trungpa of the Tibetan Kagyu and Nyingma lineage at Tassajara and became his student and a meditation instructor and teacher with his group. She’s still actively teaching with it today, living in Ha...

  Helena Bee has been in charge of online programs for the San Francisco Zen Center for four years. Her practice has been centered at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center since she first went with friends as a guest. This podcast is a conversation rather than an interview.

Bob Halpern began attending session at Sokoji with Shunryu Suzuki in 1965 while living in LA where he helped Taizan Maezumi get his zendo going. He and I were best friends and troublemakers at Tassajara and sometimes in the city. We went over all that thoroughly in a podcast years ago. In this podcast he tells about becoming a Chogyam Trungpa student in 1971 and being his first personal attendant....

Gerald Weischede was one of Richard Baker’s first German students. They met in Germany at a workshop or seminar that Baker was giving. Gerald went to Santa Fe to study with Baker when he had his center there and later, with the help of his wife Gisela helped Baker get Crestone Zen Mt. Center going. He was the first director and first shuso. He and Gisela for 20 years have led a Zen community calle...

This is a follow-up podcast with Robert Britton, Bob to me, in which he focuses, using his many decades of applying the Alexander technique to sitting. He was at the SF Zen Center for ten years. He became an Alexander teacher and still is. For 39 years he applied what he’d learned from the Alexander technique at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music helping musicians sit, hold and use their inst...

DC (me) tells more Tassajara stories as an addendum to the to the Tuesday Dec. 9 SFZC Zoom event with Edward Brown answering participants questions we didn’t get to and elaborating as I do in podcasts. Find link to Dec. 9 Zoom event, A Night of Tassajara Stories, at cuke.com/TOC-DC.htm .

Robert Britton, Bob to me,  was at the SF Zen Center for ten years. He became an Alexander teacher and still is. For 39 years he applied what he’d learned from the Alexander method (if I can call it that) at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music helping musicians sit, hold. and use their instruments so that they don’t create physical problems. He’s helped many people at Zen Center and beyond in...

Kirk Rhoads spent years at the SF Zen Center then moved to Yaizu Japan where Shunryu Suzuki’s home temple Rinsoin is located. In this podcast he talks about how his path led to Zen, his years at Zen Center and Japan where he became close with Hoitsu and Chitose Suzuki, and his return to America. He also talks about the Kent Rhoads Foundation which he founded in honor of his late brother. The purpo...

Mary Mocine had visited Tassajara a couple of times but her first practice experience was at a mindfulness retreat with Yvonne Rand at Green Gulch. She was at Zen Center for a number of years and in this podcast she also shares experiences with various teachers and temples in Japan. She had a sitting group in Vallejo for a couple of decades.

Barton Stone joined Shunryu Suzuki for zazen very early on. He's a peace activist, expert carpenter, gardener, poet, and now practices Zen with with the Stone Creek Zen Center in Graton, CA. We'll have the phone chat, read his poems and an old interview. - This is an encore presentation from an August 29, 2020 podcast when Cuke Podcast was only five months old.

Rick McDaniel has written nine books on Zen, the last of which is to be published by Monkfish title Original Face. He’s done hundreds of interviews with Zen folks all over America and Canada where he lives. His website is titled Richard Bryan McDaniel - Zen Conversations and Profiles and is found at rbmcdaniel.ca . Listen to the podcast and learn how all this came to be.

Taiyo Lipscomb came to the Zen Center in the mid seventies and was there for 23 years, becoming one of the folks who run the place. His story is unique as is he. Listen to the podcast and you’ll see.

John Liles is a long time student of the Atlanta Zen Center. In this podcast we hear about it and its founder Soyu Matsuoka and he tells about an inspiring time he had for a month at Tassajara this recent summer.

DC talks about the three weeks he and his wife Katrinka spent at Dharma Sangha's Zen Center in the Black Forest, a visit with Vanja Palmers at his home on Mt. Rigi in Switzerland just below Felsentor, the Zen practice center he founded. And more.

Every day for many years, we at Cuke Archives have posted daily lecture excerpts. They're all over the place in terms of representing Suzuki's teaching, how much context is missing, or how appealing they are. I comment on all this. - DC

At Dharma Sangha's Zen Buddhist Center in the Black Forest with Katrinka for three weeks. Talk about spending time with Zentatsu Richard Baker and Tatsudo Nicole Baden and some mundane stuff.

Barrie Mottishaw is a landscape artist who spent years at the Jones Farm on Quadra Island, a Zen community that was started by students at the San Francisco Zen Center. Learn about that and more in this podcast with her.

Just what it says in the title - DC reads the Preface to Tassajara Stories. Full title - Tassajara Stories: a Sort of Memoire/Oral History of the first Zen Buddhist Monastery in the West--the First Year--1967. Publishing date for the book/audio book/ebook is S3ptember 23, 2025.  Go to cuke.com to read reviews and so forth.

Ted Howell came to the SFZC in the mid-seventies and stuck around a long time. In this podcast, part two of two, he talks about his time at the SF Zen Center and a good deal more..

Ted Howell came to the SFZC in the mid-seventies and stuck around a long time. In this podcast, part one of two, he talks about what he's up to these days, his relationship with squirrels and crows, what transpired on his way to Zen Center, his arrival there and the first thing he learned - having to do with footwear. One point of interest is about his early acting training and relationship with R...

Peter Ford started helping with Cuke Archives in 2012, maybe earlier. Not sure. Since the day he started he's been pretty much full time. For a number of years he's been the Managing Director of Cuke Archives. Thanks to Peter I can concentrate on special projects. In the podcast we talk about the work he's done and his way-seeking mind story. Nine bows to Peter for all he's done and continues doin...

Marsha Angus has been a therapist for many in and out of the SFZC realm for decades. She received lay ordination in 1979 from Richard Baker, was shuso at SFZC in 2007 and received lay entrustment in 2010 from Dairyu Michael Wenger. She started practicing at Green Gulch Farm in 1975. She lives in Mill Valley with her partner, Kiku Christina Lehnherr. Listen to the podcast and learn more.

August 17, 2025, 80th anniversary of Indonesia 's Independence from the Netherlands.  Ketut, Kadek, and I attend a sunrise concert  of jazz great Indra Lesmana at the beach in front of Bali Beach Hotel and I DC reminisce about when Katrinka and I used to live in that area and free associate some.