What Are You Doing Right Now? with Zen Master Bon Yeon

Zen Master Bon Yeon, Jane McLaughlin-Dobisz, began to get interested in Buddhism in college, which led to her studying abroad in Nepal during her senior year. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to get a Masters in Tibetan Studies but also began practicing vipassana with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. After several shorter retreats, she sat her first 90 retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre MA when she was 23 and she enjoyed it so much she stayed for a second three-month sit. Zen Master Bon Yeon first heard Zen Master Seung Sahn when he came to teach at Barre, instantly connected with him as her teacher, and moved to the Providence Zen Center. Not long after she sat another 90-day retreat followed by a one-hundred day solo retreat in Maine. She moved into the Cambridge Zen Center at age 25, where she lived for the next 14 years. Zen Master Bon Yeon received Inka, or permission to teach, at 31 and began traveling and teaching in the US, Europe, and South Africa. She received transmission in April of 2000 at the age of 39 and published The Wisdom of Solitude, an account of her 100-day solo retreat, the following year. Zen Master Bon Yeon lives in the Greater Boston area with her husband and two children and continues as the Guiding Teacher of the Cambridge Zen Center.

Check out her book One Hundred Days of Solitude: Losing Myself and Finding Grace on a Zen Retreat

You can find her retreat and interview schedule by visiting The Cambridge Zen Center website

And you can find some of her talks and writings on her personal website