Archives by date

You are browsing the site archives by date.

Zen Freak Outs!

Zen Freak Outs!

A few people have forwarded me an article from the Atlantic called Dark Night of the Soul. Pirooz Kalayeh, the director of Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen (you can download and watch it now!) was especially concerned when he read it. “Is this true?” he asked. “Has anything like this ever happened to you?” I told him […]

Sangha, i.e. “The Crowd You Run With”

After I put up my previous piece about Zen Predator of the Upper East Side, a short book-like Kindle object about the sex scandals surrounding Eido Shimano, a commenter who calls herself Shade said, “Okay, as a member of the fairer sex, this is what I don’t get… if the women in this man’s charge […]

Zen Predator

On the recommendation of my friend John Graves, I recently read a Kindle Single called Zen Predator of the Upper East Side by Mark Oppenheimer. It’s about the sex scandals involving Eido Shimano Roshi, a Japanese Zen teacher who has been living and teaching in New York since the mid-1960s. Before reading this book, all I […]

Authentic Life

Two years after I wrote this blog article I received an email from a former member of the Source Family who says the documentary I talk about in this article is entirely misleading. Here is her blog about what she says really went on. Before I start I want to thank all my regular donors […]

Interview with David Giffels

This morning I interviewed David Giffels, author of The Hard Way On Purpose, which is a wonderful book about Akron, Ohio as well as about life in general. The New York Times loved it and so did I. David and I first met when he was in a band called The Difficult who used to […]