A moving account by Susan Moon of her journey back from depression, and how her Buddhist practice both helped and hindered her. Although I suffered from severe depression, I didn't call it that for most of the several years I was in and out of it. I thought depression was for lethargic people who stayed in bed all day. But my pain was as sharp as an ice pick. Restless in [...]
About Susan Moon
From Teishos to Trident Missile Protests
Susan Moon remembers Robert Aitken Roshi’s lifelong commitment to the unified path of Zen and social justice. Aitken Roshi was not my formal teacher, but he was my friend and guide and mentor through thirty years of practice. I call him Roshi because the word perfectly expresses both the respect and the affection in which I hold him. Roshi is an honorific Zen title meaning [...]
This Is Getting Old
Old age forces you to let go of one damn thing after another! But as Susan Moon learns from her mother, it can also be a golden opportunity for poetry, friendship, and moderate amounts of wine. I was having Cheerios and milk with my mother at the little table beside the window, in her retirement building in Chicago. Her sixth-floor apartment overlooked Lake Michigan, and [...]
Aging: Everybody’s Doing It
Susan Moon on the benefits of growing old, and why we should embrace aging. My granddaughter says she’s three and three quarters. She wants full credit for her maturity. Practicing her attitude, I’ll tell you I’m 67 and five twelfths. I want full credit, too; I’m growing up! The posters in the Gray Panthers office say: “The best age to be is the age you are.” And Buddhism [...]
If She Can Bear the Longing
Whether meditating or doing headstands, Susan Moon’s small self continues to reach for something beyond. When I was a child, I found a secret place in the bayberry bushes. In the summers my family floated free from the known world—the world that was measured by carpools and sidewalks—and went to the seashore. It was lonely for me there; I felt alone in my separate self, in my [...]
Susan Moon: the one who wonders
Susan Moon is, of course, the author of The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi, and also the editor of Turning Wheel magazine. She is also a teacher, having received "lay entrustment," a lay version of dharma transmission, from Zoketsu Norman Fischer. After checking out the achingly beautiful "If She Can Bear the Longing," you can read more from Susan—and you should! [...]
Finding Freedom: The Death Row Journey of Jarvis Jay Masters
Susan Moon on the spiritual journey of Jarvis Jay Masters, a Buddhist practitioner on death row at San Quentin prison in this article first published in Lion's Roar in 2007. Read our 2010 review of Jarvis Jay Master's book That Bird Has My Wings. Jarvis Masters lives on a prime piece of real estate beside San Francisco Bay, in pricey Marin County, California. But he can’t [...]
Grandmother Mind
Parents must attend to the nuts and bolts of their children’s care. But grandmothers, says Susan Moon, can pay attention to the continuity of everything in the background—water, air, stories, and love. “You can understand all of Buddhism, but you cannot go beyond your abilities and your intelligence unless you have robai-shin, grandmother mind, the mind of great compassion.” [...]
I Thought I Was Alone
Susan Moon -- whose piece "I Want to Tell You About Coming Apart and Struggling Through Depression" is among our readers' favorites -- on how pharma, dharma, and sangha have helped her bring things together. I’ve been a Zen practitioner for thirty years. Ten years ago I was in a deep depression. If I sat down to meditate, demons took advantage of the opportunity to torment me, [...]