Dear All,
I am pleased to announce that Buddhist writer, blogger and Zen historian Barbara O'Brien will be joining us for a very special Zazenkai and Talk on SUNDAY June 21st, LIVE from Missouri, USA and Treeleaf Tsukuba.
More about Barbara, and her wonderful book on the history of Zen, THE CIRCLE OF THE WAY ...
BARBARA O'BRIEN has been practicing Zen Buddhism since the 1980s. She works as a journalist, reporting primarily on religion in America. In addition to Circle of the Way, she is the author of Rethinking Religion: Finding a Place for Religion in a Modern, Tolerant, Progressive, Peaceful and Science-affirming World and has written about Buddhism for many outlets including About.com, The Guardian, Tricycle, and Lion's Roar.
A Unique and Valuable Book for New and Old Zennies: The Circle of the Way - A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World
This book fills a very important niche, and I would like to encourage all Zen folks, the rather new or very experienced, to read it. For people new to Zen and wanting to know about its history and origins in India, China and Japan, the book provides an extremely well-researched yet easy to read, reasonably short but amazingly comprehensive, serious in content while very often fun and funny, wide ranging introduction to Zen's roots and development right down to modern times and Zen's coming west. It is a serious history book, yet not a heavy read.
However, even for long time Zen practitioners, the book is chock full of fascinating information, perspectives and summaries of the latest research on our history and practices, and even someone who has read 1000 Zen books and sat Zazen for decades will learn quite a bit I feel. (I did.) The author, whom I consider to be one of the most reliable sources of information about Zen and other Buddhist traditions through her many blogs, feature writings and articles (someone whom I have read for many years via a variety of Buddhist websites and magazines) really knows her Zen stuff.
The book is also quite unique in presenting the Soto Zen Buddhist approach to practice quite fairly and accurately, and side-by-side with its presentation of Rinzai Zen ways and other flavors of our traditions, showing the commonality and contrast. She also knows the face of Zen that transcends all differences and time. Perhaps none of the books of prior generations, such as the two volume "A History of Zen Buddhism" by Father Dumoulin, the works of D.T. Suzuki and the like, managed this quite as well. Also, those books are now quite out of date and rather parochial in scope, while this new volume presents the results of current scholarship and a more objective and factual understanding of Zen's roots. It is unique in being quite honest (unlike those other histories which often lacked the latest information, and could be a bit romantic in their style) in presenting a candid and open take on our history which seeks to separate fact from fiction or myth, historical event from mere legend or doubtful claim, discussing both light and shadows. She is also honest about gaps in our knowledge and the questions about which people disagree. It is refreshing. Nonetheless, the author, Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien, is a long time practitioner herself, and thoroughly honors and cherishes our ways, holding them in the greatest reverence. She has been around the Buddhist block. Thus, Barbara somehow succeeds in presenting a modern and honest take on Zen's past while celebrating and loving the beauty of this Way.
I highly recommend this book to all without reservations, and I hope everyone will read it soon.
This book fills a very important niche, and I would like to encourage all Zen folks, the rather new or very experienced, to read it. For people new to Zen and wanting to know about its history and origins in India, China and Japan, the book provides an extremely well-researched yet easy to read, reasonably short but amazingly comprehensive, serious in content while very often fun and funny, wide ranging introduction to Zen's roots and development right down to modern times and Zen's coming west. It is a serious history book, yet not a heavy read.
However, even for long time Zen practitioners, the book is chock full of fascinating information, perspectives and summaries of the latest research on our history and practices, and even someone who has read 1000 Zen books and sat Zazen for decades will learn quite a bit I feel. (I did.) The author, whom I consider to be one of the most reliable sources of information about Zen and other Buddhist traditions through her many blogs, feature writings and articles (someone whom I have read for many years via a variety of Buddhist websites and magazines) really knows her Zen stuff.
The book is also quite unique in presenting the Soto Zen Buddhist approach to practice quite fairly and accurately, and side-by-side with its presentation of Rinzai Zen ways and other flavors of our traditions, showing the commonality and contrast. She also knows the face of Zen that transcends all differences and time. Perhaps none of the books of prior generations, such as the two volume "A History of Zen Buddhism" by Father Dumoulin, the works of D.T. Suzuki and the like, managed this quite as well. Also, those books are now quite out of date and rather parochial in scope, while this new volume presents the results of current scholarship and a more objective and factual understanding of Zen's roots. It is unique in being quite honest (unlike those other histories which often lacked the latest information, and could be a bit romantic in their style) in presenting a candid and open take on our history which seeks to separate fact from fiction or myth, historical event from mere legend or doubtful claim, discussing both light and shadows. She is also honest about gaps in our knowledge and the questions about which people disagree. It is refreshing. Nonetheless, the author, Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien, is a long time practitioner herself, and thoroughly honors and cherishes our ways, holding them in the greatest reverence. She has been around the Buddhist block. Thus, Barbara somehow succeeds in presenting a modern and honest take on Zen's past while celebrating and loving the beauty of this Way.
I highly recommend this book to all without reservations, and I hope everyone will read it soon.
THE ZAZENKAI WILL BE VISIBLE AT THOSE TIMES and AFTER HERE:
Our sitting schedule will look like the following: About 25 minutes of Zazen, a Talk by Barbara for about 30 minutes, and some Questions from our Treeleaf participants. I anticipate the the event will be about 90 minutes or so.
FOLKS HAVING QUESTIONS FOR BARBARA CAN PRIVATE MESSAGE ME DURING THE Q&A PORTION HERE (PM to JUNDO), and I will check from time to time, and ask as many questions from viewers as possible.
I hope that we will have a big turnout, with many folks joining us "two way" too (instructions below).
Let's all get together to welcome Barbara and learn a little about our history!
Gassho, Jundo
HOW TO JOIN THE ZAZENKAI '2-WAY':
You can join the Zazenkai two-way in the Scheduled Sitting Room using Zoom any one of the following ways:
- Use this direct link: https://zoom.us/j/4834831244
- Open Zoom and join with this meeting id: 483 483 1244
- Go to Treeleaf NOW and select the Scheduled Sitting Room: treeleaf.org/ssr
- If prompted for a password, use: dogen
Notes:
- When you first join, you'll need to choose an audio source (usually you can simply select "Join with Computer Audio" on desktop or "Call using Internet Audio" on mobile).
- You can switch between the "speaker view" (the default view) and "gallery view" (a grid / tic-tac-toe style view):
-- On desktop, click the "gallery view" / "speaker view" toggle button on the top right
-- On mobile, swipe right for "gallery views" -- only 4 participants are shown at a time on mobile, so keep swiping right to go through different groups, swipe left to go back to the "gallery view"
- You can mute, unmute, etc. with the control bar on the bottom of the screen
-- On desktop, hover the mouse over the window and the control bar should pop up
-- On mobile, tap the screen and the control bar should pop up
-- On mobile, so that your own picture does not take up one of the four slots you see, you can tap for the control bar, then tap "... menu" and select "Remove myself from gallery view"
- If you are on a slow Internet connection and are experiencing drop-outs, try turning off video (you can always turn it on for a bit at the beginning and end to say hi and bow to everyone)
- Use this direct link: https://zoom.us/j/4834831244
- Open Zoom and join with this meeting id: 483 483 1244
- Go to Treeleaf NOW and select the Scheduled Sitting Room: treeleaf.org/ssr
- If prompted for a password, use: dogen
Notes:
- When you first join, you'll need to choose an audio source (usually you can simply select "Join with Computer Audio" on desktop or "Call using Internet Audio" on mobile).
- You can switch between the "speaker view" (the default view) and "gallery view" (a grid / tic-tac-toe style view):
-- On desktop, click the "gallery view" / "speaker view" toggle button on the top right
-- On mobile, swipe right for "gallery views" -- only 4 participants are shown at a time on mobile, so keep swiping right to go through different groups, swipe left to go back to the "gallery view"
- You can mute, unmute, etc. with the control bar on the bottom of the screen
-- On desktop, hover the mouse over the window and the control bar should pop up
-- On mobile, tap the screen and the control bar should pop up
-- On mobile, so that your own picture does not take up one of the four slots you see, you can tap for the control bar, then tap "... menu" and select "Remove myself from gallery view"
- If you are on a slow Internet connection and are experiencing drop-outs, try turning off video (you can always turn it on for a bit at the beginning and end to say hi and bow to everyone)
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