Cypress Trees in the Garden

Richard Bryan McDaniel’s Cypress Trees in the Garden: The Second Generation of Zen Teaching in America continues the history of North American Zen which he began in The Third Step East: Zen Masters of America (Sumeru Press, 2015). The earlier book described the pioneers who established Zen practice in North America; this new book focuses on the heirs and successors of those teachers and the challenges they faced.

Between March 2013 and September 2014, McDaniel traveled from San Francisco to Portland, Maine, from Montreal to Albuquerque, interviewing 75 prominent Zen teachers and their senior students. The result is a book which describes the way in which—like the Chinese and Japanese before them—North Americans have taken an Indian tradition which pre-dates Christianity and reformed it into something uniquely their own. Chapters on teachers in the Rinzai, Soto, and Sanbo Zen traditions provide a strikingly honest portrait of contemporary Zen teaching, practice, and social engagement in the United States and Canada.

CONTENTS

Prologue – Zen Mountain Monastery

1. Three Abbots [San Francisco Zen Center] — a. Blanche Hartman — b. Steve Stucky — c. Mel Weitsman
2. Three Oshos [Joshu Sasaki lineage] — a. Myokyo McLean — b. Seiju Mammoser — c. Yoshin Radin
3. Shinge Sherry Chayat [Eido Shimano lineage]
4. Genjo Marinello
5. Eshu Martin
6. Shodo Harada and Enso House
7. Three Sanbo Zen Teachers — a. Elaine MacInnes — b. Patrick Gallagher — c. Henry Shukman
8. John Tarrant [Aitken-Tarrant lineage]
9. Joan Sutherland
10. James Ford
11. Three Boundless Way Teachers — a. Melissa Blacker — b. David Rynick — c. Josh Bartok
12. Bernard Tetsugen Glassman [Maezumi lineage]
13. John Daido Loori
14. Jan Chozen Bays
15. Gerry Shishin Wick
16. Two Catholic Priests — a. Robert Kennedy — b. Kevin Hunt
17. Bodhin Kjolhede [Kapleau lineage]
18. Sunyana Graef
19. Taigen Henderson
20. Mitra Bishop
21. Three at the Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry — a. Toni Packer — b. Wayne Coger — c. Sandra González
22. Dosho Port [Katagiri lineage]
23. Two Teachers in the Kwan Um School of Zen [Korean Zen] — a. Bobby Rhodes — b. Richard Shrobe
24. Three at Blue Cliff [Vietnamese Zen] — a. Brother Phap Vu — b. Brother Phap Man — c. Sister Dang Nghiem

Epilogue – Two Zendos in Maine — a. Great Tides Zen — b. Morgan Bay Zendo