Paths of Practice: Conversations on Journeys into Buddhism

Rev. CJ Sokugan Dunford (they/them/theirs) is a Jōdo Shinshū minister serving as minister's assistant at the Berkeley Buddhist Temple and Tokudo minister at the Buddhist Temple of Marin. Rev. CJ recently completed a Doctorate of Ministry degree at the Pacific School of Religion and teaches at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Rev. CJ works towards establishing practical Jodo Shinshu framework...

Rev. Cyndi Jikaku Yasaki is a Jōdo Shinshū minister that serves the White River Buddhist Temple based in Auburn, WA. Rev. Cyndi completed her Certificate in Shin Buddhism from the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Spring 2019 and received the first level of ordination, Tokudo, in Kyoto, Japan in Summer 2019. She married her husband, Rev. Tadao Koyama, in 2020 and moved with him to Tacoma, WA upon h...

Fresh “Lev” White is a love and compassion activist. He offers mindfulness, mediation, and diversity trainings as tools for shifting towards more authentic, conscious, and passionate living. He teaches and writes about how unconditional love and self-compassion are the ultimate gateways to honoring and understanding others; thus, healing our communities and our planet. For more information about L...

Rev. Myozen Joan Amaral is a Soto Zen priest and the Founder and Guiding Teacher of the Zen Center North Shore located in Beverly, MA. Joan is a dharma heir of Zenkei Blanche Hartman in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi. Joan trained at Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery for six years. While in residency at San Francisco Zen Center, she formed a dharma group – Dharma en Español – devoted to study...

Rev. Dr. Duncan Ryūken Williams is a Soto Zen priest and the Professor of Religion and East Asian Languages & Cultures as well as the Director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture. Dr. Williams is the author of American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War, The Other Side of Zen: A Social History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan, and the...

Rev. Dr. Enrique Galvan-Alvarez is a professor of Humanities and Digital Society at the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja-UNIR and a Jōdo Shinshū priest that serves Jinen-Kō, an online community of Portuguese and Spanish speaking folk who are interested in learning and practicing the Dharma, or teachings, of Pure Land Buddhism. For more information about Jinen-Kō and the European Shin Conferen...

Mushim Patricia Ikeda is a secular mindfulness and Buddhist teacher working primarily with justice activists and BIPOC meditation practitioners as well as with people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Mushim is a core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California, and has been published in Lion's Roar, Tricycle, Buddhadharma and various anthologies. Mushim's training and...

Bonbu Stories is an Asian American arts collaborative dedicated to using music as a medium for raw storytelling and building connections. Featured on the podcast are Sydney Shiroyama, Miharu Okamura, and Miko Shudo. For more information about the group, please see the following link: https://bonbustories.art/ Please also see the following link for "Lantern Song" by Bonbu Stories: https://www.youtu...

Rev. Gyokei Yokoyama is a Soto Zen priest that currently serves as Kokusai Fukyoshi (International Missionary) of Sozenji Buddhist Temple in Montebello, California. Gyokei also serves as the Secretary of Soto Zen Buddhism North America and as a board member of the Association of Soto Zen Buddhists (ASZB) and Soto Zen Buddhist North America (SZBA).Gyokei is the former minister of the Long Beach Bud...

Rev. Liên Shutt is an ordained Soto Zen priest and Dharma teacher in the tradition of Shunryū Suzuki Roshi. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, Rev. Liên trained in the Insight and Zen traditions in the U.S., Thailand, Japan, and Vietnam. Rev. Liên co-founded Buddhists of Color in 1998 and currently is the founder and guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an anti-racist, inclusive sangha and non-pro...

Rev. Myozan Ian Kilroy is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest and a Dharma heir of Taigu Turlur Roshi, in the lineage of Nishijima Roshi and Rempo Niwa Zenji. Rev. Myozan serves the Zen Buddhism Ireland sangha, where he is the founding teacher and abbot at Dublin Zen Centre. Rev. Myozan is the founding president of the Irish Buddhist Union and represents Buddhism on the Dublin City Interfaith Forum. In ear...

Rev. Monshin Paul Naamon is the abbot and co-founder of the Tendai Buddhist Institute (Jiunzan Tendaiji), an officially recognized branch temple of Enryakuji Temple on Mt. Hiei located in East Chatham, NY. We discuss the feng shui and geographical history of the Tendai Buddhist Institute’s location, finding what was missing in Zen in America within Tendai in Japan, converting a horse barn into a H...

Roshi June Ryushin Tanoue is a Zen Buddhist priest and the co-founder of Zen Life & Meditation Center based in Chicago, IL. June Roshi is also a Kumu Hula (Master Teacher of Hula) and the founder of Halau I Ka Pono, the Hula School of Chicago. For more information about June Roshi and the Zen Life & Meditation Center, please see the following links: https://www.zlmc.org/ https://www.lionsr...

Wendy Dainin Lau, MD, is an Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine physician and an ordained Zen priest that serves the Upaya Zen Center sangha in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dainin is also the author of Inner Practice of Medicine, which compiles the lessons that she has been gathering throughout her time as a doctor and teacher of doctors. For more information about Dainin and the Upaya Zen Center,...

Sangen Salo is an ordained Zen Buddhist priest and teacher that serves as abbot of Sanneji based in Karjaa, Finland. Sangen sensei is also Sante Poromaa Roshi’s first Dharma heir in the lineage of Roshi Philip Kapleau and teaches at the Helsinki Zen Center as well as other zendos in the Sanneji network. We talk about the connections between Zen practice and playing the shakuhachi, learning from Sa...

Zenzele Isoke, PhD, is a black feminist theorist, urban ethnographer, and political storyteller and serves as an Associate Professor in The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park. Dr. Isoke practices meditation in the Insight and Zen traditions, with experience practicing at the Clouds and Water Zen Center and Common Ground M...

Gillian Coote, Roshi, is a social documentary filmmaker, writer, grandmother and bush regenerator, and serves the Sydney Zen Centre sangha as a senior resident teacher. We talk about camping out during sesshins amongst iguanas and noisy koalas, weeding and removing invasive species as part of Buddhist practice, synchronicities and meeting Robert Aitken Roshi, how she's weaved architecture and hous...

Rev. Kanse Capon Shonin, a Nichiren Shu priest, serves the Nichiren Shu Buddhist Temple of UK located in Dagenham, Essex. We discuss celebrating Oeshiki and hosting members of the European Nichiren Shu sangha network, the closer-than-family relationship between master and disciple, embarking on a more than 300 mile pilgrimage from Penzance to Dagenham, the legacy of Captain John M. James, and cult...

Jinzu Minna Jain (they/them) is an artist, writer, and racial & systemic equity educator. They identify as BIPOC, disabled, queer and trans/nonbinary. Jinzu has been practicing Sōtō Zen Buddhism for over twenty years and is a novice priest at Clouds in Water Zen Center. They are also the Director of Learning & Development with Real Transformation Today, a racial equity education and consul...

Catherine Raynor Brown is a sangha member of the Karma Kagyu Thigsum Chokhorling (or Karma Choeling Buddhist Monastery), a study, practice and retreat centre in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism based in Waitoki, New Zealand. https://kagyu.org.nz/ We discuss the recent passing of the monastery's founding teacher and observing 49 days of prayer, traditional Tibetan healthcare and medici...

Shosan Victoria Austin is an international Soto Zen priest that serves the San Francisco Zen Center sangha as a Dharma teacher, previously fulfilling the roles of Work Leader, Tenzo, Tanto, and President. Victoria is also a certified Senior Intermediate teacher within the Iyengar Yoga tradition. We talk about participating in abbot stepping up and down ceremonies, the differences between guilt and...

Rev. Kodai Haga (Sen) leads the Rinzai Zen Mission, which is based in Paia, Maui. We talk about surfing as a way of becoming one with nature, visiting other temples and traditions within the Hawaiian Buddhist temple network, growing up in a temple family and reconnecting with Buddhism after college, monastic training at Enkaku-ji and koan study, "moonbows" and pig feet stew, and the question of ho...

So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson is a resident priest at the San Francisco Zen Center and serves as the Director of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging for the City Center, Green Gulch Farm, and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Eli also teaches mindfulness to BIPOC grade school children and regularly instructs at SFZC's Young Urban Zen. We discuss learning more about what it is to be human through a deep c...

Josan Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the memoir, The Russian Word for Snow, and two novels: Mary; Mrs. A. Lincoln and A Master Plan for Rescue. Janis also teaches creative writing, offering courses like Writing and Mindfulness: Cultivating a Daily Practice through the San Francisco Zen Center, and founded Lit Camp, a writer's conference that takes place at the Esalen Institute. Janis also fou...

Shodhin Geiman, PhD, serves as abbot of the Chicago Zen Center and as Senior Research Professor at Valparaiso University. Shodhin is the author of Alone in a World of Wounds: A Dharmic Response to the Ills of Sentient Beings as well as Obstacles to Stillness: Thoughts, Hindrances, and Self-Surrender in Evagrius and the Buddha. We discuss 'Midwestern Zen,' Chicago Zen Center’s 50th anniversary, the...