My Zen Life: A Brief Reflection on Boundless Way Zen

Last updated on: May 4, 2017 at 5:35 pm by James Ford

My Zen Life: A Brief Reflection on Boundless Way Zen 2017-05-04T17:35:48-07:00 James Ford

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My Zen life is filled with relationships. They include affection, affinity, and sometimes mutual obligation together with a profound accountability. These range from my membership in meta organizations such as the American Zen Teachers Association, which I served for a decade on its membership committee, and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, which I’m just ending up serving a term as a member of its governing board. And the affection end of the spectrum, I have dear friends and people I count as my teachers in sanghas around this country.

More granularly, I’m all in for our forming community in Long Beach and Costa Mesa, California, the Blue Cliff Zen Sangha. It captures much of my heart, and a great deal of my attention.

But, the core institution to which I belong, the one that features obligation and accountability is Boundless Way Zen. BoWZ, as we affectionately call it, is a blending of several lines of the Zen tradition. What I find fascinating is how it appears to be emerging as a “school,” or style, which extends beyond its formal organization. I know a growing number of people not affiliated institutionally, but who have adopted parts or more broadly the sense of this community, and which informs their own sanghas. People have tried to analyze what is emerging from differing perspectives. Here’s one. I’ve attempted some historical Analysis, myself here.

I would describe Boundless Way as more than anything a soft Soto Zen with koan introspection. “Soft” has to do with the tension that most Soto in North America has between its majority lay practitioners and its clerical origins, and, frankly, in its ongoing training bias. BoWZ adamantly asserts that Zen practice is Zen practice. And the proof of that pudding is how lay people can be and often in practice are advanced to all levels of leadership. In this project we’ve attempted to be transparent. That said, our forms, and much of our ethos remain Soto. Well, with the critical addition of a clearly Soto restoration of koan introspection practice first initiated by the great Harada Daiun Sogaku Roshi, and which we guard and transmit.

But, most of all, I think if someone wants to get a sense of what Boundless Way Zen is, you can’t go wrong with looking at our teachers. We are led by two groups, a popularly elected Board which we call the Leadership Council, and a council of fully transmitted teachers that we call the Guiding Teachers Council. As they, we, provide the broad spiritual direction, I think it is particularly by looking at the Guiding Teachers that you get a sense of who we are.

Now we are in the middle of redesigning our Boundless Way website. And in the course of that project we’ve gathered brief biographies of the Guiding Teachers. I think those worth sharing here. Although, I should mention the biographies represented here are gleaned from early drafts, and won’t be precisely as presented here. In alphabetical order our seven Boundless Way Guiding Teachers are.

Josh Jiun Bartok, Roshi is the abbot at the Greater Boston Zen Center and is a Soto Zen Priest. He is a Dharma heir to James Myoun Ford, Roshi in two lineages: an ordained Soto Zen lineage and a lay koan-teaching lineage. Josh also works as a Buddhist pastoral counselor in private practice, and as the editorial director of Wisdom Publications. He’s the co-author with Ezra Bayda of Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts), and the authoring editor of four collections of Dharma quotes, including most recently Daily Doses of Wisdom. His writing has appeared in Shambhala Sun, Lion’s Roar, and Buddhadharma magazines, as well as The Handbook for Zen and Mindfulness for Behavioral Health Practitioners.

Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi is Abbot of Boundless Way Zen, a Soto Zen priest, and a Dharma heir to James Myoun Ford, Roshi in two lineages: an ordained Soto transmission through Jiyu Kennett, Roshi and a lay koan-teaching lineage through John Tarrant, Roshi. Melissa is a resident teacher at Boundless Way Temple in Worcester, MA. She holds degrees in anthropology, music and counseling psychology and has a private practice in contemplative counseling. From 1992 to 2012 she was a teacher and director of programs at the Center for Mindfulness, founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn. With her husband, David Dae An Rynick, Roshi, she teaches silent mindfulness retreats throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Central America. Her writing appears in a number of collections including Best Buddhist Writing, 2012, and The Hidden Lamp, and she is co-editor of The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan. Her writing also appears in various Buddhist magazines, including Shambhala Sun, Lion’s Roar and Buddhadharma.

James Myosan Cordova, Sensei received full Dharma transmission from Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi in December 2016. James has been a member of Boundless Way Zen and Melissa’s shoken student for many years and serves as the resident teacher for the Benevolent Street Sangha in Providence, Rohde Island. He has served as a member of the Boundless Way Zen Leadership Council and is currently the Clerk of the Boundless Way Temple Leadership Council. James is also a husband and father of two children, a tenured professor of psychology at Clark University, and a clinical psychologist in private practice. He is the author of The Marriage Check-up and The Story of Mu.

Diane Shoshin Fitzgerald, Sensei received Denbo (full Dharma transmission) in 2017 from her teacher, Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi, and is a Guiding Teacher of the Boundless Way Zen school. Also an ordained Soto Zen priest, Diane has been practicing Zen for more than 20 years. She serves on the Leadership Council of Boundless Way Temple and as an officer for Boundless Way Zen retreats at the Boundless Way Temple where she practices and teaches. She is also the resident teacher at Boundless Way Zen DownEast in Maine.

James Myoun Ford, Roshi is a Soto Zen priest and a Guiding Teacher for Boundless Way Zen. He is currently the resident teacher for Blue Cliff Sangha in Long Beach, California. James received Dharma transmission from Jiyu Kennett, Roshi in 1971. In 1985 James became a student of the Harada-Yasutani Zen teacher John Tarrant, Roshi and was authorized to teach by Tarrant in 1998. In 2005 John Tarrant gave James Inka Shomei, acknowledging him as a Dharma heir in the Harada-Yasutani Zen lineage. He is a member of the American Zen Teachers Association and the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, serving on its Board of Directors since 2014. He is the author of This Very Moment: A Brief Introduction to Buddhism and Zen for Unitarian Universalists. He is also the author of a study of Zen teachers and communities in North America, Zen Master Who? A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen, the co-editor with Melissa Myozen Blacker of The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan, and the author of If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes from a Zen Life from Wisdom Publications. James is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister and is considered by many people to be one of the senior teachers of Zen in North America.

Kate Kagen Hartland, Sensei is a Guiding Teacher for Boundless Way Zen and is the resident teacher for the Bright Sea Zen Sangha in Weymouth, MA. She is a Dharma heir of Josh Jiun Bartok, Roshi, receiving transmission in 2017. She is a member of the Lay Zen Teachers Association. Before coming to Boundless Way Zen she studied with both Philip Kapleau (Rochester Zen Center) and Toni Packer (Springwater Center). Kate works at the non-profit Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, furthering biomedical research.

David Dae An Rynick, Roshi is the abbot and resident teacher at Boundless Way Temple, a Soto Zen community. He has received transmission both in the Korean Linji lineage through George Bowman and in the Japanese Soto lineage through James Ford. He is a member of the American Zen Teachers Association. He is also the author of This Truth Never Fails: A Memoir in Four Seasons. David is a life and leadership coach who works with spiritual leaders from many different traditions as well as with individuals seeking to align their lives with their deepest wisdom.

The photograph is from the 2017 gathering of the senior dharma teachers and transmitted teachers of Boundless Way.

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