Affiliate Bios: North America: USA: Massachusetts

Laurie Smith

Laurie has lived in Western Massachusetts all her life. She graduated from Greenfield High School, then attended Greenfield Community College, majoring in Business Administration. She loves the outdoors, especially fishing with her husband, Scott. Laurie has a passion for weaving baskets, and she has been weaving for almost 25 years, using many different materials such as, willow, grape vine, red osier dogwood, rattan reed, and most recently waxed linen thread. Her baskets have traveled as far away as Japan, Iceland, Germany, Greece, and India.

 

Roshi Eve Myonen Marko

Eve Myonen Marko is a dharma successor of Zen Master Bernie Glassman, a Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order and the head teacher at the Green River Zen Center in Greenfield, MA. With her husband and teacher, Bernie Glassman, she co-founded Peacemaker Circle International, which linked and trained spiritually-based social activists and peacemakers around the world. During that time she helped develop coalitions of Civil Society activists in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. During the 1980s she worked in the Greyston Mandala, a Buddhist-inspired network of for-profits and not-for-profits in Yonkers, New York.

Eve has written and edited numerous articles about the Zen Peacemakers and its member activists, and also collaborated with Roshi Bernie Glassman in the writing of Bearing Witness: A Zen Master’s Instructions on Making Peace, which was published by Random House in 1998. She has also written biographies and mystery books for children, published by Waldman Publishing.

She was a long-time member of the Zen Community of New York, which founded the Greyston Mandala organizations in Yonkers, New York. She was critical in the organization’s progress and developed resources and funding for Greyston Family Inn and Greyston Foundation. Marko was also Executive Director for the Music For the World Foundation, which funds and advocates on behalf of music education programs in American schools.

John Sprague

John Sprague, M.A. has lived in western Mass for twenty-five years, working primarily as a musician, raising and home-schooling two sons, and simultaneously pursuing the study and practice of contemplation in several spiritual traditions.

John first encountered Buddhist teaching at Amherst College where he studied Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and the “Poetry of enlightenment” with renowned Buddhist scholar, Robert Thurman. Since then he has continued to explore enlightenment traditions,, reading extensively, and attending teachings and retreats in Tibetan Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, Jewish, Taoist, and Zen traditions. For many years, before getting involved with the Zen Peacemakers, he focused on the Dzogchen teachings of Tibet, receiving teachings from several masters including Namkhai Norbu, Tenzin Wangal, and H.H. Jigme Punstok.

John received his M.A. from Vermont College, where he pursued an interdisciplinary program in creativity studies and comparative religion Ð exploring the nature of inspiration for both artists and mystics. For the culmination of that program he wrote and then self-published a 200 page work entitled “The Heart of Creation.”

John spent many years in an in-depth study of the Chinese classic, Tao Te Ching, and recently published his translation and study with the title, The Power of the Way. John also offers private coaching and workshops in creativity, improvisation, and self-awareness practices. He has released four CDs of improvisational music, one of which was nominated by JPFolks for best instrumental album of the year.

John’s community service activities include Native American support work, and being an early proponent of the local homebirth movement and vice-president of the Birthing Network, For many years he has worked with teenage homeschoolers, and is a board member and staff of North Star: Self-directed Leaning for Teens. He is also an interfaith minister, performing wedding ceremonies, and memorial services. John’s website is www.sunyataproductions.com.

Rev. Sally Sonen Kealy

Sally Sonen Kealy was born Sally Smith in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and lived in the Midwest throughout her early adult life. After working as a Speech Therapist for Father Flanagan’s Boy’s Town in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Denver Public Schools she moved to San Francisco, met and married John Kealy.

Sally and John moved to the Philippines where he attended medical school. While in Manila Sally was introduced to Zen by an OLM sister who led daily practice and monthly zazenkai in her convent. Sr. Elaine prepared her group to become formal students of her teacher, Yamada Koun (White Cloud) Roshi who led several sesshin there. Yamada Roshi, a lay teacher, was an innovative Zen Master, inviting Christians in all capacities, nuns, priests, and lay, onto the traditional Zen path. About to return to the United States, Sally asked for Sr. Elaine to consult with Yamada Roshi about whom he recommended for their continuation of Zen practice. They wanted to study with someone as open to the changing nature of Zen practice as Yamada had been. Yamada told Sr. Elaine that he had dokusan several times with a very strong practitioner, monk and Dharma successor of Maezumi Roshi who was on his way to New York from California in 1980 to begin a group there.

Sally moved back with John to New York, met Bernie Sensei as he was called at the time, and recognized that he would be their teacher. She worked in several job capacities within the Greyston Mandala in Yonkers. She took the lay Buddhist Precepts in 1986, and became a Novice Priest (Tokudo) in 1993. She took a five year period to study Zen in the Kwan Um School of Zen under Wu Kwang Zen Master (Richard Shrobe). At this time she also received a Masters in Social Work from NYU, and certified in a four year post graduate Gestalt Training program in Manhattan. Sally returned to Japanese style Zen, received Denkai in 1997(Priest Vows), and is a student of her root teacher, Zen Master Bernie and a Zen Peacemaker priest.

Sally now works as the Coordinator for the Zen Peacemaker Sangha and Editor for the ZPS Family Newsletter. Both Sally and John have three grown children (Denise, Siobhan, and John David) two recent sons-in-law, and five grandchildren.

Catherine Anraku Hondorp

Catherine Anraku Hondorp Sensei is a Soto Zen Priest and Dharma Heir of Enkyo O’Hara Roshi. She is also a Network Chiropractor in private practice in Northampton Massachusetts and serves as the adjunct Buddhist Chaplain at Smith College.

Her passion for uncovering what life was all about, as well as her curiosity about the body as a vehicle for spirit, began at a young age. Growing up a Christian minister’s daughter, she questioned her faith, becoming a sometimes lost spiritual seeker, a modern dancer and a performer in the New York Downtown Arts scene of the 1980’s, an artistic passion spanning nearly 20 years.

She holds an MFA degree in dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a Doctor of Chiropractic degree, from Logan College of Chiropractic in St. Louis, Missouri. Over all, these studies established within her, a kinesthetic foundation of deep trust in innate wisdom and in the body’s ability to re-connect, re-pattern and heal itself. Being introduced to Zen practice at Zen Mountain Monastery gave her a vital method for engaging the questions of what it means to be alive. She received Jukai, and the dharma name ‘Eishun’ (endless spring) from John Daido Loori Roshi in 1990. In 1995, she asked to study with Enkyo O’Hara Roshi, receiving Tokudo and the priest name ‘Anraku’ (peace, bliss) from her in August 2000. That same year Priest Anraku founded The Zen Center on Main Street, an intimate sangha and temple overlooking the town center of Northampton, Massachusetts, where street sounds intermingle with zazen.

Anraku led the Village Zendo Sangha as Shuso in August 2002, giving her first dharma talk on The Book of Serenity, case 83, “Daowu tends the Sick’ while sitting under a big maple tree behind the Grail House near the Hudson river, on a very sunny blue day. Priest Anraku received Denkai in December 2008 and Denbo on December 30, 2009 from Enkyo Roshi at Wisdom House in Litchfield, Connecticut.

In her work as a Network Chiropractor, Dr. Hondorp implements the methods of Dr. Donald Epstein founder/developer of Network Spinal Analysis and Somato-Respiratory Integration. At the healing center that she founded in 2000, The Life Center for Network Care, her work focuses on supporting the body’s natural movement towards healing by providing practical tools for transforming pain and disconnection into awakening to the gift of being human. With The Zen Center on Main Street in a conjoined office suite, these two methods of practice meet and inform each other.

Currently she spends most of her time between the sangha at Zen on Main, her practice at The Life Center and engaging in the radical act of living an honest, simple life with her beloved partner Ryumon Sensei and their dog Scout in the rural hilltown of Westhampton, Massachusetts.

For more information on The Zen Center on Main Street check out our website; www.zenonmain.org To see more about the healing work done at The Life Center for Network Chiropractic visit; www.networkspinal.com

 Margi Teido Gregory

Margi Teido Gregory has studied intensively in the Soto and Rinzai Zen traditions since 1970, both in Japan and in the US. She was a member of the team that created the ZPC, along with its founder, Roshi Bernie Glassman, and is currently the director of the Zen Peacemaker Circles, USA and co-director of the ZPC, International. She practices with the ZPCircle of Western Massachusetts. She is an ADHD coach and academic tutor, has trained in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and is the mother of two daughters.

 

James Daikan Bastien, MSW. MHD

Sensei James Daikan Bastien, LICSW, MHD, is the designer, developer and Director of the Brattleboro Retreat’s Uniformed Services Program (USP). The USP is a specialized partial hospitalization program offering mental health services to veterans, police officers, firefighters, and other first responders who witness multiple traumas. Trained as a scientist-practitioner, Jim is a clinical social worker and trained behavior analyst with more than 30 years experience providing trauma focused clinical services in large residential settings. Jim holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Michigan as well as a Masters Degree in Human Development from the University of Kansas. Jim has published in scientific journals including the Journal of Behavioral Assessment, the International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy, and Behavioral Intervention. He has also authored professional workshops and presentations at numerous regional and national conferences. Prior to joining the Retreat, Jim served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Zen Peacemakers, Inc., Vice President of Residential Services for the Sisters of Providence Health System, and Executive Director of Father Flanagan’s Boys Town of New England. Jim has been a Zen practitioner since 1980 training in the Soto Zen lineage of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, the Korean Zen lineage of Zen Master Seung Sahn, & the Zen Peacemaker lineage of Roshi Bernie Glassman. Jim received dharma transmission (shiho) from Roshi Glassman in March of 2011.