Cloud Way Zen
"When I take care of my own life, I take care of the world as my own life. I do this moment by moment, and in each situation I enable the flower of my life to bloom, working solely that the light of buddha may shine."
Kosho Uchiyama
What is Zen Meditation?
One of my favorite quotes about Zen comes from Zenkei Blanche Hartman, the first woman abbot of San Francisco Zen Center, and a student of Suzuki Roshi. She was in her 80’s when she wrote this:
“Through Zen practice we develop a greater and greater appreciation of everything around us; we don’t become an old withered stump! I’m much more alive than I was when I started this practice, and much more appreciative, and that’s true of most Zen people I know… it’s about becoming more and more appreciative of the world around us: its beauty, all it has to offer us, and our total connection with it.” - Zenkei Blanche Hartman
Zen meditation is a simple - but profoundly challenging - practice of awareness and presence. In Zen, we bring the body, mind, heart, and breath together while sitting like a mountain. The clouds of thought and feeling swirl around, yet the mountain remains still.
Zen is also a practice of opening the heart: to the miracle of being alive, to our own life and difficulties, and to others and the world, with all its poignancy and suffering. In Zen meditation we slow down, radically, and “let the flower of our life bloom”. Zen is not a turning within, but a joining with everything, and developing greater capacity to act from our innate wisdom and compassion.
If you are new to Zen and would like to discuss how to begin a Zen practice, schedule a 30-minute session.
Learn more and practice with Cloud Way Zen:
Let the flower of your life bloom.
Zen Events
Past Dharma Talks
Women of the Way, 2020
Lingzhao’s Helping, 2023
The Path of Courage, 2020
Wisdom of Zen Crones, 2021 with Sue Moon
Tales of the Bodhisattva Way: A Nun, A Robe, and a President, 2022
Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, various audio podcasts
Zen Meetings
In Zen practice, we understand that the dharma is passed along not through books or webinars, but “warm hand to warm hand”. This means that practice is immeasurably deepened by ongoing connection and relationship with a teacher or dharma guide.
I am an authorized teacher in my lineage, and I work with dharma students online and in person in practice discussion, which is focused on exploring and deepening your practice on your meditation cushion and in your life.
These meetings are offered freely, but the practice of dana, an expression of gratitude for teaching, goes back to the time of the Buddha. Learn more about dana.
How to Get Started
New to Zen: If you are new to Zen and would like to discuss how to begin a Zen practice,
schedule a 45-minute session.Established Zen Practice: If you have an established meditation practice and would like to meet with me, schedule a 30-minute session.
Coaching: If you do not have a meditation practice, but are interested in coaching or mentoring,
learn more about Change Coaching.
Zenshin Florence Caplow
Zen Priest and Teacher | Author
I grew up in the Midwest at a time when there were no meditation centers or teachings anywhere nearby. But I was a young person with many big questions. I learned Transcendental Meditation when I was ten. At about twelve I started reading books by Alan Watts, and finally, when I was nineteen, I had a chance to attend a series of classes on Vipassana meditation, out in Washington State. Buddhism always made more sense to me than anything else, and I feel to this day that learning Buddhist meditation was life-saving for me.
My first silent retreat was a women’s Vipassana retreat with Christina Feldman and Anna Douglas, in about 1986. For the next five years I mostly practiced Vipassana meditation, attending many retreats. Then, by happenstance, I attended a Zen retreat (7 day sesshin) offered by Zoketsu Norman Fischer, and felt that I had truly come home. In 1993 I received lay ordination in the Soto Zen tradition, in 2007 I ordained as a priest, and in 2022 I completed my training, receiving Dharma Transmission from Bruce Fortin, also in the San Francisco Zen Center lineage. Over those many years I practiced and attended 49-day and 90 day practice periods at San Francisco Zen Center, dozens of sesshins, as well as one month and two month silent retreats at Spirit Rock.
I have become known in the Buddhist world through my collaboration with Sue Moon, on the book The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, as well as teaching from the book in many venues since its publication in 2013. This book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These are the voices of the women ancestors of every contemporary Buddhist.
More recently, I have been offering online teachings and classes for people who are confronting chronic illness and pain, through San Francisco Zen Center. As a person with chronic conditions myself, this feels like a powerful new way of being of service and bringing the dharma to those who need it most.
The practice of Zen has brought me great joy over these decades. I hope to share some of that joy with you.
