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Filed in Vipassana, Zen (Chan)

Living Two Traditions

Vipassana and Zen teacher Gil Fronsdal talks to Tricycle about teaching and practicing in two traditions. Also includes Intolerance to Suffering: A dharma talk by Gil Fronsdal

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Gil Fronsdal has been a student of Buddhist practice for more than twenty-five years. He trained in the Soto Zen tradition, receiving dharma transmission in 1995, as well as in the Vipassana—or Insight Meditation—lineages of Theravada Buddhism. Since 1990, Fronsdal has served as resident teacher at the Insight Meditation Center of the Mid-Peninsula in Redwood City, California. Only the second urban Insight Meditation center in America, it is funded entirely by dana contributions. Tricycle Editor-in-Chief James Shaheen interviewed Gil Fronsdal at his center in August 2002.

It is unusual for someone to be a teacher of both Zen and Vipassana. Since you started out in the Zen tradition, can you describe how you first came to the practice?

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