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.
Unexpected Zen on a Road Trip
By Alex Chong Do Thompson My eyelids are getting heavy as I drive down the interstate. It's been a long weekend of college graduations, and late-night parties with family. It was fun. But the lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me. I try all of the usual...
Kindness, No Matter What
By Alex Chong Do Thompson Before I started practicing Zen, I treated people the way I thought they deserved to be treated. If someone was kind to me, then I would be kind to them. If someone screamed at me, then I would scream at them. And if someone really...
Kindness is an Act of Resistance: A Buddhist Response to Mass Shootings
By Alex Chong Do Thompson I'm standing in the break room at work, preparing to make a cup of tea and a news alert appears on my phone. I learn there's been a mass shooting in Las Vegas. My heart drops, and I reflexively focus on my breathing. The impromptu...
No Radioactive Spider, No Secret Ceremony: Becoming Enlightened Takes Work
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo I recently started watching an anime on Netflix called, One Punch Man. The main character is an unemployed yuppie named Saitama, who decides one day that he's going to become a super hero. He takes on the name One Punch Man because he...
How Do We (as Buddhists) Respond to Violence?
By Alex Chong Do Thompson I entered my first full-contact karate tournament when I was 13 years old. I'd been training for several years at that point, and after watching Enter The Dragon one to many times, I decided that I wanted to test myself against a real...
Nothing is Permanent—Not Even a Tattoo
By Alex Chong Do Thompson Everything changes. These two words seem simple on the surface. But Buddhist teachers have spent the last 2,500 years explaining them to students. It’s almost so obvious as to be laughable. Day turns to night, winter changes to spring,...
All Coming Together as One: Join us on August 5
By Alex Chong Do Thompson A few months ago, I was meditating at my local Zen center, and I did something that I almost never do during practice. I opened my eyes, and I looked around at my fellow practitioners. What I saw shocked me. The guy sitting directly...
Do Buddhists Eat Meat? My Story {Part 1}
By Alex Chong Do Thompson One of the beautiful (and frustrating) things about Buddhist practice is that there aren't any hard and fast rules for practitioners to follow outside of the monastic order. In his wisdom, Buddha chose to give general guidelines (the...
Using Buddhism to Deal with Anxiety: All Suffering Comes from the Mind
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo Having anxiety means that my brain always jumps to the worst-case scenario in any situation. If I lose my keys, I'm convinced that a sociopath is going to find them, come into the house, and kill me in my sleep. If I text someone and they...
President Trump is a Buddha Helping Me on the Path Toward Enlightenment
By Alex Chong Do Thompson My jaw clenches as I read the headline, "White House Says Cutting Meals On Wheels Is Compassionate." A fire burns in my chest as I continue reading, and soon it feels like I can barely breathe. "So we can spend 14 billion on a...
The Reality is that Enlightenment is Simple, but My Ego Wants it to be Hard
By Alex Chong Do Thompson Enlightenment is one of the great mysteries of spiritual practice. Do we attain enlightenment or do we realize it? Is it a higher plane of existence or a deeper understanding of our ordinary existence? More importantly, how do...
What if You Were Buddha?
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo You wake up with a start and realize that you aren't in your bedroom. In fact, you have no idea where you are. Your heart starts pounding in your chest, and you feel dizzy as you look around the room. It's a prison cell; you're lying on a...
First World Problems & the Loss of Human Connection
By Alex Chong Do Thompson A few years ago, it was common to see people complain about #firstworldproblems. For example, someone may have posted on social media, "My phone charger won't reach my bed. So I can't check my messages in the morning without getting up....
Hell is Empty: Equanimity in a World Full of Brimstone
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo "Hell is empty and all of the devils are here." ~ William Shakespeare The life of an activist can be very painful. Often times you find yourself fighting battles that seem hopeless. Other times you are arguing for...
Walking the Walk
By Sensei Alex Kakuyo One of my all-time favorite anime shows while I was growing up was Naruto. It followed the adventures of a group of children who were training to become ninjas in order to protect their village from rival clans. For a kid's show, it dealt...