Norman Fischer

Everyday Zen: Changing and Being Changed by the World

Join TNS Host Michael Lerner in conversation with Zen Buddhist Priest Norman Fischer. A former Abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, Norman is the founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation, a network of spiritual communities and projects. He is also co-founder, with the late Rabbi Alan Lew, of Makor Or, a Jewish meditation center in San Francisco.

His newest writings include Experience: Essays on Thinking, Writing, Language and Religion, and What Is Zen: Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind.

Photo (below): Christine Alicino

Norman Fischer

A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Norman began publishing poetry in the late 1970s as part of a San Francisco Bay Area group of experimental writers. His books include Turn Left In Order To Go Right (O Books, 1989), Precisely The Point Being Made (O Books/Chax Press 1993), Jerusalem Moonlight (Clear Glass Publications, 1995), Success (Singing Horse Press, 2000), Slowly but Dearly (Chax Press, 2004), I Was Blown Back (Singing Horse Press 2005), Questions/Places/Voices/Seasons (Singing Horse 2009), Conflict (Chax 2012), The Strugglers (Singing Horse, 2013), and Escape This Crazy Life of Tears: Japan 2010 (Tinfish Press, 2014). His spiritual writings include Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong (2013), Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up (2004), Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms (2003), and Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls (2011).

He lives in Muir Beach California with his wife Kathie, a biology teacher and expert scuba diver. They have two grown sons who live in Brooklyn.

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