I’m here in Toronto to do a wedding for some dear friends. I also have the enormous privilege of preaching at the First Unitarian Congregation tomorrow. But, I also took advantage of the opportunity to visit two Zen teachers.
Actually Toronto is quite the Zen town with several very interesting folk and communities. But, I want to mention specifically these two…
First is the amazing Sister Elaine MacInnes. I had the honor of blurbing one of her books, The Flowing Bridge: Guidance on Beginning Zen Koans. I wrote “Who would have thought one of the most formidable Zen masters in the West would be a retired Roman Catholic nun living in Toronto?” In the blurb I go on to briefly describe why this study of hers of the beginning koans of the Harada-Yasutani Zen lineage are an important subject to reflect upon, and how she has done a wonderful job of addressing this arcane subject.
Born in 1924 and a Juliard-trained violinist, Elaine joined the Canadian Catholic religious congregation Our Lady’s Missionaries in 1953. Sent to Japan in 1961 she received permission to enter a Rinzai Zen monastery where she studied for eight years. After which she began working with the Harada-Yasutani Zen master Koun Yamada, from whom she received authorization as a Zen teacher in 1980.
Sister Elaine’s work for justice and the downtrodden is worthy of books. I’ll pass over her years in the Philippines, beyond noting she was up to her eyeballs in the cross currents of revolution. She is the founder of the Prison Phoenix Trust in England, which has brought meditation and yoga to many thousands of prisoners, and in her “retirement” she is helping with the foundation of a Canadian equivalent organization, Freeing the Human Spirit. (She also continues to guide the Toronto Zendo of the Sanbo Kyodan, which sadly has no web presence, or at least none I can find…)
The list of Sister Elaine’s work for justice and compassion is, as I said, long. I’ll just add that in recognition of this, in 2001 she received the Order of Canada. I believe this is the equivalent of the American Medal of Freedom.
We spent nearly four hours together. And I came away in awe. Her religion has no room for separation. It is all about love – a love at the deepest possible place.
And she manifests it moment by moment.
She is a North American spiritual treasure.
No doubt.
The next day, today I visited with my old Dharma sibling Alan Florence and his partner Karusia. Such lovely people. Both working mostly as yoga instructors, and therefore modestly and living in the “Market District” of Toronto.
Alan was a monk with Shasta Abbey for seven or eight years. We overlapped for about a year. And for the last, oh my goodness, forty years, our paths have crossed from time to time. Like me he spent a while licking wounds from his Zen monastic experience. Like me he never lost sight of the fact there was a great treasure in the Zen dharma, even if that particular expression didn’t work for us. While formally acknowledged as a Zen teacher, he, as I did, felt a need to continue his training. I went with John Tarrant Roshi. He has spent the last decade working under the guidance of Shodo Harada Roshi.
I’m deeply impressed with the man he has become. I sense a person of genuine depth, a real teacher here, and as such, someone to watch…
And, so I was pleased as punch to learn while on this visit that Alan has begun formally teaching again.
I understand the sangha he guides will begin to list in various places before long. When it does, I’ll let you all know!
Well, time to turn my attention back to prepping for the events tomorrow…
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