Saturday Community - Online

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Student talk will be given by Tom Jakuryu (寂龍) Huffman, a student of Kwong-roshi since 2008, following 10:30 am zazen. Jakuryu (Silent Dragon) has served as Land Stewards (weed whacking) and in the process has become very attached to this sacred 80 acres of land on Sonoma Mountain. His Midwestern college years were augmented by many hitchhiking excursions some of which took him cross country. He spent four years as a serious student of wolf behavior, closely working and interacting with a pack of captive gray wolves. This experience was further enhanced by the dynamic presence of the pack's alpha leaders who accepted him and became his teachers. Two years in art school were also spent as an apartment manager for an eclectic group of tenants in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury. His career in the North Bay Area consisted of landscape and land management positions for the State of California, including 25 years managing and restoring tidal salt marshes. Raised as a Roman Catholic he was an altar boy who knew the Latin responses for the Mass. He was introduced to the Buddha Dharma by an interesting group of Bodhisattvas including H.D. Thoreau, Ram Dass, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts ultimately leading to Shunryu Suzuki-roshi and his American student Jakusho Kwong-roshi. Tom received Jukai from Kwong-roshi in 2014 and remains grateful and honored to be a student of Kwong-roshi who continues to clarify the lifetime practice of dropping off body and mind.