Untangling Karma, Uncovering Infinite Wisdom

Judith Ragir is a Dharma teacher in the Zen lineage of Katagiri Roshi, with whom she studied for 17 years. Untangling Karma is a memoir of accepting and healing personal trauma, both on and off the meditation cushion. “In Buddhism, the personal and the systemic are interwoven. Ragir lets fall the stereotypical cool, calm Zen teacher’s demeanor to reveal her complicated, emotional self. She discusses what she has done to find greater inner peace as well as the personal impacts of transferring an Eastern philosophy onto her Western mind and applying a male-inspired monastic model to herself as an American woman, Jew, and mother. Untangling Karma is at once a love letter to Zen Buddhism and a critique of turn-of-the-century American Zen.”

Judith Ragir co-founded Clouds in Water Zen Center in St. Paul, MN, where she currently serves as the Senior Dharma Teacher Emeritus. She’s had careers as a modern dancer and a doctor of Chinese medicine. She’s also an avid and accomplished quilter. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies: The Eightfold Path, Zen Teachings in Challenging Times; The Hidden Lamp; The Path of Compassion; Receiving the Marrow; and Seeds of Virtue, Seeds of Change.