How To Cook Your Life:
A 90-Day Commit To Sit Practice Period
Led by New York Zen Center's Guiding Teacher: Koshin Paley Ellison
with Joan Amaral, Chimyo Atkinson, Chodo Campbell, Norman Fischer, Dai En Friedman, Issho Fujita, Ryushin Paul Haller, Taiga Ito, Genyu Kojima, Koyu Mori, Shinzan Palma, Sato Ryoki, Shishin Wick, Yuko Wakayama Yamada and Gyokei Yokoyama
Wednesday, January 12th - Monday, April 11th, 2022
Join Zen teachers from across the United States and Japan for an in-depth, 90-day exploration of Zen practice guided by our study text, How to Cook Your Life, Kōshō Uchiyama Roshi's (1912 - 1998) classic commentary and analysis of 13th century Zen Master Eihei Dogen's seminal Instructions to the Zen Cook.
Regarded with utmost importance, Dogen deemed the position of head cook at a monastery to be suitable only for those who had attained a deep understanding of study and practice. His instruction manual to the cook, enhanced and brought to life by Uchiyama Roshi's commentary, provides a straightforward and practical guide for living, in the kitchen as well as in every moment.
Through weekly dharma talks, daily practice emails, group discussion, and meditation, we will learn to ground ourselves and show up unconditionally to all of the ingredients of our lives.
This unique practice period includes:
- Opening dharma talk Wednesday, January 12 at 7:30 pm ET; Closing dharma talk Monday, April 11 at 7:30 pm ET
- Weekly dharma talks and Q+A, live-streamed Sunday (and some Thursday) evenings at 7:30 pm ET. Access to recordings will also be made available.
- Daily email reflections selected from the study text to support our learning.
- Daily opportunities to sit zazen in our Online Zendo with participants from around the world, with two additional dharma talks each week.
- Access to an online forum for discussion and reflection with other Commit to Sit practitioners.
- Additional resources to support you in deepening your practice.
Each Commit to Sit registration supports the important direct care, training and educational work of New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.
No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Please click here for further information.
Bios for Commit to Sit Teachers:
 Myozen Joan Amaral is the Founder and Guiding Teacher of the Zen Center North Shore. Joan is a dharma heir of Zenkei Blanche Hartman in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, Roshi. Joan trained at Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery for six years. While in residency at San Francisco Zen Center, she formed a dharma group – Dharma en Español – devoted to studying Suzuki Roshi’s Zen Mind, Beginners Mind in Spanish (Mente Zen, Mente de Principiante), in order to provide the opportunity for native Spanish speakers to hear the dharma in their own language.
|
 Chimyo Simone Atkinson was ordained a priest in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition in 2007 and received Dharma Transmission in 2015. Chimyo currently serves as Head of Practice at Great Tree Zen Women’s Temple and volunteers with the sangha at Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institute. She has served on the board of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association since 2017 and helped to draft that organization’s standards for formal monastic practice. She is a member of the Association of Soto Zen Buddhists Jukai-e committee and an SZBA liaison to that organization’s Roadmap Committee.
|
|
 Chodo Campbell, is a co-founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and is part of the core faculty for the Buddhist Track in the Master in Pastoral Care and Counseling at Zen Center’s education partner, New York Theological Seminary. His passion lies in bereavement counseling and advocating for change in the way our healthcare institutions work with the dying.
|
|
 Zoketsu Norman Fischer, is a poet and Zen Buddhist priest. For many years he has taught at the San Francisco Zen Center, the oldest and largest of the new Buddhist organizations in the West, where he served as Co-abbot from 1995-2000. He is presently a Senior Dharma Teacher there as well as the founder and spiritual director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, an organization dedicated to adapting Zen Buddhist teachings to Western culture.
|
|
 Dai En Friedman's teachers include Roshi Peter Muryo Matthiessen, Joseph Goldstein, Matt Flickstein, and Maureen Stuart Roshi. Dai-en received Dharma Transmission from Roshi Peter Muryo Mattheissen as a Soto Zen Teacher. She is now a Sensei at Ocean Zendo, located on Eastern Long Island.
|
|
 Issho Fujita is currently based at the Chizanso Retreat in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan where he conducts research and offers instruction in zazen. He is the second head director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center in San Francisco. He wrote “Modern Lectures on Zazen: The Path to Shikantaza” and is the co-author of “Buddhism 3.0: An Update.” He has also translated numerous works into Japanese including Stephen Batchelor’s “Buddhism Without Beliefs,” David Brazier’s “The Feeling Buddha,” and Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Zen Keys.”
|
|
 Ryushin Paul Haller has lived and practiced at San Francisco Zen Center since the 1970s and held many positions at Tassajara and City Center. He received Dharma Transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman and has been teaching for over 30 years. He served as Abiding Abbot at City Center from 2003 to 2012, and is currently the Urban Temple Dharma Teacher at City Center. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he teaches throughout the US and Europe and has led mindfulness programs to assist with depression and recovery.
|
|
 Taiga Ito trained at Daihonzan Sojiji, one of the head monasteries of Soto Shu (Soto Zen in Japan). In 2016, Taiga Ito became Kokusaifukyoshi (international teacher of Soto Shu). He served as the secretary of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center between 2016 and 2018, where he has taken the role of Assistant Director since 2019.
|
|
 Genyu Kojima Born in 1984, in Chokokuji Temple in Gifu, Japan. Genyu Kojima is now the 20th Abbot of Chokokuji Temple, where he offers memorial ceremonies and Zen practice and dharma talks. He graduated from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, with a BA in International Relations. After graduation, he worked as a steel trader at Metal One Corporation in Tokyo and Singapore for 6 years. At the age of 30, he went to one of Soto Zen’s Head Temples, Daihonzan Eiheiji, in Fukui prefecture, practicing Zen for 18 months. After his training at Eiheiji, Genyu-san, relocated to Bukkokusan Zuioji Temple, in Ehime prefecture, for 18 months of training and practice. In February, 2016, he returned to his home temple where he is now currently serving as a Chief Priest/Abbot of the temple since March, 2020.
|
|
 Koyu Mori trained at Aichi Senmon Nisodo, one of the nun monasteries of Soto Shu (Soto Zen in Japan). In 2018, she became Kokusaifukyoshi (international teacher of Soto Shu) and has also served as the secretary of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center since 2019.
|
|
 Jose Shinzan Palma was born in Veracruz, Mexico. He is a Zen priest and Dharma Successor of Roshi Joan Halifax. He has been practicing Zen since 1996. Shinzan co-teaches a teenagers retreat for the Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, and weekends retreats in several parts of the country. Currently, he lives in San Diego and teaches at the Carlsbad Zen Community and Sweetwater Zen Center.
|
|
 Koshin Paley Ellison co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Zen-based organization to offer fully accredited ACPE clinical chaplaincy training in America. Koshin is the co-editor of Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End of Life Care (Wisdom Publications, 2016) and author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up.
|
|
 Sato Ryoki is a Soto Zen Togenji 28th chief priest / founder of the Millennium Art Forest Project. Born in 1972, Sato Ryoki trained at Eiheiji and Hokyoji temples. He became a priest of a Zen temple founded 550 years ago in Ichinoseki City, Iwate Prefecture, where he was born and raised. As a Buddhist priest, he works with hospice volunteers on mental health while developing communities and projects with his temple as hubs. In 2011, he encountered a tsunami during the Great East Japan Earthquake and nearly died on the roof of a truck. Since then, led by the question, "What is really to live?", he practices and studies Buddhism, while lecturing and engaging dialogue on his experience in Japan and abroad.
|
|
 Gerry Shishin Wick is President and Spiritual Leader of the Great Mountain Zen Center in Lafayette, Colorado. He is a Dharma Successor of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. He did rigorous training in both schools of Zen, Soto and Rinzai. He received inka and the title Roshi from Bernie Glassman in 2006. His latest books include The Book of Equanimity, Illuminating Classic Zen Koans and The Great Heart Way: How to Heal Your Life and Find Self-fulfillment (co-authored with Ilia Shinko Perez).
|
|
 Yuko Wakayama Yamada is the vice abbess of Shogakuji, a Soto Zen monastery in Tokyo, Japan, and the first nun to teach at Eiheji, the head monastery of Soto Zen.
|
|
 Gyōkei Yokoyama completed his training at Eiheiji, one of the head temples of Sōtō Zen, in 2000 before graduating from Sophia University in Tokyo, where he majored in intercultural communication and was involved in the interfaith community. He was a vice bishop of Iwoji temple from 2006 to 2011 and a bishop from 2011 to 2013. Currently, he is assigned to work for the Long Beach Buddhist Church and Montebello Sozenji Buddhist Temple as a minister and the Sōtō Zen North America Office as the secretary.
|
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
