Sante Poromaa Sensei has been practising Zen since the early eighties, and teaching full time for over a decade. He started practice as a student of Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of “The Three Pillars of Zen”, and he later became a student of Kapleau’s successor, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede.
He has received formal permission to teach in this lineage, and their Zen teaching draws strongly on the Japanese tradition, but without slavish adherence to forms that may be inappropriate in a European context. Over the years, his style has evolved as he seeks to ensure that the valuable practices of this ancient tradition are both preserved and made accessible and relevant to modern people. His approach is above all an experiential one — the student is encouraged to explore the nature of reality first hand, through practice. Yet he also draw on the rich literature of Zen, including three major koan collections (The Mumonkan, The Blue Cliff Record, and the Book of Serenity), Buddhist sutras and the writings of the great Zen Masters. He has also read widely in other traditions and disciplines and their teishos (lectures given to students) can range over subjects as diverse as physics, consumerism, climate change and parenthood. He is active in the contemporary intellectual and cultural life of Sweden, participating in public panel discussions and advisory groups, originally trained as artists. Sante Sensei has published a book on the common ground between science and Buddhism, The Net of Indra. – from http://www.zentraining.org
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1 Comment
truly fascinating! I had a lot of thoughts moving back and forth during the whole interview. Thoughts like “Get to it!” “Say it!” “Spill it out!, come on, what’s the answer?!” “Why are you so here AND there at the same time, trying to include everything IN the answer? Why are you justifying every start of a sentence you try to speak? Why do you want to go in EVERY direction at the same time?! I simply noticed it was my own mind following the old patterns; IN THE BOX, feeling the urge to have it come to me in chewed chunks and short simplified ways, funneled, limited, hear him whittle it down into ONE sentence, into ONE answer. Obviously my Impatience. Obviously an old limiting pattern. At the same time I loved it! I took it in completely. I loved this flow. I just loved his answers! I loved the way he INCLUDED everything in his answers. I loved the way he carefully selected his words, carefully dodging possible ‘wrong-directions’ you could interpret what he was, or wasn’t about to say. I loved the experience of understanding we usually ARE in a box. I loved the experience of him being ALL around and taking me with him. It felt like an ‘outofthebox-journey’. I loved to once again understand there IS no answer and at the same time knowing EVERYTHING is the answer. what IS, is the answer, if you know what I mean. I realized his answers -slow as they may have appeared to my mind- where in fact the answers to the questions. In other words, I Loved this interview, Lilou. And of course I love you too! Sjef