Today’s Recommendation: The Zen Talks of Kobun Chino Otogawa

Embracing Mind:
The Zen Talks of Kobun Chino Otogawa
★★★★

Kobun Chino Otogawa was an instrumental figure in the transmission of Zen to America and it's evolution within our culture. When Eijeiji, one of Japan's two head temples, sent a classically educated trainer of monks to help establish the forms of the first Zen monastery in the US, they were unaware of the depth of his faith in Buddha nature - that we are already enlightened and the purpose of practice is to find buddha within our selves. Arriving as a young man in the midst of a social revolution, Kobun seemed to resonate in perfect time with the evolution of American Zen. With a refined ability to embody exquisite form and an emphasis on boundlessness, in this paradox, Kobun practiced Zen with intuitive creativity like Miles Davis played jazz.

Although he came to assist Shunryu Suzuki at the San Francisco Zen Center, Kobun was enamored by the way Zen, unfettered, blossomed in new soil and he followed it wherever it grew. For Kobun, Zen was not an institution, but the elemental nature of every aspect of our lives and existed in myriad forms. Kobun founded four temples, taught Buddhism at Stanford and Naropa University, demonstrated and taught calligraphy and archery, spoke at events and met with sitting groups in their living rooms and hiked the wilderness with the people he mes. When Steve Jobs launched Next computer, Kobun was listed as it's spiritual director.

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