Judith's Professional Bio...
Byakuren (White Lotus) Judith Ragir is the guiding teacher at Clouds in Water Zen Center. She studied with Dainin Katagiri roshi from 1973-1990 at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis. Following his death in 1990, Judith was instrumental in founding the Clouds in Water Zen Center in St. Paul where she was a senior teacher for nine years. In December 2007, Joen Snyder-O’Neal, of Compassion Ocean Dharma Center, bestowed on Judith Dharma Transmission, the authorization to teach. This transmission is in Katagiri Roshi’s lineage.

Byakuren has a background in bodywork and healing which includes having been a professional modern dancer and a doctor of Oriental medicine using acupuncture, acupressure, and Chinese herbs.

She lives in the woods with her husband and two sons.

Judith's Personal Bio...
The influences of Buddhism reach all the way back into my childhood. My mother took me when I was around 7 years old to the Broadway play, “The King and I.” What I was fascinated by was the Buddhist play within the play. The Thai women and children singing, “Praise to Buddha”. My little rebellious self began to sing “Praise to Buddha” in the halls of my Hebrew school. Is this karmic connection? Or as a teenager, driving for hours to find a place to meditate. Even though I didn’t really know how to meditate nor could I sustain it for more then 5 or 10 minutes before the thought of an ice cream cone or boys or restlessness or flies would have me moving on.

What attracted me most about being a hippy was the Eastern Spirituality. I was drawn right into Buddhism by Zen arts, by Alan Watts and by the Tassajara Bread Book, which had a picture of the Buddha working in the kitchen on its back cover. Then a friend asked, “Did you know there is a Zen Master in Dinkytown?” I was ripe for the asking. I immediately rode my bicycle in the very early morning over the University Ave. Bridge to the University of Minnesota neighborhood known as Dinkytown. Walking up the stairs of a duplex, I entered into a dark zendo where a Japanese man sat with 3 or 4 students. At this time in my life, my mind was very dark and my angst was very strong. In fact I often say that I was headed for death and Katagiri Roshi turned me around with firm, warm hands on my shoulders.

Turning me back towards life and straightening out my particular life with its specific set of problems and joys. This first time I sat with him in the dark before dawn, I felt the world awake, The darkness broke open with the sun rising, the birds singing and the human world coming to life. It was a moment of pivot in my life, answering my deep question of “Why should I continue to live?”

Over the next thirty years I have practiced and focused on spiritual life. Katagiri Roshi told me that you need only make a few degree shift in your direction and over the years that few degrees becomes a big triangle or a big arc of change. And so it has been for me. Every so often directing myself a few more degrees towards Buddhism and Spiritual life…until in 1996, I became ordained and am continuing more and more to have a life shared with all in practice.

My life has always been complicated as all our lives are. My spiritual life has not been altogether easy or clear. I married before I met Katagiri Roshi and I have kept my marriage together even though my passionate attachment and misunderstanding of Zen practice often threatened my marriage. I had children right before I was ordained which has often felt odd and difficult because that lifestyle doesn’t follow the stereotype in my mind of a good Zen Priest. In my 40’s, I birthed two children, went through the dying process with both my parents, and helped start a Zen Center. Talk about being busy! The reality of my practice has always been learning about integrating all the aspects of myself and letting go of any “idea” I have about how a Zen Priest is supposed to look. I have always broken my own preconceptions of practice or priesthood.

It took me many years to work though the many kleshas (internal knots of emotions) inherited from a difficult childhood. Sometimes they still pop up and fly me around. But I find that my own struggles to free myself from emotional damage in the past and from my habituated patterns of negative or compulsive thinking, have become great sources of teaching and help to others who have experienced the same issues in their life. I now in many moments can express freedom from my storyline and a fresh and open attention to the moment that surprises me and inspires others.

My gratitude to Katagiri Roshi for teaching me the tools of spiritual life is beyond measure. My gratitude for the opportunity to practice with others is beyond measure. My appreciation for this one precious life of moments is beyond measure.

Can we learn to enjoy our moments and live in freedom and peace, to this I aspire!