Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Zoketsu Norman Fischer is a Zen priest and abbot, a husband, father, and a poet, a teacher with wide-ranging interests and passions. Norman retired as abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center in 2000. He continues his involvement with the Center as a senior dharma teacher. In 2000 he founded the Everyday Zen Foundation, a network of Zen (and other) groups and partnerships dedicated to sharing the Zen teaching and practice widely in the world (www.everydayzen.org). He works with conflict resolution professionals, Google engineers, lawyers, caretakers for the dying, and many others to bring meditation practice to bear on the lives we are actually living every day. He continues his active practice of writing dharma books, essays, and, especially, poetry, most recently The Strugglers, published by Singing Horse Press, and Escape This Crazy Life of Tears: Japan 2010, published by Tinfish, a poetry pub in Hawaii. His book, Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong, is published by Shambhala. Norman lives overlooking the sea at Muir Beach, California, with his wife, Kathie, who is a science teacher and scuba diver. They have two grown sons and three grandchildren.