Not One. Not Two. The Zen of Sister Elaine

I once had the honor of blurbing one of Sister Elaine’s 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?”

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. She spent 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 helped with the foundation of a Canadian equivalent organization, Freeing the Human Spirit.

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.

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.

Here’s a lovely video celebrating Sister Elaine MacInnes, one of my heroes.