When Peter Coyote first appeared in my life, I was 14 years old, on the edge of 15 and on the edge of my seat. Holding my breath and holding back tears as I sat in a dark movie theater in 1982 as the wide-eyed & lovable E.T. was being chased by nefarious and nameless NASA scientists outfitted in ominous, white jumpsuits.
Never would I have imagined that 42 years later, I’d be a Sōto Zen priest podcasting with Peter Coyote, who’s also a Sōto Zen priest, who played a kind-hearted NASA scientist “Keys” in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestial.
In this podcast, Peter and I discuss his most recent book: Zen in the Vernacular: Things As It Is, in which Peter helps us “peer beneath the Japanese gift-wrapping of Zen teachings to reveal the fundamental teachings of the Buddha and show how they can be applied to contemporary daily life.” He uses everyday language to explain the Four Noble Truths, the Three Treasures, and the Eightfold Path. Peter show how these fundamental teachings provide “a creative problem-solving mechanism and moral guide ideal for the stresses and problems of everyday life.”
PETER COYOTE has performed as an actor for some of the world’s most distinguished filmmakers, including Barry Levinson, Roman Polanski, Pedro Almodovar, Steven Spielberg, Martin Ritt, Steven Soderberg, Sidney Pollack and Jean Paul Rappeneau. Peter was the co-host of the Academy Award show with Billy Crystal in 2020.
He is a double Emmy-Award winning narrator of over 160 documentary films, including Ken Burns acclaimed The Roosevelts, for which he received his second Emmy nomination in July 2015. Other Ken Burns documentary films include National Parks, Prohibition, The West, the Dust Bowl and Vietnam, The History of Country Music, Ben Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, The Holocaust and America.
Peter has written six books including the international bestseller Sleeping Where I Fall, The Rainman’s Third Cure: An Irregular Education which reached second on the Marin County bestseller list. His third book, entitled The Lone Ranger and Tonto Meet the Buddha, outlines a long-standing series of classes he runs using acting, improvisation and masks to induce temporary ego-free states and is based on Peter’s work as a Zen Buddhist student of over 40 years. His most recent book is: Zen in the Vernacular: Things As It Is.
In 2011, he was ordained a priest, and in 2015 “transmitted” by his teacher and is now an independent Zen teacher with the authority to ordain priests himself. He is and has been engaged in political and social causes since his early teens and his primary concerns are the environment, voting rights and security of elections, and the threat of nuclear weapons and energy production.
"Things As It Is": Zen in Plain English