Interviews

The Zen Gateway: An Interview with Norman Fischer

in

We are so obsessed now with data – facts and information. [This preoccupation] gives us the illusion that we know what is going on. To me, the world as we usually see it lacks imagination. We have relegated imagination to ‘content’ for ‘platforms’ – in other words, a tool for generating a harmless, entertaining commodity. But imagination is much more radical than this: our lack of real imagination is killing us.

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Books on Zen

Interview with Norman Fischer: God is a Three-Letter Word

in

In Judaism as I knew it there was no theology; there were just stories. You read stories in the Torah every week—stories about people trying to engage God—not because they believed but because God was involved in their lives as a fact: experientially. 

Sue Moon, "Interview with Norman Fischer: God is a Three-Letter Word," Inquiring Mind, Vol 30, No. 1, Fall 2013.

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Books on Zen

A Plunge into Zen Koans: An interview with Zoketsu Norman Fischer

in

The main thing about Zen stories is their ability to get us out of the box of our usual human problems. As long as we remain in the box, the solutions to the problems never quite appear. So, we have to be able to get out of the box.

Sachico Ohanks, "A Plunge into Zen Koans: An interview with Zoketsu Norman Fischer," Sangha News, San Francisco Zen Center, July 3, 2013.

A New Perspective on an Ancient Practice: An Interview with Zoketsu Norman Fischer

in

I have long felt that as a Mahayana school Zen is all about compassion-but since the Chinese monks who developed the tradition's style assumed compassion teachings and didn't feel they had to emphasize them, Zen literature contains only a few explicit teachings on compassion. So Western Zen practitioners need a remedial course, and lojong brilliantly fills the bill.

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Books on Zen