Deep Streams Zen Institute

A recent interview of me by Guy McPherson is now live: Zen and Healing Trauma. Check it out here.

I usually say Zen is not like Mr Clean: Good for all surfaces and purposes. It’s best practiced without a particular purpose. But this is remarkable. The practice, as a raft by which we cross over, described metaphorically in Buddhist sutras.

Dear friends, Check out this page for audio and video—interviews, meditations and presentations— on  integrative approaches that transform trauma and generate post-traumatic growth. Also, our Coming Home retreats with veterans, families and care providers and the healing process we discovered: Turning Ghosts into Ancestors. Good wishes, Joe

Welcome to my new blog. I’ll be posting on a range of topics, from psychotherapy to Zen, from poetry to social justice. Often, I’ll begin with my experience of the world we live in— its beauty and ugliness, its pains and joys— and take off from there. I’ll post links to talks and interviews, audio…

Our minds work like a search engine. Type in a word or phrase (or experience a series of lived moments) and a slew of “answers” emerge. On a computer or a smartphone, we see auto-fill activate; experientially we jump to conclusions. It is this, or it is that, or it is the other. From just…

My teacher Robert Aitken Roshi was once asked how to enlighten a quadratic equation. He responded: “Include it.” We are, with all beings, the warp and woof of a vast fabric without dimension and without time, existing right here now. A connective tissue. But we feel isolated and disconnected. As groups and countries, we amplify…