Alex Kakuyo is a Buddhist teacher and breathwork facilitator.A former Marine, he served in both Iraq and Afghanistan before finding the Dharma through a series of happy accidents.Alex has a degree in philosophy from Wabash College and he helps students transform daily activities into spiritual practice.He is the author of Perfectly Ordinary: Buddhist Teachings for Everyday Life.
You can follow him by visiting his blog, The Same Old Zen and on Twitter: @sameoldzen.
Don’t Seek a Holy Life, Make a Holy Life
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo In the meditation hall, I have an altar dedicated to Amida Buddha and the bodhisattvas Kannon and Jizo. It contains three statues, which bear their respective images along with candles and an incense burner. The statues are of good...
Obstacles on the Path: All My Wants Really Don’t Matter
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo Two years ago, I bought an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. I was tired of the noise and congestion of city life, and I wanted to be closer to nature. More than that, I wanted to use the skills I'd learned by apprenticing on organic...
The Things We Pass Down
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo In pre-industrial America, it was common for family heirlooms to be passed down from one generation to another. A woman might wear her mother’s wedding dress to get married or a father might give his prized car to his son as a graduation...
The Zen of Just Being a Good Neighbor
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo My community is sitting under three feet of snow, at the moment, and we get a few more inches every day. So, I've been doing many of the jobs that one associates with winter snowstorms; insulating the chicken coop, putting salt down on the...
When Life is Poop: Buddhist Ways to Fertilize the Garden
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo As a homesteader, I spend a lot of time dealing with manure. I clean it out of the cat's litter boxes. I step in it each time I feed the chickens and I collect it from our two rabbits, Belladonna and Oleander. That last part might be...
Enlightenment is Not the Goal (Hint: It’s a Starting Point)
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo A student sat down in front of their teacher and asked, "How do caterpillars become butterflies?" The teacher replied, "They don't---only butterflies can become butterflies." This koan comes from my new book, A Year of Zen...
My Bodhisattva Vow: I’ll Do My Best to Stop Your Suffering
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo In a couple of weeks, I'll have my one-year anniversary of living on a homestead. I can say with full honesty that I love this life. Growing food and caring for animals is rewarding. Watching the land grow and shrink throughout the year is...
I’m Buddhist and I Have Faith When Things Get Hard
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo Faith is a dirty word in American Buddhism. When teachers discuss having faith in Buddha and his teachings, for example, there's a lot of hand-wringing involved. We're quick to explain that faith in Buddhism is more akin to trust, and...
Buddhism is Finding Happiness in a World Filled with Suffering
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo Suffering is an inescapable part of life. The sutras tell us that every person has a nature to be born, to grow old, to get sick and to die. On top of that, we lose the things we want, and we gain the things we don't want. The landscape of...
What Does a Buddhist Do on Christmas?
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo On Christmas morning, Buddhists find themselves in a tricky situation. They may wonder if celebrating Christmas is in-keeping with the Dharma, or if they should abstain from the celebrations all together. However, a brief survey of...
How Buddhist Practice is Like Cutting the Grass
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo Many years ago, I dreamed of having a house in the country. I imagined how it would feel to eat food from my garden. I visualized chickens flapping their wings and running around in the coop that I'd built for them, and I strategized ways...
There are Buddhas Everywhere: Why We Need to Get Rid of the American Me-First Mindset
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo In America, we have a culture that is self-centered and individualistic. We believe that each person must look out for their own self-interest, working to earn as much money as possible at the expense of others. Ideas like...
The Desire for Something Else: Adam, Eve & The Buddha
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo One of the first bible stories that I learned involved Adam, Eve, and the garden of Eden. As the story goes, Adam was the first man, created by God from the dust of the earth. And Eve was his wife, created from Adam's rib in order...
A Buddhist “How-to” on Forgiveness
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo As Buddhists, we have an unnatural pressure placed upon us to forgive people who harm us. This is to be expected. After all, humans are social creatures, and they hate conflict. Unfortunately, the quickest way to end conflict is ask the...
In the Midst of Political War, We Sit on Cushions and Pray for Peace
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo Throughout history, the only way for someone to forcibly takeover a country was through intrigue and bloodshed. In fact, some of history's greatest rulers (Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Shaka Zulu, etc.) were also it's greatest...