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 30 - The Buddha Sat Right Here with Dena Moes
Everyday Buddhism 29 - Right Speech is Right Listening
Everyday Buddhism 28 - June Weddings, Relationships, and Perfection?
Everyday Buddhism 27 - Right Mindfulness and Meditation
Everyday Buddhism 26 - Why Sangha? Bringing Buddhism to Life
Everyday Buddhism 25 - Pureland Buddhism with Satya Robyn
Everyday Buddhism 24 - Appreciating Life Through Death Meditation
Everyday Buddhism 23 - Japanese Psychology and Buddhism with Gregg Krech
Everyday Buddhism 22 - Release Your Cows
Everyday Buddhism 21 - Tibetan Buddhism: There is Only One Dharma
Everyday Buddhism 20 - A Bright Dawn: Conversation with Rev. Koyo Kubose
Everyday Buddhism 19 - Bodhi Day Special: The Grace of Light
Everyday Buddhism 18 - The 5 Precepts: Gentle Guides Not Commandments
Everyday Buddhism 17 - Radically Happy: Conversation with Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon
Everyday Buddhism 16 - Simple Awareness and the Many Forms of Meditation
Everyday Buddhism 15 - A Buddha Belongs to the World
Everyday Buddhism 14 - Protesting? What's in Your Mind?
Everyday Buddhism 13 - Right Effort: Joyful Balance
Everyday Buddhism 12 - MORE Koans: Bringing Them Into the Everyday
Everyday Buddhism 11 - Koans: Reaching the Limit of Thought
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