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"
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Everyday Buddhism 49 - A Missing Future with David Farley
Everyday Buddhism 48 - Announcing the Everyday Buddhism Lecture Series on Mindful Writing
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Everyday Buddhism 46 - 6 Steps for Coping with Uncertainty with Gregg Krech
Everyday Buddhism 45 - We're All in the Same Storm But Not in the Same Boat
Everyday Buddhism 44 - Chaos and Order: Personal Reflections, Poetry, and Chaos Theory
Everyday Buddhism 43 - Awakening to the Ordinary with Dr. Christiane Michelberger
Everyday Buddhism 42 - How Not to Feel Like a Victim
Everyday Buddhism 41 - American Sutra with Duncan Williams
Everyday Buddhism 40 - Covid-19 Mind Protection
Everyday Buddhism 39 - Let's Not Talk About Politics
Everyday Buddhism 38 - And Yet, And Yet
Everyday Buddhism 37 - Pragmatic Buddhism with Ken McLeod
Everyday Buddhism 36 - Random New Year's Thoughts
Everyday Buddhism 35 - Bodhi Day: The Light is Inside!
Everyday Buddhism 34 - The Book is Here! Book Launch Special
Everyday Buddhism 33 - Halloween: What Scares You? What Masks Do You Wear?
Everyday Buddhism 32 - Buddhism, Baseball, and Life
Everyday Buddhism 31 - The Boundless Heart: Bodhicitta
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