Cuke Audio Podcast

With guest Neil Rubenking

Neil Rubenking came to the SF Zen Center in the seventies and  had this interest in computers that benefitted the SFZC when hardly anyone knew anything about them and he sailed into a career with PC Magazine that continues to this day as their senior security analyst.  He also worked for the CIA as a student summer job. Listen to this podcast and you'll learn more vital information about Neil and so forth. 

With Guest Vicki Austin

Shosan Vicki Austin is a priest and teacher at the SF Zen Center whose reach has spread further due to her knowledge of ceremonies, meditation, and Iyengar Yoga.  Her practice began in 1971 with a near death experience. She has studied and taught in America, India, Japan, and Australia where she became fascinated with the aboriginal ways . Listen to this podcast with her and  find out what she has to say about all this - and more.

With Guest Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield is a renowned poet. She first came to the SF Zen Center, showing up at Tassajara in 1974 when I was head monk, a  good day for us both.  In this podcast she talks about her life as a poet, a Buddhist, a lover of life and this planet and all that is living.  She  reads from her recently published  The Asking: New and Selected Poems (from fifty years of poetry).

Shamsul Bahari

Shamsul Bahari was born in Penang, Malaysia, and through a circuitous route through Dennis Kelly ended up at Green Gulch Farm. He's back in  Penang now. Check him out in this podcast and at  cheeseburgerbuddha.blogspot.com.

With Guest Jake Fishman

Jacob Fishman had a rough childhood on the streets of Brooklyn on his own from a young age. He escaped via the US Navy which took him to San Francisco where he became a student at the SF Art Inst. where he heard about Suzuki Roshi and the Zen Center where he started practicing in 1968. He's still living near the ZC but a lot happened in between.  See  the photos he took in the zendo while people did zazen on shunryusuzuki.com , linked to from his cuke page and the photo page on cuke.com.

With Guest Dwite Brown

Dwite Brown was sitting at Sokoji and sending his brother Ed Zen stories. Ed and Alan Winter came to check the West Coast out and started sitting at Sokoji too. Dwite worked with Silas Hoadley in Silas's importing business. He became an Episcopalian minister, taught computer science at a college. He and his wife Judy converted to Catholicism over three decades ago.  Now they live near and are involved with the Abbey of New Clairvaux, a rural Trappist monastery located in Northern California in the small town of Vina in Tehama County.  Dwite is a tour guide for the abbey.

With Guest Joanna Bull

Joanna Bull was a student of Shunryu Suzuki became a psychoanalyst and, as a result of having Gilda Radner as a client, went on to be a founder of Gilda's Club and the Cancer Support Community. She's got a neat ghost story too which led to her coming to the Zen Center.

With Guest Therese Fitzgerald part two

Therese Fitzgerald came to the SF Zen Center in 1976, was ordained as a priest by Richard Baker in 1986, with her husband Arnold Kotler founded the Community of Mindful Living applying the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn who ordained her as a dharmacharya in 1994. She worked with Maxine Hong Kingston's Veterans Writing Group. Now Therese is a hospice chaplain in Maui where she and Arnie moved to long ago. There's more to her story you can hear about in this podcast and last weeks' part one.  To read the piece her hubby Arnie Kotler wrote for Inquiring Mind on his relationship with his father, Richard Baker and Thich Nhat Hanh, go to cuke.com, write his name in the site search box, and look for Letting go of My Father.

With Guest Therese Fitzgerald

Therese Fitzgerald came to the SF Zen Center in 1976, was ordained as a priest by Richard Baker in 1986, with her husband Arnold Kotler founded the Community of Mindful Living applying the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn who ordained her as a dharmacharya in 1994. She worked with Maxine Hong Kingston's Veterans Writing Group. Now Therese is a hospice chaplain in Maui where she and Arnie moved to long ago. There's more to her story you can hear about in this podcast and then next week's part two.

With Guest Ted Tripp

Ted Tripp heard Shunryu Suzuki speak at Stanford in 1967 and met him the next year at Tassajara where Suzuki let him stay longer in order for him to prepare himself to go to prison for anti-war activities. He's recently retired from teaching English at San Jose State and UC Santa Cruz.  He  says, "A solid foundation of dharma and ability to practice meditation is a good preparation for what comes next."