Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
Religion & Spirituality:Buddhism
Join me for a delightful conversation with Steve Kanji Ruhl about his book, Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma, the 2023 Gold Prize winner for Memoir in the Nautilus Book Awards.
Steve Kanji is a Zen Buddhist minister ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order, now teaching independently and instructing Zen students through his Touch the Earth cyber-sangha. Reverend Kanji received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University and is a Buddhist chaplain at Deerfield Academy, a Buddhist Adviser at Yale University, and faculty member of the Shogaku Zen Institute.
Kanji has been a guest speaker or workshop facilitator at Harvard’s Center for World Religions, Yale Divinity School, the International Conference on Socially Engaged Buddhism, the Omega Institute, and elsewhere.
In addition to Appalachian Zen, he is the author of Enlightened Contemporaries: Francis, Dogen & Rumi—Three Great Mystics of the Thirteenth Century and Why They Matter Today and has recently finished writing a new book about his personal experience of spirituality and wellness called The Whole Earth is Medicine: Science, Zen, and Healing Body and Mind in a Journey through Cancer. He has also published two volumes of poems, The Constant Yes of Things and Paintings of Rice Cakes Satisfy Hunger.
In his book, Appalachian Zen, Kanji takes us on a 30-year journey through his search to find his "true home" in lilting and lyrical prose and poems that move the story from Appalachia through academia—constantly asking: What is home? What is this? What is life? Death? What is real? … The questions Buddhism never answer but continue to ask.
In our conversation we talked about, among other things:
-Childhood memories
-The search for self and the search for losing the self
-Being a foolish being and Shin Buddhism
-The contrast between Western and Eastern philosophical and spiritual worldviews
-Mystical Christianity and the similarity to the direct experience of the sacred in Buddhism
-Buddhist lay ministers as compared to Buddhist monastics, priest, and the "guru model"
-Kanji's teaching of "Be Clear, Be Kind, Be Present"
Everyday Buddhism 70 - Disappearing? Transcending?
Everyday Buddhism 69 - Thoughts on the Loss of My Teacher - Rev. Koyo Kubose
Everyday Buddhism 68 - The Buddha's Wife: Yasodhara and the Buddha with Vanessa Sasson
Everyday Buddhism 67 - Love and the Strength of Our Humanness
Everyday Buddhism 66 - Buddhist Spiritual Friendship as a UU Pastor with Pamela Patton
Everyday Buddhism 65 - Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, and the Light of the Buddha's Promise
Everyday Buddhism 64 - We Were Made For These Times With Kaira Jewel Lingo
Everyday Buddhism 63 - Halloween: What Scares You? What Masks Do You Wear?
Everyday Buddhism 62 - The Magic Power of Equanimity
Everyday Buddhism 61 - A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment with Scott Snibbe
Everyday Buddhism 60 - It's All About "Tude" But Not That "Tude"
Everyday Buddhism 59: The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas with Frank Howard
Everyday Buddhism 58: Allow Joy - Chan Practice for Uncertain Times
Everyday Buddhism 57 - Dharma for Trauma
Everyday Buddhism 56 - Can You Lament And Still Be A Buddhist?
Everyday Buddhism 55 - Introducing Where The Light Meets
Everyday Buddhism 54 - Same Crap, Different Year?
Everyday Buddhism 53 - Lessons for Covid Living From Those With Long-Term Health Challenges
Everyday Buddhism 52 - How To Be Thankful in the Midst of Sadness
Everyday Buddhism 51 - Steady, Calm and Brave with Kimberly Brown
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