Jun Po Roshi: An Interview

The recording opens with a brief framing. This is part of A Psychology of the Future, an online summit put together by Erik Lenderman, built around conversations with people working in self-development, spirituality, neuroscience, medicine and related fields. Lenderman introduces himself as the host and then brings on his guest for the session, Jun Po Roshi.

Jun Po, Lenderman explains, holds a fully empowered lineage in Rinzai Zen. He trained under some of the first Japanese Zen teachers who came to the United States, back in an era when those teachers regarded Westerners as too rough and unrefined to take on real Zen practice. Before his Zen name, he went by Dennis Kelly. His published work includes a book called 'The Heart of Zen' and a biography titled 'A Heart Blown Open.' He also heads the Hollow Bones Society and created something called the Mondo Zen Process, a method of training and awakening that folds in spoken dialogue alongside neurolinguistic programming.

Jun Po thanks his host and says he is glad to take part, glad for the chance to pass along the dharma, and eager for the summit itself.

Lenderman says the honor is mutual, then moves to his first question. He wants the origin story. Where did Jun Po come from, and how did he end up as one of the earliest Westerners recognized as a Zen lineage holder?

'I come from nowhere,' Jun Po answers. Lenderman laughs. Jun Po then asks him to repeat the rest of the question.

Lenderman rephrases: he means the physical journey of this one lifetime, the actual path that led to Jun Po becoming a lineage holder.

Karma, Jun Po replies. The way karma and circumstance keep unfolding. He was born in 1942, and he describes the start of his life as a strange one. His mother and father had an Rh-negative blood incompatibility. The brother born before him survived only a single day. Jun Po himself arrived two months early, at seven months, without any fingernails. So his entry into the world, as he tells it, came from two directions at once: he was being brought into being by his mother, both the sacred mother and the ordinary physical one, and at the same time he was being poisoned and torn down. He arrived, in his words, carrying a bit of an attitude.

Lenderman checks his understanding, asking whether that means his parents' blood type was essentially toxic to his newborn body.