Hi all. :)

If you've been on Zaadz recently, you may have already noticed Genpo Roshi's presence.

We're proud to announce that he's one of our latest sponsors, and if you haven't yet been introduced to his practice and process, you're in for a treat.

Genpo Roshi has quite a bio—a longtime Zen Master in the Soto Zen tradition, former president of the White Plum Lineage, and founder of Zen Centers around the US and Europe (including the Kanzeon Zen Center International), he's now recognized as one of the great Zen Masters of the Western World—but it's his current work that's most interesting. 

Perhaps you've heard of Big Mind?

It's a new technique (though 'practice' might be a better word) for helping people awaken to their own true nature—it's intended to bring about the experience of satori. For the past eight years, Genpo Roshi has been playing with this lively and interactive dialog-based process that puts the ancient practices of the East into a more contemporary and accessible context, and he's had remarkable success. 

The exposure I've had to Big Mind reminds me a bit of those invitations to 'One Taste' that Ken Wilber has described so effectively... and so it makes sense that Wilber would be so enthusiastic about the work. In the forward to Genpo Roshi's new book "Big Mind * Big Heart: Finding Your Way," he writes, passionately:

"Let me state this as strongly as I can: the Big Mind Process (founded by Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi) is arguably the most important and original discovery in the last two centuries of Buddhism.  It is an astonishingly original, profound, and effective path for waking up, or seeing one's True Nature. 

It is such a simple and universal practice it can be used in any spiritual path you wish, or even just alone, by itself, as a practice for realizing your True Nature—which you can call God, Allah, Jahweh, Brahman, Tao, Ein Sof—it doesn't really matter, because the core of the Big Mind Process is Emptiness itself, which, having no specific content at all, can and does embrace anything that arises, integrating it all." 

He does make it sound tempting. :)

Anyway. If you're interested in learning more, just pop over to Big Mind, and have a taste. (And make sure to drop Genpo a note on Zaadz...)

Happy sitting,
Siona and the Zaadz Team

PS. There's a free video / audio dialog of a dharma talk Genpo Roshi gave on "You: The Immediate Buddha" that you can check out here. (And don't tell anyone I told you, but there's a nice series of free videos of his on Zaadz, too. :)