Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Encyclopedia
Zoketsu Norman Fischer (c. 1946) is a Jewish-American Soto Zen roshi
, poet
and Buddhist author practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki
. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission
in 1988. Having served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center
from 1995—2000, he has published several works of poetry and books on Buddhism. Fischer founded the Everyday Zen Foundation in 2000, a network of sangha
s with chapters in Canada
, the United States
and Mexico
. He has authored several essays on interreligious dialogues, and to that end has attended gatherings such as the 1996 Gethsemani Encounter held at The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky
(where the Trappist
Thomas Merton
lived). Fischer has also stayed in touch with his Jewish heritage, occasionally attending services at Beth Sholom synagogue
in San Francisco, California
and offering instruction in meditation to interested parties there. In addition, he has also served as mentor to teenage boys—all of which is chronicled in his book "Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up." Fischer also serves on the Board of Directors for the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, California
.http://www.zenhospice.org/12_our_people/our_people.htm
family in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
in 1946. As a child he attended services with his parents at a conservative synagogue
—an activity he recalls fondly. After studying poetry
at the University of Iowa
and then completing further studies at both the University of California, Berkeley
and Graduate Theological Union
, Fischer and his wife Kathie gave birth two twin boys—Noah and Aron. He was then ordained as a Zen priest in 1980 in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki
. In 1988 he received Dharma transmission
from his longtime teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman.http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=1,5&pageid=426 He held the position of director at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, California
starting in 1981, and from 1995—2000 he served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center
(SFZC) with Blanche Hartman
(Hartman installed in 1996). Today, as a senior Dharma teacher for them, Fischer continues to teach at SFZC. In 2000 he founded the Everyday Zen Foundation, which today has practice groups in Canada
, the United States
and Mexico
. That same year he was hired as a consultant by now-failed online fashion company ZoZa.com, owned by Mel and Patricia Ziegler. Fischer said of the job, "I have absolutely nothing to offer ZoZa...which is what the Zieglers really love!" As a poet, most of Fischer's work has been published in limited quantity—with nine publications released to date. Fischer is also one of three executor
s of poet Philip Whalen
's work—a former abbot of Hartford Street Zen Center
who died in 2002—along with Michael Rothenberg
and Leslie Scalapino
.
, and inter-religious dialogue organization. He also attended a five-day meeting between members of different religions in July 1996 held at The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky
, where he gave a talk about Dogen
, zazen
, and the importance of religions coming together—despite their different philosophies—to serve humanity.
Fischer will sometimes attend services offered at Beth Shalom synagogue
in San Francisco, and offers members there instruction in meditation. He has struggled with the concept of God
integral to Judaism
and many other religions. In his book "Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms", Fischer replaced the words "God", "King", and "Lord" with the word "You." He says of this, "For many of the religious seekers I encounter, the word God has been all but emptied of its spiritual power. The relationship to God that is charted out in the Psalms is a stormy one, co-dependent, passionate, confusing, loyal, petulant, sometimes even manipulative. I wanted to find a way to approach these poems so as to emphasize the relational aspect, while avoiding the major distancing pitfalls that words like God, King, Lord and so on create."
Fischer describes Letters to a Buddhist Jew, a work authored by noted author and inspirational speaker Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz
as "a fascinating book - the most serious contribution in this field to date."
(near Green Gulch Farm) with his wife Kathie.
Roshi
is a Japanese honorific title used in Zen Buddhism that literally means "old teacher" or "elder master" and sometimes denotes a person who gives spiritual guidance to a Zen sangha or congregation...
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and Buddhist author practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki was a Sōtō Zen roshi who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T...
. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission
Dharma transmission
Dharma transmission refers to "the manner in which the teaching, or Dharma, is passed from a Zen master to their disciple and heir...
in 1988. Having served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center , is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising the City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu...
from 1995—2000, he has published several works of poetry and books on Buddhism. Fischer founded the Everyday Zen Foundation in 2000, a network of sangha
Sangha
Sangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose...
s with chapters in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. He has authored several essays on interreligious dialogues, and to that end has attended gatherings such as the 1996 Gethsemani Encounter held at The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
(where the Trappist
TRAPPIST
TRAPPIST is Belgian robotic telescope in Chile which came online in 2010, and is an acronym for TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope, so named in homage to Trappist beer produced in the Belgian region. Situated high in the Chilean mountains at La Silla Observatory, it is actually...
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
lived). Fischer has also stayed in touch with his Jewish heritage, occasionally attending services at Beth Sholom synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
and offering instruction in meditation to interested parties there. In addition, he has also served as mentor to teenage boys—all of which is chronicled in his book "Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up." Fischer also serves on the Board of Directors for the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
.http://www.zenhospice.org/12_our_people/our_people.htm
Biography
Norman Fischer was born to a JewishAmerican Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
family in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
in 1946. As a child he attended services with his parents at a conservative synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
—an activity he recalls fondly. After studying poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
and then completing further studies at both the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and Graduate Theological Union
Graduate Theological Union
The Graduate Theological Union ' is a consortium of nine independent theological schools, and eleven centers and affiliates. Eight of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962. It maintains the Graduate Theological Union Library, one of the most...
, Fischer and his wife Kathie gave birth two twin boys—Noah and Aron. He was then ordained as a Zen priest in 1980 in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki was a Sōtō Zen roshi who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T...
. In 1988 he received Dharma transmission
Dharma transmission
Dharma transmission refers to "the manner in which the teaching, or Dharma, is passed from a Zen master to their disciple and heir...
from his longtime teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman.http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=1,5&pageid=426 He held the position of director at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, California
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
starting in 1981, and from 1995—2000 he served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center
San Francisco Zen Center , is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising the City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The sangha was incorporated by Shunryu...
(SFZC) with Blanche Hartman
Blanche Hartman
Zenkei Blanche Hartman is a Soto Zen teacher practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. From 1996 to 2002 she served two terms as co-abbess of the San Francisco Zen Center. She was the first woman to assume such a leadership position at the center. Blanche Hartman is now living in retirement at...
(Hartman installed in 1996). Today, as a senior Dharma teacher for them, Fischer continues to teach at SFZC. In 2000 he founded the Everyday Zen Foundation, which today has practice groups in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. That same year he was hired as a consultant by now-failed online fashion company ZoZa.com, owned by Mel and Patricia Ziegler. Fischer said of the job, "I have absolutely nothing to offer ZoZa...which is what the Zieglers really love!" As a poet, most of Fischer's work has been published in limited quantity—with nine publications released to date. Fischer is also one of three executor
Executor
An executor, in the broadest sense, is one who carries something out .-Overview:...
s of poet Philip Whalen
Philip Whalen
Philip Glenn Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation.-Biography:...
's work—a former abbot of Hartford Street Zen Center
Hartford Street Zen Center
The Hartford Street Zen Center, temple name Issan-ji , is a Soto Zen practice-center located in the Castro district of San Francisco. Issan Dorsey brought the center from its early beginnings as The Gay Buddhist Club of 1980 to the modern-day Hartford Street Zen Center, becoming Abbot there in 1989...
who died in 2002—along with Michael Rothenberg
Michael Rothenberg
Michael Rothenberg is an American poet, songwriter, editor, and active environmentalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in Miami Beach, Florida, Rothenberg received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...
and Leslie Scalapino
Leslie Scalapino
Leslie Scalapino was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of...
.
Interreligious dialogue
Fischer is a proponent of inter-religious dialogue between the worlds' religions, stating, "I feel that in our period it is the challenge of religious traditions to do something more than simply reassert and reinterpret their faiths, hoping for loyal adherents to what they perceive to be the true doctrine. Looking back at the last century, with its devastating wars and holocausts and the shock of ecological vulnerability, I have the sense that religious traditions must now have a wider mission, and it is in the recognition of this mission, I believe, that interreligious dialogue becomes something not only polite and interesting, but also essential." He currently sits on the Board of World Religious Leaders for the Elijah Interfaith InstituteThe Elijah Interfaith Institute
The Elijah Interfaith Institute is a nonprofit, international, interfaith organization which was founded by Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein in 1997. Its mission is to foster peace between the world's diverse faith communities through interfaith dialogue, education, research and dissemination...
, and inter-religious dialogue organization. He also attended a five-day meeting between members of different religions in July 1996 held at The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, where he gave a talk about Dogen
Dogen
Dōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there...
, zazen
Zazen
In Zen Buddhism, zazen is a meditative discipline practitioners perform to calm the body and the mind, and be able to concentrate enough to experience insight into the nature of existence and thereby gain enlightenment .- Significance :Zazen is considered the heart of Zen Buddhist practice...
, and the importance of religions coming together—despite their different philosophies—to serve humanity.
Fischer will sometimes attend services offered at Beth Shalom synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
in San Francisco, and offers members there instruction in meditation. He has struggled with the concept of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
integral to Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and many other religions. In his book "Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms", Fischer replaced the words "God", "King", and "Lord" with the word "You." He says of this, "For many of the religious seekers I encounter, the word God has been all but emptied of its spiritual power. The relationship to God that is charted out in the Psalms is a stormy one, co-dependent, passionate, confusing, loyal, petulant, sometimes even manipulative. I wanted to find a way to approach these poems so as to emphasize the relational aspect, while avoiding the major distancing pitfalls that words like God, King, Lord and so on create."
Fischer describes Letters to a Buddhist Jew, a work authored by noted author and inspirational speaker Rabbi Dr. Akiva Tatz
Akiva Tatz
Akiva Tatz is a prominent South African Orthodox rabbi, inspirational speaker and writer who is heavily involved in Orthodox Jewish outreach. He is also a physician and world renowned expert in Jewish medical ethics.-Biography:...
as "a fascinating book - the most serious contribution in this field to date."
Personal life
Fischer, the father of two sons, lives in Muir Beach, CaliforniaMuir Beach, California
Muir Beach is a census-designated place , unincorporated community, and beach that is located northwest of San Francisco in western Marin County, California, United States...
(near Green Gulch Farm) with his wife Kathie.
External links
- www.everydayzen.org Everyday Zen Foundation is a website where you can download many of his talks for free, or for a donation
- www.mountainrainzen.ca Mountain Rain Zen Community
- www.bellinghamzen.org Red Cedar Zen Community (formerly Bellingham Zen Practice Group)
- Audio Interview Series on Buddhist Geeks