Meet a Member – Lūk Shaolon

March 17, 2025

It’s Week 2 of Brooklyn Zen Center’s annual Membership Drive, and we’re honored to share and celebrate Lūk’s story!

Lūk celebrating with sangha at the end of Rohatsu Sesshin, Boundless Mind Temple, December, 2024

Name: Lūk Shaolon
Place of Practice: Boundless Mind Temple
Favorite Event: Saturday Morning Program (Zazen, Dharma talk and Ceremony) and also Online Morning Meditation
Member since: September 2024
BZC Roles: Shika Ryo
Fun Fact: I am a hobby horticulturist and cat parent.

My Story: I started practicing as a Buddhist in the Theravada tradition in 2007, although I reckon seeds of my journey with Buddhist practice were planted when I first encountered Soto Zen in 1998 while staying with a friend in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Their family happened to be a Polish couple who were training to be Zen priests in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. From them, I learned some basics of formal meditation practice that I hold dear to this day.

While I was raised in a Buddhist family of origin (Chan Zen in Mahayana Tradition), it was in the LGBTQI+ communities that as a young adult I discovered a community that reflected my whole self; however, I often felt a longing for spiritual fulfillment. After ten years of exploring, I found Sangha at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California. With guidance from teacher Larry Yang, I saw a way to live in accordance with The Eightfold Path as a potential way to heal and access profound peace. His teaching of the Buddha’s Way supported and affirmed me as a mixed race participant in Western Culture as well as a person carrying intergenerational legacies of suffering that seek an end.

The rituals and forms of Soto Zen are a fabric of invitation to
bring forth the wisdom and needs of my ancestors.

I love being in Sangha at Boundless Mind/Brooklyn Zen Center and part of BZC’s Queer Sangha. I find myself sharing more of my journey within this Sangha than I have ever experienced in the past. I believe this has to do with how safe I feel in the community. Sangha is as complex as we are human. The rituals and forms of Soto Zen are a fabric of invitation to bring forth the wisdom and needs of my ancestors.

— Lūk Shaolon

Support BZC’s Spring Membership Drive by signing up for a new membership, upgrading the value of your existing one, and promoting what it means to be a member to your friends!