Steven

2024-03-07T16:21:12+00:00

Steven resides in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife and 13-year-old son, accompanied by a couple of cats. Despite a professional background in science education and media production, Steven now primarily fulfills the role of a house spouse, dedicating himself to supporting his family, Sangha community, and Dharma community. A digital artist and enthusiast of photography and outdoor activities, Steven finds joy in creating art and contributing to the beauty of the world. His commitment to fostering relationships and communities stems from a deep desire to bring more beauty into the world. However, he acknowledges the challenges he faced in establishing connections earlier in life, crediting his Dharma practice for helping align his aspirations with skills and abilities.

Kyle

2023-12-29T18:48:06+00:00

Coming from a family with a strong history in Jehovah's Witnesses, Kyle experienced a strict form of Christianity until he left at 18, facing significant impact and trauma. In his 20s, he explored agnosticism and even atheism but felt an inescapable spiritual need akin to the necessity of exercising the body or educating the mind. Therapy introduced him to mindfulness through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), laying the foundation for his interest in Buddhism.

Gou Yuan Fa Shi

2023-12-29T16:30:14+00:00

Guo Yuan Fashi is a Buddhist monk trained in Chan Buddhism. In 1985 he first encountered Master Sheng Yen’s teachings while attending a seven-day retreat in New York. He then decided to become a disciple before finally leaving his job in Toronto, Canada, to become a monk in the Chan tradition. He was ordained in 1987 in Taiwan. For over twenty years, he accompanied and became translator to Master Sheng Yen in various Chan meditation retreats in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, and Mexico.

Shinge Roshi

2024-03-07T16:21:35+00:00

Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat Roshi is abbot of the Zen Studies Society’s mountain monastery, Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-ji, and New York City temple, New York Zendo Shobo-ji, and is also abbot of the Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji in Syracuse, NY.

Joann

2023-11-27T13:20:17+00:00

I’m the Buddhist chaplain at Syracuse University. Which is an amazing thing for me, because I came here as a student when I was 18, and this is where I learned about Buddhism and got interested in Buddhism. And then to come back much later in my life after I retired from a job teaching in the city schools here to to return to the very place that I used to hang out all the time.

Karen

2023-11-27T22:37:14+00:00

And I met Allen Ginsberg there, and I met the Grateful Dead. Allen Ginsberg and, you know, Gregory Corso and he Wolfman a Bob Dylan. I just hung out there and Allen Ginsberg came up to me one day and he said, Do you look like you could try some meditation like Merton? And I said, Oh, okay. And so he brought me to a little room and there were other people there. And he said, You know, you just sit and breathe.

Christopher

2024-03-07T16:26:57+00:00

So my my spiritual journey, I started the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship about almost nine years ago after reading a book called River of Fire River of Water. And it was interesting because I had picked up the book off of the used bookshelf many times before. It had put it down, put it down, put it down. And then one day it just picked it up and read it. And it was pretty transformative, even though I didn’t I even though I didn’t buy everything in the book, like hook, line and sinker and like, Oh, this is Nirvana and this is what I wanted.

Bruce

2024-03-27T15:12:13+00:00

I would go to bookstores and actually the first book a guy recommended to me was, um, Sex, Spirituality and Ecology by Ken Wilber. And it's a thick, rough going read, right? But I dove into it and it just kind of really opened me up and I thought, okay, I'm going to go further. And I started reading other stuff of his and of course he talks about Buddhism and the relative and the absolute and, you know, these kind of things in there. And one thing led to another. I picked up a book by showing him Trungpa, uh, spiritual materialism, I think it was. And I read two or three of his others, uh, and then I found a book by Sylvia and became the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and which is written in even more plain English than Trump was even.

Sensei Michael

2023-12-01T14:45:53+00:00

And I was known for talking people down from bad trips and things of that nature. And he said, Oh, I don’t do that anymore. I just do Zen. Okay, well, that’s interesting. What’s that all about? And so I said, Well, I’m going this weekend. Why don’t you come with me? So that weekend I went with him to the temple on Halsted Street near Fullerton, on the North side of Chicago. I met Matsuoka Roshi, who became my teacher, so I sort of backed into that. Like everything else, I think I’d read maybe a book on Zen or to not not much.

Dennis

2023-12-10T02:27:03+00:00

I resonated with Buddhism because of its emphasis on silent meditation. I was always attracted to silent meditation, remembering the quiet time after Communion and silent prayer in Christian traditions. The old saying, “Be quiet and you will know God."

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