Cuke Audio Podcast

With Guest Ed Brown

This is the third Cuke podcast with Ed Brown is the author of several books, including The Tassajara Bread Book, Tassajara Cooking, No Recipe: Cooking as Spiritual Practice, and he also edited the book of Suzuki Roshi lectures, Not Always So. He was ordained as a Zen priest by Suzuki Roshi in 1971, he received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman in 1996. Ed is the founder and teacher of the Peaceful Sea Sangha <peacefulseasangha.org>. In this podcast Ed talks about his banishment from teaching, giving lectures, or leading sesshins at Green Gulch and the whole SFZC. He also talks about his prostate cancer, how The Tassajara Bread Book came about, and other subjects. The podcast ends with two brief excerpts from talks he gave at Green Gulch Farm six years ago that contain the words he spoke that offended a person who wrote a letter of complaint that led to Ed's ouster, the straw that broke the camel's back. There's also a surprise at the end of this podcast. 

With Guest Susan O'Connell

Zesho Susan O'Connell was ordained and given transmission by Reb Anderson. She was VP and president of the SF Zen Center for ten years. She came up with the idea of the Enso Village retirement community and made it a reality. She had a 25 year career in the film biz before coming to ZC and produced ten ZC related films. She's been instrumental in promoting the ZC digitizing and archiving thousands of ZC lecture recordings. Here what she has to say about a lot of this and more in this podcast.

With Guest Gil Fronsdal

Gil Fronsdal is the senior guiding co-teacher at the Insight Meditation Center (IMC) in Redwood City, California and the Insight Retreat Center in Santa Cruz, California. He started Buddhist practice in 1975 at the San Francisco Zen Center, and has been teaching for IMC since 1990. Gil is an authorized teacher in two traditions: the Insight Meditation lineage of Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia, and Japanese Soto Zen. He holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Stanford. He is a founder of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies. He is a husband and the father of two sons .Thanks for that Wikipedia. In this podcast, Gil takes us on his way-seeking mind journey.

With Guest Tai Sheridan

Tai Sheridan showed up at the SFZC in the late sixties. He practiced at Tassajara in 1971 and later at Green Gulch Farm. He was close to Mel Weitsman and the Berkeley Zendo for years. while He's written many books including Buddha in Blue Jeans that are available  for free as ebooks. Recently he created a distillation of his writings into five books available from cuke.com for free download. He encourages a donation to Cuke Archives if one is so inclined. To download these new books search for Tai Sheridan on cuke.com or go to the bibliography. To donate just click on the donate button on the home and many other pages of cuke.com and shunryusuzuki.com. Find out more at taisheridan.com and listen to this podcast.

With Guest Ned Hoke

Ned Hoke was on Esalen Inst. staff when Shunryu Suzuki led a two day workshop there in 1968. After that, Ned came to Tassajara in the summers as a student. He's been an acupuncturist for forty years. In this podcast he talks about that, we talk about Bolinas, he tells about bringing Suzuki's headstone up to the hogback.

With Guest Steve Silberman

Steve Silberman came to the SF Zen Center in 1979 and worked with me, DC, at Greens Restaurant.. He's a writer for Wired Magazine. He talks about his bestselling Neurotribes: the Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. He also wrote Skeleton Key A Dictionary for Deadheads.He talks about all this and more in this podcast. He has done his homework.

With Guest Sheridan (Ericson) Adams

Sheridan Adams, formerly Sheridan Ericson, came to Zen Center in 1965. She was at the first practice period at Tassajara. She practiced Vipassana at Spirit Rock and was involved with studying and encouraging diversity there and elsewhere for years. She's going to retire as a psychotherapist next year. As you will hear in this podcast, she's stayed on a spiritual path through the years.

With Guest Alan Rabold

Alan Rabold's Buddhist study began before he came to the SF Zen Center in 1968 and continued on with Maezumi, long solo retreats, to Boulder and Trungpa and more. He had a career as a schoolteacher and a photographer. See alanrabold.com and get a copy of his beautiful book of photographs, Appreciating the World, and check him out on Instagram. He's teaching meditation these dats at Naropa University. In this podcast he talks about all that and more.

With Guest Peter Coyote

Peter Coyote is a Zen teacher, writer, activist, actor, and that's just a start. Check him out on cuke.com, at petercoyote.com, and in this podcast.

With Guest John Steiner again

John Steiner came to the San Francisco Zen Center in 1967 a few months before the first practice period at Tassajara and participate in that practice period. His involvement with peace and environmental work began before then and continues to this day as does his spiritual path. These days he's focusing on getting young people and minorities registered to vote. In this podcast he talks about how he got on the so-called spiritual path and the engaged one and more. This is the 2nd of two podcasts with John.