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!
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!