Thursday, July 17, 2014

Midsummer Revisited

Thanks to Ted Ojarovsky for this photo
Thanks to Ted Ojarovsky for this photo
I just performed in my 6th New Genesis Productions show! This summer we did A Midsummer Night's Dream and I played Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Theseus, Duke of Athens (I was Snug in the same play 3 years ago - see here!). It was super fun. See below for a video with clips of me playing my 2 characters.










Thanks to Ted Ojarovsky for this photo

And here's the video!

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Dogen Cures the Shogun


As part of our homeschool studies about Zen Buddhism, we made this movie about the 13th Century Zen monk, Eihei Dogen. The movie was filmed on location at Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery in California and the Esalen Institute, also in California.

Thanks to the wonderful cast and crew that helped make this movie possible (and fun to make) - Vig, Ashley, Sascha, and Becca!

 Make sure to see the hilarious outtakes too:



And for the die hard fans, this is an uncut version of the Shogun chopping and then popping all those heads..

Homeschool History, Religion, and Culture Studies (Part 9): Zen Buddhism



As part of our Homeschool History, Religion, and Culture studies, we have just spent the last couple of months studying Zen Buddhism. We are already familiar with Buddhism and the story of the Buddha (see the three movies we made about Buddha's life) and a few years ago we went on a retreat with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, where I got to ask him a question! But this year we decided to do more study on Zen because we had a trip to the famous Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery planned.

You can see pictures from our trip to Tassajara below and also a movie we made of our very Zen ride on the infamous 14 mile dirt track to the monastery.

As usual, we used Gloria Fiero's Humanistic Tradition to start us off with our Zen studies, but here are some of the books and resources we used. 

Books:
Zen Master Eihei Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop
Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Thich Nhat Hanh, Old Path, White Cloud, The Art of Mindful Living
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living
Thich Nhat Hanh's children’s books, A Pebble for Your Pocket, Is Nothing Something?, and Each Breath a Smile
John Muth's three books, Zen Shorts, Zen Ghosts, Zen Ties

Movies, Documentaries, and Dharma Talks:
Zen, 2009 movie about Zen Master Dogen
Thich Nhat Hanh’s 2013 Pine Bush “Art of Suffering” Retreat (5 dharma talks)
Suzuki Roshi, a documentary

Here's a movie and photos from our trip to Tassajara!