My take on American Zen.

My impression of the San Francisco Zen Community initially was that it was like a jealously guarded institution that only allows for the White Anglo Saxon and Jewish membership only. Off course I was turned away from the San Francisco Zen Center at 300, Page Street when I approached the place to seek shelter for the night. I had just arrived from Green Bay Wisconsin and had only one intention and that was to join a Zen Buddhist school. I had no way of turning back had it not worked out as I had burned all my bridges behind me in Green Bay where I had been for over eight years.I said my goodbyes and was given a good ridden by many and I had only enough cash to see me on the plane to SF International Airport with a backpack and a portfolio of Art works I had done while at college which I had hope to find a buyer or two to keep me alive. I was naive to have thought that i could have survived on what little I had with me, but I was also determined to face the inevitable.

When I first walked into 300 Page Street after having walked all the way from Golden Gate Park, I was confronted by a big bald headed guy reading a NewsPaper or pretended to. I was being brushed off and I knew it and the very same man ten years later was one of the Zen Center who came and saw my family moved to Japan from SF. I looked into the Meditation Hall and told myself, I will be back and i will leave my mark in this place and I did. A Year or so later I helped Paul Disco the Master Japanese style carpentry build a rostrum for the Abbot's inauguration. Paul was my instructor and rrab Anderson was the Inaugurated Abbot of SF Zen Community. How did this happen, it's long story and has been written in my Blog somewhere. I never did like the 'City Center' very much and prefered to be practicing at Green Gulch Zen Community, where I stayed for almost two years; it changed my life. I learned to adapt to all the prejudices and the narrow minded politics of the community and i became what they called 'the disruptor', the one who shook the tree by the roots to wake up the whole Zen community from the stupor of having to live with Baker Roshi's sexual fiasco. It was me way of healing the wounded spirit of a Zen community, I was the divine madman and I was the Cheeseburger Buddha. Needless to say i was never popular with the hoity toity straight faced members of the community especially those who have grown so attached to the place that any new faces was a threat to their status. I was more than a new face, i was a colored guy from God knows where and I don't seem to fit in for some odd reason. All the while I was a student at SF Zen center i knew of only one other colored man and he was an African American.

Most of the American Zen students that I came to know of while being a student myself  were genuine and sincere truth seekers who were on the road to find out. They were young and most had a life before they entered the monastery but due to whatever reason life did not work out and thus they sought a change and most changed by the time they left the practice as I did. When you have a taste of zen cooking you are never the same, no matter how jaded you are your life will be affected for better or worse, however, it is if you are genuinely seeking for an answer.The key to Zen teaching is the sitting meditation practice or Zazen. It is simple and yet it is very profound like n other practice that i can think of, not even praying. I know this for now because I am a Muslim and tries to pray five time a day. Sitting and facing the wall for 45 minutes or an hour at a time is a very tedious and demanding activity that places the mind in check. Zazen focuses solely on the breath and nothing else, try it.