On this episode, Rev. Shōren Heather Iarusso interviews Rev. Kokai Shinshu Roberts, co-founder and guiding teacher of Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, CA, about her second book, Meeting the Myriad Things: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dōgen’s Genjō Kōan, which was published by Shambhala in 2025. This is her second book-length commentary on a seminal fascicle by Eihei Dogen, the 13th century founder of Soto Zen in Japan. Her first book, published in 2018 by Wisdom, was Being-Time: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen Zenji’s Shobogenzo Uji. Years of teaching seminars, researching scholarly texts and translations, and developing extensive notes led Shinshu on a journey to write both books.
Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and has its own before and after. Although before and after, past and future exist are cut off. Ash stays in the position of ash, with its own before and after. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it has burned to ash, there is no return to living after a person dies.—Genjō Kōan
In this podcast, we discuss the Genjo koan as “full manifestation” of ultimate reality in everyday life. Shinshu uses a real-world example from her own life at a Whole Foods checkout-line to illustrate Dogen’s teachings on delusion, realization, and “realization beyond realization,” including not “carrying the self forward” and being “actualized by the myriad things.” Shinshu explores meanings of “Genjo koan,” Dogen’s emphasis on bodhisattva practice and skillful means, what is meant by a dharma position, and the practical value of studying Dogen through both intellectual grounding and lived examples.
Rev. Kokai Shinshu Roberts
Shinshu was ordained in 1988 and received Dharma transmission (full authorization as a Soto Zen teacher) in 2004 from Sojun Mel Weitzman, former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center and Berkeley Zen Center.
Shinshu was a resident at San Francisco Zen Center for 17 years. Upon completion of her training, she moved to Capitola, CA and opened Ocean Gate Zen in 2007 with Daijaku Kinst. In 2005 Shinshu was appointed Kokusaifukyoshi (International Teacher) by the Soto Zen School (Sotoshu) in Tokyo, Japan, and holds the rank of Sei Kyoshi. Shinshu has studied, written, and taught extensively on the teachings of Eihei Dogen. In her dharma talks and her books, she brings the teachings of Dogen into dialogue with our ordinary life, and makes possible a deep, yet accessible, understanding of his work as well as those of other Soto Zen teachers.
