Who am I?

If you have practiced Zen Buddhist meditation, you will recognize this question! This is one of the great questions asked by Zen Masters of their students. If we ask the question: WHO AM I? and if we have the courage to answer I HAVE NO IDEA, we are on our path to enlightenment. We all have some idea of who we are. Our ideas, like most of our perceptions, are deeply flawed and very limited. Usually they are based on how we label or identify ourselves -- man, woman, white, brown, tall, short, baker, accountant, spouse, child, Christian, Muslim.  Try asking yourself, "Who am I" and answering "I don't know". Try that for about 10 minutes. Then try walking around all day asking yourself, "What is this" about everything and everyone you encounter, and answering "I don't know." See how much more open, free and suprising your life becomes!

So . . . who is Andrew Weiss? Here are some biographical details.

I began my study of Buddhist meditation in Thailand during a one month trip that changed my life.  I spent time in one of the Cambodian refugee camps inside Thailand, and I had the chance to meet, talk and study with one of the Buddhist monks who lived there.  I saw first hand the suffering of the Cambodian and Thai people, and I saw how the Buddhist monks within the camp were trying to define their roles as spiritual teachers in a situation of war and oppression.  Since then, I have studied Buddhist meditation for many years in the United States, Europe and Asia.  I studied zen with Zen Master Seung Sahn, the founder of the Kawn Um School of Zen, and with other teachers in his lineage, particularly the late Mu Deung Sunim (later Zen Master Su Bong) and Zen Master George Bowman, who is a treasure and one of the most authentic zen voices in the United States.  In 1989 I met Thich Nhat Hanh, and in 1991 I was ordained a Brother in Nhat Hanh's Tiep Hien Order (Order of Interbeing). I am a founder of the Community of Interbeing in Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts, and am the founder and practice coordinator for the Clock Tower Sangha in Maynard, Massachusetts. I regularly teach mindfulness meditation at Cambridge Center for Adult Education and at the New England School of Whole Health Education, where I also serve as Dean of Faculty.

I also maintain a practice as a lawyer and mediator, focusing on providing mindfulness-based support services to the legal and business communities. To learn more about these services, click here. http://members.aol.com/ResolutN

I live in Maynard, Massachusetts, with my spouse Avril Rama Bell and our dog Shakti.  Avril , who is a gifted spiritual counselor and healer, is a long-time student of Siddha Yoga, the practice presently headed by Gurumayi Chidvalasananda.  We do our best to share our practices with each other, and I am grateful to have received the grace of Gurumayi's grand-teacher, Bhagawan Nityananda.

I was raised in New Britain, Connecticut, in a strongly Jewish family.  My older brother, Jon Weiss, is a modern languages professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and heads up their off-campus study program.  I have the delight to have three great nephews -- Adam, an architect-to-be who lives in New York City (look for his website at http://angelfire.com/me/~AWeiss/index.html), Gabe, who looks to follow in his father's footsteps and is spending his junior year in college studying in Paris (and living on the Ile St. Louis, one of Paris' most romantic spots), and Danny, a gifted soccer player who is heading toward his Bar Mitzvah this coming June (yes, Dan has a website, also, -- address to come).

I have found living with someone who practices a different path is a great way to expand my own practice, and it makes it difficult to have any ego attachment that says "My practice is the only true practice."   After all, the Buddha said that there are 84,000 dharma doors (a "dharma door" is an entrance to freedom, liberation and enlightenment), and Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that there are probably many more.  Another way to say this is, There are many roads up the mountain.  I am grateful to have found dharma doors which help me, and I hope I continue to have a smidgen of openness so I can see some of the new ones when they appear, as they constantly do.  If the practices of Buddhist meditation and mindfulness are a dharma door for you, I hope this site has been of some help to you.