My radio show on Tuesday July 7, 2015

This week on Relationships 2.0 I will be playing a “best of…” because I will be at a meditation retreat all week. In honor of my Zen Buddhist teacher, Karen Maezen Miller, who I will be sitting with, I am replaying my interview with her about her book Paradise in Plain Sight: Lessons from a Zen Garden.

From my heart hugs post:

I’ve met some amazing people who are engaged in life changing work as a result of my radio show. One of them is Karen Maezen Miller. Her publishing company, New World Library, sent me a copy of her most recent book, Paradise in Plain Sight, to see if I would be interested in having her on my radio show. At first glance, I felt neutral about interviewing someone about gardening. Lesson one, don’t judge a book by its cover! When I started reading the book I felt almost immediately connected to her and the message in her book. I couldn’t put it down. I cried at various parts in the book and I cried when I finished reading it. Then I interviewed Maezen about her book for my radio show (6/10/14). Her voice was familiar and comforting to me. I felt a deep connection. We communicated by email after our on-air chat. I booked her for another radio show to discuss one of her other books, Hand Wash Cold (7/15/14). I was deeply touched again by her writing. She told me that my heart was calling me to go see her. She was right, so I signed up for a beginner’s mind retreat at Hazy Moon Zen Center hazymoon.com in Los Angeles. Connecting with Maezen in person and meditating with her was (and is) a powerful experience. It led me to a longer meditation retreat with her at Black Scorpion Zen Center blackscorpiontemple.com in Tepoztlan, Mexico. And, another retreat with her a Copper Beech Institute copperbeechinstitute.org in Hartford, Connecticut. I continue to schedule retreats with her. Maezen and meditation have changed my life!

About the book:

When Zen teacher Karen Maezen Miller and her family land in a house with a hundred-year-old Japanese garden, she uses the paradise in her backyard to glean the living wisdom of our natural world. Through her eyes, rocks convey faith, ponds preach stillness, flowers give love, and leaves express the effortless ease of letting go. The book welcomes readers into the garden for Zen lessons in fearlessness, forgiveness, presence, acceptance, and contentment. Miller gathers inspiration from the ground beneath her feet to remind us that paradise is always here and now.

About the author:

Karen Maezen Miller is a wife and mother as well as a Zen Buddhist priest at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles. She and her family live in Sierra Madre, California, with a century-old Japanese garden in their backyard. She writes about spirituality in everyday life. She is the author of Paradise in Plain Sight: Lessons from a Zen Garden, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life, Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, and her writing is included in numerous anthologies.

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