Neil Needs a Nudge - Tyson on Religion Stuck in the Literal - The title says it all. I rap on that some more and urge him to talk with me about this topic - not that there wouldn't be a zillion others more qualitied - but I'm asking and could suggest a  broader approach so that his audience isn't misled.

Was it a bunch of hippies who helped Suzuki found Tassajara and who filled the zendo in the city. I look at this briefly. There's a lot more I could say but I decided to think about how to approach the topic better. Then I talk about unusual experience. It ends with a riff on current events.

Are We Part of It or the whole or what? Reading two Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts and commenting then talking about what I'm going to do when this podcast is loaded.

Kokyo (AKA Luminous Owl) Henkel is a Soto Zen priest who came to the SF Zen Center in 1990 and is currently leading a practice period at Green Gulch Farm. He and his wife Shoho Kuebast founded the Bright Window Hermitage on Tassajara Road. Check it out at brightwindowhermitage.weebly.com. In his college years Kokyo was a dedicated Deadhead. Listen to this podcast with him and learn more.

Marta Dabis is the founding priest of Jissoji Zen Ann Arbor with a lot of experience in Buddhist chaplaincy. She practiced at the SF Zen Center for some years starting in 2007. She has had teachers in the Suzuki and Katagiri lineages. Hear all about it in this podcast with her.

This is the second podcast reading examples of Shunryu Suzuki's use of the phrase "most important." He often used the phrase "most important.," usually in "the most important point" or "the most important thing." Reading from a page on cuke.com that includes every instance of  these words in Suzuki  lectures as found in the 2010 transcript collection. There have been additions to the Suzuki lecture archive since then, so this collection should be updated.  You can find it at cuke.com/Cucumber%20Project/lectures/most-important.htm

Bob Watkins and his wife Sandy arrived at Tassajara not long after we bought it and were there for nine months. We hated to see them go. Bob was the work leader in the first practice period and until he departed. Later he was ordained by Kobun Chino and with Kobun co-founded Hokkyoji in Arroyo Seco above Taos, NM. In this podcast I read a piece I wrote on Bob after he died in 2016. It includes many of his memories of Shunryu Suzuki and Kobun Chino.

I first met Jesse Wiens Chu at Tassajara about twenty years ago. Now he and his wife Catherine live around the corner. They both have extensive training in Buddhist practice and are NVC teachers - and more. Learn about them and their practice at babatree.org and check out their book Ongo and ongobook.com. Learn about all that and more in this podcast with Jesse. - dc

Getting irritated by the simplistic approach toward "religion" from famous atheists like Neil deGrasse Tyson, I turn to Chat GPT.  Not incidentally, I love listening to Tyson when he knows what he's talking about. The first time this podcast went up it got corrupted. This is a rectified version.