Monastic meets modern.
Kogen Czarnik is a Zen priest in the Soto tradition, in the lineage of Tangen Harada Roshi. Find his books, retreats, and more here and follow him on YouTube here.
In this conversation we talk about Kogen’s Japanese Zen monastic background, the intersection of traditional monasticism and modern spiritual practices, the differences between early Chinese and later Japanese Zen, the format of the student-teacher relationship in Zen, monk life in a Japanese monastery, interpersonal dynamics among monks, the difference between spirituality and dogmatic religion, a deep pointing to non-separation as a relief for human suffering, the need for multimodal modern support for issues such as trauma in spiritual settings, two fantastic books Kogen has translated/edited, and much more.
