Tricycle | Awake in the World

Norman Fischer teaches meditation in lots of places—at San Francisco Zen Center, where he was once abbot; at the Googleplex, where he teaches techies "emotional intelligence"; and at Jewish retreats, where he practices the religion of his birth and speaks of God—not something we're used to hearing from a Buddhist teacher. Fischer, one of the leading Zen teachers in the United States, tells Kate Olsen at Religion & Ethics Newsleweekly, Buddhism in general is not committed to God or no God. It’s committed to awakening. So taking this practice from Buddhism and applying it to Judaism, it’s a way to go deeper into our heart, our mind, our consciousness and in a Jewish context, when you do that I think, at the bottom, you find the divine. More »