The following is from Zen West ~ Empty Field Zendo, by their Guiding Teacher, Debra  Seido Martin. Paramita means “arriving at the other shore.” Although the other shore does not have the appearance or trace from olden times, arriving is actualized. Arriving is the fundamental point. Do not think that practice leads to the other…

After dropping my daughter off at college in Ashland, Oregon, my wife I drove south to Mt Shasta, California to visit Shasta Abbey. For many years I had read about their founder, RM Houn Jiyu-Kennett. Her name is recited at my home temple, Dharma Rain Zen Center, in Portland as part of the Traditional Line…

By Barbara Gates from Inquiring Mind, Spring 1993. From the Spring 1993 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 9, No. 2) Robert Aitken, the roshi of the Diamond Sangha, a Zen Buddhist community in Honolulu, was introduced to Zen Buddhism in a Japanese prison camp during World War II.  R. H. Blyth, author of Zen in English Literature, was…

I have been assisting with safety improvements at the temple, including fire evacuations, inspecting AEDs, fire extinguishers, etc. It feels really good to contribute something to my sangha that I feel confident I know something about. There is a lot I don’t know, but safety practices I know something. I also served as 2nd Jisha…

It’s been an eventful summer so far. My daughter, Maddie graduated high school. My mother had some lung related health issues and I flew to New Mexico to be with her, and that trip generated family drama. In the middle of this I also ended a job with a company that I had committed a…

My daughter and I attended the last day of the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. Driving in was a lovely, cool June day, warm enough to smell the hot concrete on the ground but the recently rained on grass as well. I discovered Frida as a teenager, years before the Selma Hayek…

Published in Arrow Journal. CAN WE SAY that Buddhism is feminist at its core? There may be points of convergence with feminist analysis in Buddhist sources, but there are also plenty of misogynist statements. How do we determine which is more foundational? And, more importantly, who decides? While I’m not convinced that there needs to…

I came across this helpful short biographies of female Zen Ancestors. Many of which are known thanks to the work of Sallie Jiko Tisdale such as this and her book Women of the Way.

Pajapati (later known as Mahapajapati, or Great Pajapati) was the aunt of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, she was also his mother figure as she helped raise him after the death of his mother and Mahapajapati’s sister – Maya, who died shortly after Siddhartha’s birth. Around the same time Mahapajapati had also given birth to…

“Listen with your body, your heart, your eyes, your energy, your total presence. Listen in silence, without interrupting. Fill any spaces of silence between you with love. The moments when I can listen like this, to my children or to anyone else, are rare.  Yet these words inspire me with a sense of possibility, and…