Dhara Kowal Sensei is a dharma successor to Bodhin Kjolhede Rōshi in the Kapleau lineage. She now serves as Co-Director of the Rochester Zen Center, along with John Pulleyn Sensei.
Dhara Sensei might have one of the toughest jobs in all of Zen. After all, Rochester Zen Center is a large organization and Bodhin Rōshi, her predecessor, served as the abbot for forty years. Stepping into such a position can’t be easy, so in the interview, I asked her, “How’s it going?”
Dhara Sensei responded with wonderful aplomb:
“It’s going great. I’m so fortunate to have [Bodhin Rōshi’s] support and also to be a co-director, working alongside another teacher in the day-to-day operation of the center. There are challenges for sure, these are are difficult times we’re living in and it’s really hard for people […]. The advantage of inheriting a center like ours is that it’s a well-oiled machine with a very mature sangha. So stepping into this role, I had a lot of support and continue to.”
In the interview, Dhara Sensei also talks about how she came to Zen and her background in academia as a Rhetoric and Communications professor.
Our focus, though, is Record of Going Easy, Case 11: Yúnmén’s Two Illnesses:
Great Master Yúnmén said, “When the light has not penetrated and dropped off, there are two kinds of illness. One is where everything is not clear and before you there is something. The other is penetrating the emptiness of all dharmas, but vaguely there seems to be an object. This too is the light having not completely penetrated and dropped off. Again, the dharma body also has two kinds of illness. One illness is receiving the dharma body as the dharma, holding it and not forgetting, seeing it as if it exists. This is to fall on the side of the dharma body. Another is even though having passed straight through, you cannot let go. Next, carefully, attentively examine one-by-one. What breath is this? This too is exactly illness.”
I asked Dhara Sensei to summarize the case, and she responded:
“Don't underestimate the habits of mind, the habits of the ego. And this is not just something that we have to work with before awakening, but after.”
We also touch on the influential Zen classic, edited by Kapleau Rōshi, The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, Enlightenment.
I’m confident that you will enjoy viewing the interview with Dhara Sensei—yet another thoroughly trained kōan teacher.
Comments welcome.
For a look at this kōan in brief, see:
Yúnmén’s Two Illnesses: How Can You Recuperate from an Illness Caused by the Medicine?
Zen is like taking a shower. First, you wash with soap. Then you wash off the soap. The soap represents the process of cleaning up with the precepts, establishing a deeply settled body-mind (aka, samadhi), and tasting the truth of Buddha’s world (aka, kenshō, an initial awakening).
Thanks
go to Martin Kaku’on, our audio-video editor, for his work with this podcast!
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