Practitioner’s Episode 13 - "What is Soto Zen?" With Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton

Hosted by filmmaker Yujiro Seki, Carving the Divine TV is a series of Q&A sessions with Buddhist scholars and practitioners. These Q&A sessions explore the basic concepts of Buddhism and the history of Buddhism so that when viewers finally watch Carving the Divine they will get the maximum value of the documentary.  In this special episode, we will have a Soto Zen priest, Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton to discuss the basic concept of Soto Zen Buddhism. We will ask some important questions, such as:1. What is your personal definition of Zen?2. What is the Soto school? What is unique about it?3. What is zazen (sitting meditation)? How does it benefit people? Through zazen, do we achieve enlightenment?4. What is the brief history Soto zen?5. Who is Dogen?6. What is koan for Soto?7. What is genjokoan?8. What has been your own experience with butsuzo (Buddhist statuary)?  How does Soto feel about butsuzo?Taigen Dan Leighton is a Soto Zen priest and Dharma successor in the lineage of San Francisco Zen Center, and also an authorized teacher in the Japanese Soto School. He is now Teacher of the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate temple in Chicago. Taigen trained extensively in Japan as well as in California, living in Kyoto for two years. He is an author, scholar, and translator, who teaches online at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, from where he has a Ph.D. Taigen is the author of Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression, providing background for many of the Buddhist images. His other books include Visions of Awakening Space and Time and Zen Questions: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry. He is co-translator of a number of Zen texts including Dogen’s Extensive Record and Cultivating the Empty Field. Taigen now works to develop accessible practice and training programs in Chicago area through Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. See: [www,.ancientdragon.org].

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