Cuke Audio Podcast

This is the second podcast reading examples of Shunryu Suzuki's use of the phrase "most important." He often used the phrase "most important.," usually in "the most important point" or "the most important thing." Reading from a page on cuke.com that includes every instance of  these words in Suzuki  lectures as found in the 2010 transcript collection. There have been additions to the Suzuki lectur...

Bob Watkins and his wife Sandy arrived at Tassajara not long after we bought it and were there for nine months. We hated to see them go. Bob was the work leader in the first practice period and until he departed. Later he was ordained by Kobun Chino and with Kobun co-founded Hokkyoji in Arroyo Seco above Taos, NM. In this podcast I read a piece I wrote on Bob after he died in 2016. It includes man...

I first met Jesse Wiens Chu at Tassajara about twenty years ago. Now he and his wife Catherine live around the corner. They both have extensive training in Buddhist practice and are NVC teachers - and more. Learn about them and their practice at babatree.org and check out their book Ongo and ongobook.com. Learn about all that and more in this podcast with Jesse. - dc

Getting irritated by the simplistic approach toward "religion" from famous atheists like Neil deGrasse Tyson, I turn to Chat GPT.  Not incidentally, I love listening to Tyson when he knows what he's talking about. The first time this podcast went up it got corrupted. This is a rectified version.

Shunryu Suzuki often used the phrase "most important.," usually in "the most important point" or "the most important thing." In this podcsat DC reads from a page that includes every instance of  these words in Suzuki  lectures as found in the 2010 transcript collection. There have been additions to the Suzuki lecture archive since then, so this collection should be updated.  You can find it at cuk...

Eiheiji monks chant the Heart Sutra. Shunryu Suzuki's basic meaning of the  kanji from the Sokoji chant care. I play it for a bed-ridden Japanese man raised Soto-shu  in a retirement home.

Dor Ben-Amotz is a science professor who, in this podcast, talks about his experience teaching a course in Buddhism and Meditation at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. He also speaks about how he got into Buddhism and meditation, his time at Green Gulch Farm, and more. Here's a link to the syllabus on the course he taught: https://cuke.com/pdf-2015/Fun_Buddhism_Slides.pdf

Peter Schneider began sitting at Sokoji in 1963. He was ordained as a priest by Shunryu Suzuki in 1970 and received transmission from Mel Weitsman. He was at Tassajara for the first years as office manager, then director for a few years, Suzuki's attendant. He and his wife Jane got together there. They lived in Japan many years and on their return to America, founded the Beginner's Mind Zen Center...

Pseudo Dionysius was a 5th century Syrian monk who wrote in Greek The Mystical Theology, his most famous work. It's like the Heart Sutra of Christianity, the via negativa, the neti neti (not this not that) of Advaita Vedanta. An appropriate reading for the holiday season.

Michael Stusser founded the Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary in Freestone CA with it's hot cedar enzyme baths. In this podcast he talks about being an apprentice with master gardener Alan Chadwick and with the head gardener of Myoshinji in Kyoto, meeting Shunryu Suzuki, studying with Kobun Chino and Chogyam Trungpa, gardening for years at the Farallones Institute in Occidental CA and more.

This is an encore presentation of a podcast done in January of 2022 with Dennis Marshall who died this November of 2024 just two days before his 93rd birthday. Listen to yesterday's podcast for DC reading his obit from the Crestone Mt Zen Center and his cuke interview. Dennis Marshall was born in Yorkshire, England 93 years ago. About forty years later he went to a lecture at the City Center of th...

Dennis Marshall first showed up at the SF Zen Center in 1970. He died in November two days short of 93. In this brief podcast I read the Crestone Mt. ZC news obituary for him and then emails between us that became his Cuke Interview.  His January 2022 Cuke Podcast will  be presented next, hopefully tomorrow. - dc

Betty Warren started practicing with Shunryu Suzuki shortly after he arrived from Japan and continued her practice till she died at 89 in 2006. She was a science teacher, anti-war activist, and vision quester. In this podcast I read an interview I did with her thirty years ago - and more. - dc

Della Goertz began her practice with Shunryu Suzuki soon after he arrived in America in 1959. Herein we read from a notebook she kept with brief quotes and paraphrases from his talks and her encounters with him. There's a great deal on her at cuke.com/people/goertz.htm.

 DC Rap on Refuge - like not taking refuge in our hopes and dreams

On keeping in touch with those who are ill or isolated. Visiting my monk friend. Visiting a Japanese neighbor now in a convalescent clinic, a touching experience. Visiting Katrinka on the way home and sharing her birthday cake. Chatting with ChaptGPT.

Gene DeSmidt was a dear friend of mine and the SF Zen Center who died on October 30th. Gene was a creative builder who left behind a number of sound structures at Tassajara and Green Gulch. He was also a musician who helped me muchly in that realm. He was a great character and a humorous, generous, good-hearted person. Learn more at cuke.com/others/GDS.html and  gofundme.com/f/gene-desmidt-needs-y...

DC riffs on not worrying excessively about undocumented immigrants and the ongoing election.

Susan Ross is an illustrator and artist who worked on Be Here Now. In this podcast she takes us from her native Ohio to Smith College to Woodstock to New Mexico, to Shunryu Suzuki's funeral with Gary Snyder and David Padwa, to Colorado studying with Trungpa Rinpoche. She's in Mexico now still being an artist, practicing Tibetan Buddhism, and working on turtle rescue. Here website is susanrosscreat...

This podcast is a talk I gave and meeting with the All Beings Zen Sangha in Washington DC. On October 19th. Inryu Ponce-Barger is the teacher of this group and their website is allbeingszen.org. The focus of the group right now and therefore of the talk is the Sandokai, an ancient Chinese Zen poem that is chanted at the SF Zen Center. I talk about being at Tassajara when Shunryu Suzuki lectured on...

Silas Hoadley began studying with Shunryu Suzuki in 1964. He was highly involved with the founding of Tassajara. Suzuki had Silas giving lectures when Suzuki was ill toward the end of his life. He would have received transmission from Suzuki if Suzuki hadn't died too soon. Silas was a much beloved priest in the SFZC. In this podcast I read a 1994 interview with Silas and a scene with him from the...

I talk about my recent month spent at Dharma Sangha's ZBZS ,  their Zen Buddhist center in the Black Forest.  The high point of the trip was the passing of the abbotship of Dharma Sangha Germany and America from Zentatsu Richard Baker to Tatsudo Nicole Baden.

This is an encore presentation of a May 2023 podcast with Alan Senauke,  the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. and author of "Turning Words, Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers." He has a long involvement with Buddhist peace work and  music. --- The new introduction to this podcast tells about Alan's  heart attack, coma, and recovery which has enabled him to return to teaching and lec...

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. Learn more about Bill on his Wikipedia page, on cuke.com, and at redpinemovie.com. This podcast is an encore presentation of a talk with Bill Porter from August 8, 2020.

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, his way-seeking mind story, work with animal rights, and psychedelics, and dangerous hang gliding. He has a center in the Alps near Lucerne named Felsentor and the Ecumenical House of Silence he and Brother David Steindl-rast founded in Austria. T...