Colleen Morton Busch

Author of Fire Monks

  • Home
  • Biography
  • Fire Monks
    • Reviews
    • Slideshow
    • Book Trailer
    • Book Groups
  • Events
  • News & Media
  • Writing
  • Blog
  • Contact

Patience, Playfulness, & the Practice of Care

May 8, 2020 By Colleen Morton Busch

A Q&A with fire monk Mako Voelkel Mako Voelkel. All photos by Melissa Brisko. It’s been nearly a dozen years since Mako Voelkel stood on the Overlook Trail above Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and saw the Basin Complex Fire pouring into the valley.  These days, Mako is head teacher at Austin Zen Center. When I caught up with her one recent afternoon on FaceTime, I reminded her that she once told me she just might leave the monastery to go to medical school. Clearly that didn’t happen. “Not yet!” she pointed out, laughing in dappled sunlight in her … [Read more...]

Filed Under: fire monks, pandemic, shelter-in-place, Zen Tagged With: Austin Zen Center, Fire Monks, pandemic, shelter-in-place, Zen

How can you keep your heart open and mind clear during a pandemic?

April 13, 2020 By colleenmbusch

Near the end of March 2020, ten days into the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place order, I reached out to Fire Monk David Zimmerman to inquire about the parallels between his experience protecting Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery from a wildfire in 2008 and his current experience, as abiding abbot at San Francisco Zen Center’s City Center, during the coronavirus pandemic. Here is our exchange. May it open your heart, settle your mind, and help you to remember that we’re in this (and every) conflagration together. Tenzen David Zimmerman CMB: Is your experience during the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: fire monks, pandemic, shelter-in-place, Zen

Soberanes Fire, August 6, 2016 Update

August 6, 2016 By colleenmbusch

Please follow my … [Read more...]

Filed Under: fire, fire monks, Uncategorized, Zen Tagged With: Fire Monks, San Francisco Zen Center, soberanes fire, tassajara zen mountain center, wildfire, Zen

West Coast Live Saturday, Jan 19th!

January 16, 2013 By colleenmbusch

UPDATE: Listen to the broadcast: West Coast Live 19 January 2013. The first few minutes are missing. Sedge started the interview by asking me about the human need to control wildfire and the notion that in Zen, you "let things be." I said that the residents of Tassajara didn't try to control the fire, they guided it, met it, befriended it. Sedge: Those are not USFS firefighting terms. Me: No, they're not, these are Zen monks. Sedge: They don't get into suppression... Me: Or opposition or enmity. Their idea was: Fire belongs here. The forest needs fire. We live here, with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: fire, fire monks, Zen

Back in the Saddle

January 9, 2013 By colleenmbusch

Snow is just the other face of fire. After a fairly long silence, I've posted a new Huffington Post blog! Become a fan of my blog to encourage me to keep at it and pass the link along to anyone you think might appreciate the bliss of skate skiing. Here are the big-hearted owners of Tahoe Cross Country, where I find that bliss, featured on the cover of the Tahoe Weekly. And here I am in the Great Ski Race 2011, skiing out of the frame past my friend Tove Jensen. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: adventure, Lake Tahoe, nature, new year's resolutions, Skate skiing, Zen

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Copyright © 2023 Colleen Morton Busch · Site Design: Ilsa Brink