Cuke Audio Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

Rico Provasoli came to the SF Zen Center in 1967 to visit his brother Paul Provasoli who'd been there already several years. Rico got a taste of Zen training and set out on a long path that took him to many teachers and places. He's written two books: Please Don't Tell My Guru and Golf Between the Ears. His website is ricoprovasoli.me. For the last couple of decades he's been a student of Cheri Huber. 

Jeff Sherman came to the San Francisco Zen Center in 1968. He practiced with Shunryu Suzuki, Richard Baker, and Katharine Thanas. Now he's with Josho Pat Phelan at the Chapel Hill Zen Center.  This is the 2nd podcast with Jeff and focuses on  his role in preparing Shunryu Suzuki's  ashes site. There's a brief memory of Suzuki and a cool ghost story as well.

Charlie Pokorny is now a teacher at the Brooklyn Zen Center, He and his wife Sarah were  head teachers  at the Stone Creek Zen in  Sebastopol, CA, for 8 years. He was at  the SFZC, mainly Tassajara and Green Gulch farm for12 years during which time he and Timothy O'Conner Fraser got Shunryu Suzuki lecture audio and transcripts up on the SFZC website. He teaches at the Inst. of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley - and he's done a lot more but you can get  at least some of that from the podcast.