In this enriching episode of Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, we delve into the serene world of Zen Buddhism and its impactful integration into the realms of entrepreneurship and business with the remarkable Marta Dabis. As a Zen priest and leader of a Japanese Soto Zen meditation lineage, Marta not only guides us through the essence of Zen practice but also shares her unique journey from the business sector to spiritual guidance. Her story is a testament to the power of passion and the unexpected paths it can lead us down.
Business Professional and Zen Priest
Marta Dabis, a vibrant spirit and a guiding light in the realm of spiritual care, leads the Sunday program for a Japanese Soto Zen meditation lineage and provides profound spiritual guidance. Her transition from a business professional with an MBA to a Zen priest encapsulates a journey of self-discovery, transformation, and dedication to serving others.
Unique Journey
Marta shares her captivating transition from a focused business professional to a dedicated Zen priest. This segment reveals the challenges, revelations, and serendipitous moments that guided her on this path, inspiring listeners to pursue their passions fearlessly. Marta discusses the intricacies of building and nurturing a community centered around Zen practice. She shares valuable insights on creating spaces that encourage growth, connection, and mutual support.
Tune into this enlightening episode of Spark & Ignite Your Marketing to discover how the wisdom of Zen illuminated Marta’s journey. Follow this journey that is not only successful but also deeply fulfilling and impactful
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JissoJi Zen Ann Arbor
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Transcript:
Beverly:
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that regular meditation practice can lead to a 10 to 20% reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression. Today we’re changing things up a bit. We’re delving into meditation and spiritual care with Marta Davis, a Zen priest leading a Japanese Soto Zen meditation Lineage Sunday program, who also offers spiritual guidance. In our conversation with Marta, get ready to explore the transformative power of meditation and spiritual practice, and how finding your passion can lead you to places you did not expect. Welcome, Marta.
Marta:
Thank you. Thank you.
Beverly:
So an interesting intro for an interesting person because we were just connected and chatting. I think I met you probably 15, so years ago. We’re trying to figure out when that was. Maybe even more like 17 years. Yeah, I think it’s close to a while ago. Yeah. And when I met you then we were networking, we were at networking events together, and you had an MBA and you were really focusing on your business called Inspiring Conversations. You still have that business, but you are also a priest. So over the last 17 years, a few things have changed. I love it though. I think it’s so wonderful when people go down a certain road, but then the road veers and become something entirely different. And they have found the place that they are truly supposed to exist. So how did, tell me a little bit about how you went from an NBA inspiring
Marta:
I think I still can use many of the skills from that era. But I was following my yoga teacher to visit first for a week, these silent, boring monks in a monastery and I was expecting, I didn’t know what I was expecting. I was just expecting of, okay, if Francis did it, it might be a good thing to do. He turned out to be a beautiful person. His way of teaching yoga is so unique, and it’s not that I wanna become a yoga teacher, I just wanna know what formed Francis. So I went to investigate and after the first week I came home with, I need to move into that monastery. I’m just going to arrange my life. Took me more than a year.
Beverly:
And you’re married. You’re married.
Marta:
I negotiated for a year away from my marriage. Wow. To move into the mountains. And I went back in 2008 for another two week period this time to Green Gulch. The Green Dragon Temple. And as soon as I arrived to San Francisco Center, I had jet like overnight, and I just looked through the inner courtyard into the small kitchen and I understood that I came home without. It up apparently. I’m not from California. Okay, you can tell that I’m not from here. Why would I feel so definitely all over in my body at home in San Francisco Center that I basically knew nothing about other than it was started with Suzu roi, who came from Japan. And Francis became a beautiful person because of Suzuki roi. And I just moved in 2009 and did the practice periods and zen practice, a lot of meditation practice together with the, actually not at all boring, very funny and very creative and very joyful monks, which was a very international environment also. I came back in 2012, which was two years later than I negotiated. But my husband was willing to come out and look around and give me an extension, and then give me another extension. Many of these things could have not come to be if it’s true, if he were not. Understanding and willing to hear me for what matters in my life, what matters, in the meaning of my life. I just couldn’t have it in me to go back to business as usual. It was not business as usual. So I started studying chaplaincy in final year of my monastic year. And after that I was hospital chaplain in training for years in six different hospitals. I and, when I left the monastery, I realized that I became a Buddhist. I didn’t go there to become a Buddhist, I didn’t go there.
Beverly:
What were you before you went there,
Marta:
I was at Renaissance Unity and I was meditating together with other people, Uhhuh. So they had this evening meditation, sometimes music, sometimes chanting, sometimes some extracurricular activities, but it was not a formal anything. I started meditating very early. In 1990, I started transcendental meditation, but in 1980 I started something that’s somewhat similar to mindfulness-based stress reduction. It was a German method training, which is a form of a body scan of receiving all kinds of sensations from different parts of the body, doing it very intentionally. Paying attention to their breath. So it’s a very good foundation to do that. I did that throughout all my middle school, high school years, and then I added the transcendental meditation later after that. I still studied more methods of meditation with many groups, but none of them were a whole practice in and of itself, like zen meditation, which in California by the time was well established. And Tassajara is the largest residential priest training center of the 10 lineages that exist in North America. So I trained without having a promise that I’m going to get anything out of it or that I want to become anything at the end of it, which is thinking about it exactly the opposite of how we go about choosing a. Career or a school or a business venture of, no, I’m just going to get these results. These are the goals. I set the timeline. I worked myself towards it. This was not like that. I just starting one step after another, having more meditation, more classes, more meditation. By the time I realized that, I became, now you’re a priest. I became it. So in 16 I was priest ordained, and as soon as people here in southeast Michigan heard through the inside Timer app that now I’m a preor named Soto Zen Suzuki Lineage practitioner, they petitioned me to start the zen meditation of the Suzuki lineage here, and that’s how it started on nine 11 in 2016. With an unusual figure on the altar. It was not a Buddha on the altar, it was a Guanyin, the body of great compassion depicted in a female form. So on nine 11, with a dedication of the meditation and the no service to ease the suffering of the world, which sort of, I could stand behind that easily. It’s beautiful. Yes. Of the world that, okay, if my life wants to be about something, this is a good thing to be about.
Beverly:
it was definitely a journey for you. And it was as if you were led not necessarily intentional, right? Was there a pivotal moment that determined it
Marta:
It’s more like walking in a fog and not even knowing which way is the, which way is the river, which way is the ocean, which
Beverly:
but is this is as if though, every time you made a step forward in this journey, it was the right step.
Marta:
I always listen to people around me. So if they were already inside the monastery and they gave me advice, I followed it. I was, I don’t know, probably upbringing, strong on follow through. If they said that this is your next thing at, this is the next unit of training, a year of Buddhist chaplaincy training, the deadline is two days from now, you need to submit these materials. Then I will just sit until I submit those materials. Because if they wanna take me I will get them in. It’s not something that we will have all our lives. Sometimes there will be illness and other things to take this capacity away from us, but I’m really glad that I could do a dedicated response to the right instruction. I didn’t have to wait for another repeated instruction. If somebody said, this is the next thing you do and this is the next thing to, they basically handed me over to the next mentor and the next teacher. Very gently.
Beverly:
So you were very open-minded though, to follow that. Like you had to be like, okay, this is what, as opposed to why would I do that? Or there wasn’t any of that kind of self talk that happened during the, that process.
Marta:
Not much self talk though. I remember clearly that when we first had an introduction to, this is what chaplaincy training on the long run looks like. So after the finishing the year, there are units of clinical pastoral education in the hospital, action, reflection based on learning. There is residency, there is board certification. It already looked like an inordinate amount of work, like thousands and thousands of hours of work and I thought, I’m old enough. I probably will not embark on something like that. That’s for the very committed ones. And looking back, yes, it was a huge deal of work. But it was also meaningful and something that was feeding my heart along the way. The relationships at the bedside, the relationship with my colleagues. Some of my supervisors were absolutely stunning, amazing human beings. So I did get the right kind of environment. Many times I found myself with just the appropriate environment where I could do these things that do this. Okay, this is given. So I do that. And there are times that I have to say that, okay, that maybe the why is next step. But I look around and if the environment will not sustain me, if I don’t feel the meaning and the heart nourishing aspect of it, then I will seriously think of maybe this is just a. Correction in the path and there is something else that’s more appropriate for me.
Beverly:
I think you need to share a little bit about what exactly, a little bit more about what Zen is.’cause I don’t think everybody understands that everybody understands meditation and feeling zen or at this connection or at this place. But what is zen and what is a typical day for a Zen priest?
Marta:
These days that we have a southeast Michigan established Sunday program in Zen, I’m leading all the Sunday programs, which means I’m responsible to open the door and let people come in. And some of them are sitting on cushions, some of them are sitting on chairs. We can meditate, lying down, we can teach meditation and walking. My role is to create an environment where people feel. Comfortable to be without continuously needing to interact with something. The most open that I’m feeling the push to interact with is this a phone. If we are in the technical technological age where we turn to a device 200 times a day, that’s clearly leaving a mark on our psyche that’s
Beverly:
it’s like feeding this like instant gratification loop, right? So you can’t get away from it.
Marta:
So in Zen meditation, it’s not that I’m against technology. I use technology just like everybody else, which is odd because behind the mountain we didn’t have power. We didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have computers, we didn’t have internet. And life still went on and there was printing newspaper, a couple days old, but it’s still, it was still possible to do everything. And I miss that some days. But when they come for a Sunday program, people usually would like to have this sense of arriving, and there are no more demands, at least for this brief period. They can sit with their feelings, with their thoughts. They don’t need to put up beautiful facial expressions. This Z lineage is actually sitting facing the walls so nobody can see. If you’re laughing, crying, or grimacing, it’s all yours. And at the end of the period there’s a bell and you don’t have to explain what happened. You don’t have to know what happened. So it’s more of a interesting undoing of you than the doing of the meditation. So that’s how I instruct people to do. Don’t be in doubt if that was a good meditation or a bad meditation. If they didn’t run away between the first bell and the last bell, but it was the meditation
Beverly:
and you learn what you’re supposed to learn in that moment, whatever that is.
Marta:
Sometimes you sometimes get some instructions. This lineage is sensitive to the posture, so having your chin a little bit up so your neck would not be forward because it’s easier to sit like that. And even if you’re sitting on a chair, just have a sense of being upright because the body response, there is a bodily learning of this meditation. Every time you take the same posture, you can generate the same sense of feeling of settling.
Beverly:
So it’s a physical learning a muscle memory of sorts.
Marta:
Yes. And then we do Sunday service, which is bowing and chanting. And then we have a check-in people can support each other. No crosstalk listening, but we know where people are, what kind of difficulties or joys or anticipations they have in their lives. And then we go out and eat lunch together. Love that. And once a month we sit a half a day meditation. So we sit five periods or three periods, and some days we have afternoon programs with Zen and poetry. And since the pandemic, everything is hybrid. So we have in-person and online at the same time.
Beverly:
So can you go to a Zen meditation and be Catholic? Is that yes.
Marta:
Something that yes you can be everything. And at the same time, you don’t need to give up any identity or belief of yours. We actually encourage people to examine it closely because this doesn’t have to be it. If it makes their heart sing all the better, and if something else makes their heart sing, by all means follow that. Because we don’t need to have 40,000 members. We just need to be open for the members that wanna come.
Beverly:
I love that, whatever makes your heart sing is what’s important. So how do you as a priest practice zen differently than the people who come to
Marta:
your programs? I think that it used to be just me arriving and then forgetting about how the mechanics are taking place and what’s coming next and what needs to be in place. And since I’m the priest, I need to know, if we are doing a memorial service after that, if we are doing a wellbeing ceremony after that, if you are having guests to attend a special ceremony after that. So I have a lot more how the businesses. Happening. Is everything printed? Is the right flowers there? do, have we discussed of which roles to take for the ceremony? Do we need a practice for some of the incense offering? Oh, these days we are not even offering incense indoors because there is so much sensitivity. We are offering lavender flowers. It’s beautiful. My meditation, I think I got a couple good minutes of meditation. In the middle of my meditation. Right now we have a nonprofit board. I’m preparing for this weekend to have a board meeting on top of the Sunday service. And one, one of them is leading the afternoons and then poetry session. So this, even though it looks like that, oh, okay. Going to the mountains to attain two, two realization and then come back and realize that even if you just wanna have. A zen practice as a group, eventually you’re running a business because there’s no other way around that.
Beverly:
But I do think that anytime you organize a group of people and you have an intention of some sort what, whatever that looks like. So for a business like mine, it might be a service like marketing, but for something like yours, it might be to help them find their joy or their peace or what that looks like. You have an end product that you’re selling of some sort. How have you grown? I’m assuming it’s more word of mouth and things like that, but have you done any quote unquote marketing?
Marta:
I did. But it was also very interesting because they shaved my head with the priest ordination. I was a walking bulletin board for those who dared to ask are you an ordained person? Because it’s, I don’t think that many people would have this first thought, but I look like I’m otherwise energetic and coming and going and there’s no, nothing apparently wrong. What happened with your hair? This is what happened with my hair and the next thing you know, oh, I wanna come and sit meditation with you. So it was something that even this day I consider that maybe I will have my summer head shave again in the winter in Michigan. It’s not so nice. So that was the organic growth of people who have studied mindfulness based stress reduction in Ann Arbor. There are many eight week courses here. Now. There are many courses online. They might look for the next step or do this together with a group of people. So for them, we are a possible next environment for their meditation because then it’s the same group week after week, coming back, checking in. Some people would like to remain in a completely neutral secular meditation environment. There’s nothing wrong with that. Meditation is a very helpful practice, whether you are practicing zen meditation or some other kind of meditation. It’s just like brushing your teeth. Helpful thing to do every day. But for those people who think that they would like to. Have Zen practice or even take their zen practice with vows of benefiting other people, not harming other people, having a gentle and kind attitude towards themselves, that could be one of, one of the environments where they do it within our Zen programs. So we started out with meetup. Meetup is an advertising and, sometimes people are looking for activities to do together. Some people go and hike in nature. Others have book clubs. Sometimes they have desk parties. We are advertising that we are sitting meditation, and interestingly enough, that has enough interest, it looked different. Before the pandemic, it was local, so it didn’t go that far. By now, we are having zen and poetry participants from Texas to Virginia, to Ontario to California because there are no limits of where people can log in to do zen and poetry together. Broaden it to a lot larger audience. So after, I don’t know, maybe a year or two, we started having some. Online feedback of, yay, you are on the Google map. I can give opinion about how this was for me. And when we came back after being virtual for two years, I started being more intentional about the Google business advertising because they offer programs of you can basically week by week, set a budget, give some keywords, see what people are looking for. Are you getting the right kind of people? Are you getting anything at all? Not pay for things that wouldn’t work. So I think that’s the closest thing to paid advertising. The Google regular updates, it means that week by week I go and I update the hours when we are there and I look at of what kind of things people are responding to, I always ask everybody, every newcomer, we always ask, where did you hear about us? How did you hear about us? Because it’s interesting to know if they are looking for a Suzuki lineage group, which many people interestingly know that they are looking for that, then they do find us. That’s no mistake. That’s no misunderstanding. Yes, we have a website, but nobody is going there first. They need to land on the website through something else.
Beverly:
Do you think that your business background helps you be more prepared as a zen priest?
Marta:
Absolutely. Yeah, I think so. There are many and priest who are coming out of San Francisco Center training longer than I trained, but they never had to run a business. Within a large monastery, you get to see a slice of it. Running a small zen program here, it’s basically responsible for every aspect of it. From business insurance and board meetings and documentations to finances, to marketing and advertising, everything.
Beverly:
What do you think has been your biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome?
Marta:
I was very ill during the pandemic and I was leading Sunday programs from bed and the sense of shame that I cannot be in a robe and I cannot sit up and I cannot at least be vertical for a camera and I’m doing everything like this. That was a large challenge to present myself. And hope that this will still fly and people will not abandon their own practice. They might find another zen group online because suddenly there were hundreds of Zen groups. You could find any state with any zen program to attend to. But we still got new people and several of the old people stayed with us. And when they moved away to another state, to Minnesota, they didn’t lose us because we were online. So even in the greatest challenge, there were some gifts.
Beverly:
In what ways do you think that Zen Buddhism and its teaching address cont addresses contemporary issues? You talk about technology and the access to that. How do you think that it helps address some of the challenges in today’s world?
Marta:
This will sound like a social critique of America. We set out to be. Number one, fantastic, unique, successful, and impeccable, and super successful and rich and great, and always just top top. Because we never set out to be ordinary and happy. And there is a lot of moment in life when we are doing completely ordinary things, how to live a gift that’s unique, that’s nourishing. How can I chop carrots or chop onions? I chopped a lot of onions in the monestary, how to do that, not as a, let’s get to the end of it. So the more interesting part of life could start. But let’s do this. With the same sense of embodied feeling of my whole self is chopping carrots. My whole being is having a conversation. If I’m setting up this year’s event on the Google Calendar, this is the thing I’m doing. Looks very ordinary. There is nothing glamorous about it. Can I still enjoy this step of the way? I
Beverly:
love, love, love that Marta living every moment that we’re given with the full intention of life,
Marta:
we are set up to look forward to something because if you are not satisfied in this moment, we might actually. Get very busy to get to the next moment, and then we will be happy. And then are we even realizing that we are happy then or are we satisfied? Are we content if all along the way, we missed all the moments when we could be satisfied? Content, joyful, happy with little things.
Beverly:
And even if you’re looking forward and looking forward in the moment that you experience the thing you’ve looked forward to, the joy is brief in the moment if you’re not enjoying the journey to get to the moment as well. So is it really that joyful if it’s only a moment?
Marta:
I think it is very easy to fall on our face under the paradigm that we are taught of. You’re going to put in this next three years of work and then there will be a culminating event and then you will be happy instead of. There is this given task for the moment, for the next hour, for the next 10 minutes, for the next day. And while I’m doing it, I can still feel my body alive. I can still feel my heart connection. I can still feel that I’m present in my life in the monastery. I had an interesting experience when I somehow got convinced that I lived 10,000 lives, 10,000 moments in a day, because everything that came forth I recognized as Wow. Wow. And it was like just a stream of how could even that amount fit in one into one day. And then I noticed that, no, I don’t need to wait another a hundred years or another 10 to get some level of. Life is satisfactory. Life is okay. Life is, I can be happy with what I have. When I can have one intentional day or one intentional hour to really meet what’s in front of me.
Beverly:
I try really hard to live that way with my child.’cause I have one time with him, right? I have one time
Marta:
where he’s,
Beverly:
8 years old and seven months and six days and 24 minutes or whatever. And I know that this time is fleeting, that he will be older and he won’t need me. And he won’t maybe adore me the way he adores me now because he’s eight and he and I am his like best friend, however. I don’t think that I give that kind of attention to my business life, and I think that’s a really powerful lesson to take this moment of, I turned on a computer today and it worked perfectly and it was amazing. And this technology is pretty astounding. And here I am talking to you. We’re like four states away and we’re having this conversation. It’s beautiful. Like just to take the moment and this is the best moment right now. And I think that’s a really powerful reminder to take a moment to, as many moments as you need in a day to really value what you’re doing and your purpose. Why we’re here, we’re given a limited lifetime. We never know when that’s going to be taken away from us. And how have you lived? Every moment leading to that is pretty key. We talked before I turned down the recording about death and dying and how you did some chaplain work with the hospitals and talked about bioethics and how people perceive death and dying from different cultures and different backgrounds. And I feel like this being present, truly present and enjoying those moments leads to that too. Have you lived your life? Will you be okay when that moment happens and or will you live with a life of regrets of, I wish I did this, or I wish I did that, or I should have done this, or I should have done that. So I think that’s extraordinarily powerful and gosh, I just know I’m so blessed to have, this business that I have and the people that are in my life and all those things. And have you really taken that in account for yourself? Super profound, Marta, and I know it’s something you do all the time, but I think as business owners and entrepreneurs, we need a reminder of the journey is so much, as much as part of the, as the destination and whatever the destination is, it might actually just be the destination as like, when you’re not here, like what, what happens then? I feel like you were always a wise soul. So what’s your favorite book?
Marta:
Oh, you completely stumped me. I read 12 books at the same time. What is it that I am reading right now that I really enjoy? Can we go back to the classics Man search for Meaning. Ooh, we cannot really there are beautiful books every year. There are a lot of books that I love reading for some of them I read Science fiction, pleasure reading. A lot of them I read about health, spirituality, culture. Many of them are Buddhist books. Many of them are Zen books. But this recommendation doesn’t assume anything about the audience. And it could bring some grounding, some centering force to people’s lives to find out that even if they never had the time to question what really matters to them, there is something that really matters. There are people, beings, pets, nature, a group of people practicing something together. They might be singing together or crocheting together. They might be hiking together or dancing together. We all create some. Life around meaningful things. And when we are clear about what that is, it’s so much easier to align everything else.
Beverly:
I like that recommendation. So do you have a favorite podcast?
Marta:
Favorite podcast I listen to a lot, and I’m not going to recommend any of the politics. I’m going to say that Esther Perel, where Should We Begin, is a relationship podcast. She’s a psychotherapist and some of these podcasts have real snippets of conversations in therapy of how it happens, how insight comes about. So that’s something that I’m happy to stand behind it. I enjoy Esther Perel, who’s a really courageous, great human being, a brilliant therapist.
Beverly:
Do you have a favorite business tool or app that you use every day?
Marta:
I use the Google advertising app for business quite a lot. I also use Meetup quite a lot and sometimes Facebook, because we do have a closed group Facebook group and an open one on Facebook. Because of the age group, we are probably, we could be on many other things. We could be on TikTok and we are not, we could be on Instagram and we are not. But I think those are all relevant for business. That’s something that’s running in the background all the time is measuring mileage Mile iq. I’m doing taxes. Things are a lot easier to do it with my iq, so I don’t have to manually do all the tracking of things.
Beverly:
You mentioned a meditation app that you used back when apps were new, actually. What was the name of the app that you used?
Marta:
Insight Timer gaining insight into something, and it’s basically a timer with Bells insight timer, but in the last 12 years it had grown exponentially and it has a lot of guided meditation, mindfulness based stress reduction type meditations. If you want a three minute meditation, you’re going to find several, three minute meditation. If you want 10 minutes or if you want half an hour, there are even one minute meditations there. Only thing they don’t have. Is to make you meditate. You need to choose to turn it on to actually sit with it for five minutes. And I always encourage the people who are coming for first time that instead of scheduling your life for an hour long meditation, once a week, try to sit five minutes twice a week. Evening five, morning five, because the regularity makes the habit stick better than having a, now I meditated a full hour. That was beautiful. I will do it again next Sunday. Creating a space in the home where it always happens, even if you dedicate an armchair or a chair or a cushion on the floor, if you are doing it always at the same space, then your body associates with getting on that chair or getting on that cushion with the intention of, and now we are going to meditate for five minutes and it’s a lot easier to increase it from five minutes to 10 or 15. Then not having the habit and starting meditating 40 minutes every day. That’s just a very hard proposition. Yeah.
Beverly:
So I always ask my entrepreneurs that I interview this question, but I almost think I know your answer. What is your favorite way to reduce stress during the work day?
Marta:
The three breath meditation in the first breath, checking in with the facial muscles. In the second exhale, checking in with the diaphragm, and in the third exhale, checking in with the feet as they are in contact with the floor. And that’s it. This is something so short that it doesn’t even take a minute, but it is a presencing exercise that does reduce the runaway mind tendencies to think that everything else is more important than being embodied here. It’s so easy.
Beverly:
I always say, you need to be grounded in those moments. So sometimes I take off my shoes and I go outside and I walk in the grass.’cause I feel like I need some kind of connection to the earth when I’m dealing. Just to center yourself before you make a big decision or move to the next thing. Or there
Marta:
is also a very in, in a simple mood of just touching the tips of your fingers. And you can do this in four breaths, just one. Exhale. Two exhale. Three exhale. Four exhale. Because for that duration, you were paying attention to what’s happening here. And this is not a classic. This would be, but this is not a classic mudra in a sense, but it is a good way to gather ourselves back into, we are here, right here.
Beverly:
What is your favorite source of inspiration?
Marta:
I love doing things with my body. So if I can do a little bit of yoga, most of my yoga is not competitive yoga, it is more of a yoga of breathing and relaxation than yoga for achievement or accomplishment. I love floating in Epsom salted water. I love being in a steam room. I love being in nature and soaked with rain and sun. Those kind of things are the bodily reminders that I’m here. Then I also listen to a lot of Zen talks because there are podcasts for everything. I can follow multiple teachers as the podcasts are coming out. So I’m listening to Kill Dale and Norman Fisher, Koji Re People who are doing these podcasts, they don’t even know that there are thousands or maybe tens of thousands people who tune into their podcast and benefit from their teachings. Who
Beverly:
is your favorite person to follow?
Marta:
For decades, I thought that I’m following Francis, my yoga teacher, because he was a chaplain before I became a chaplain. He got his bioethics education before I got mine. He went and met Suzuki rhi because he was alive already and I wasn’t. So they met in Berkeley and he became a board certified chaplain ahead. So for many years I thought that, oh, and then on the weekend retreat, I invite Francis back and it feels like I’m showing the grandparent, the grandchildren, which is the most heartwarming of feelings of talk, talking about inspiration. See, all this, best of love that you gave me was not wasted. There are people here who are willing to take on taking care of themselves, taking care of their neighbors, their world, bringing goodwill and kindness into the world instead of passing on our suffering that we otherwise tend to do.
Beverly:
So that was the lightning round. It wasn’t quite lightning, but it was definitely,
Marta:
I’m sorry, my answers are long.
Beverly:
No, I think it’s lovely. I think it’s lovely. The next kind of segment I have is called Blaze Forward, and it’s about how do we help other people? But I first always start with ourselves. If you could give advice to Marta when you were young, maybe 18, 22 ish, what would you tell that Marta, that you’ve learned now all the wisdom and life experience you have, what would you tell that Marta?\
Marta:
Young Marta didn’t have a lot of faith in how many unplanned terms can turn out great in life. It was more like the follow the instructions, click all the checks and meet all the expectations. So you’re going to get the reward in the end, get the degree, get the position, get the like society, direct us this way in school for a reason, but then there is a whole undoing of that in midlife and we start to learn to trust yes, that’s one way of doing things, but it’s also okay to lean in and not see ahead of where this is leading to where that is. I did not go to monastic studies to become a zen anything. I was not thinking about starting a zen group in southeast Michigan. I was not there to gain any kind of title or achievement. Sometimes it is hard to imagine it as a 22-year-old that how many helpful people can show up along the way, just at the right time, giving the right kind of information to oh, when I was in this situation, I did that and I realized that I’m in that situation. Maybe I wanna do that too. And that’s very helpful.
Beverly:
There are guides everywhere, right?
Marta:
Everywhere. And I didn’t trust that at 18, I’m much more trusting than I’m 52. Yeah,
Beverly:
I think we can learn from anyone. Like it just depends on how open and. Everybody’s life experience is so unique that there’s something to be learned. Their story can shed some light on something for you or teach you something or confirm something for you.
Marta:
I sometimes play this with a imaginary, 10 years older or 20 years older, Marta to advise me right now when I’m feeling good that I could use a little bit more hope or confidence in how things are going. And interestingly, almost always the answer is that, oh it’s okay. And that’s what sometimes hard to accept of. Yeah. Even if I’m not knowing that in the fog there is a path and I’m on it, it’s still okay. And yeah, it’s getting there. There is a benefit of getting older. While many things get harder, many things get a lot more meaningful.
Beverly:
You said something earlier too, about the undoing. If you work so hard to get to that place and then in your forties there’s like midlife crisis. But really it’s the undoing of all that. It’s the trusting your gut, trusting who you are, knowing who you are on a whole different level than you had when you were younger, trying to prove something to other people. There’s just not that kind of fades away, I think, as you become more wise in the ways of the world and it’s okay to just go do your thing and be okay with you. You don’t have to do it for anybody else.
Marta:
It was absolutely a major lesson.
Beverly:
Your family’s so far away, so the connection you have is already like. A little bit I think that was, you had to, but you had to do your own path. Like you had to do Marta, you could not do anything else but be Marta. I’m glad that you did Marta.
Marta:
Looking back I’m glad too. And now they are not against it at all because by the time I was after my Zen training and some hospice volunteering and chaplaincy training, I was a lot better person to sit at dying family member’s bedside than I would’ve been before. I had enough peace inside of me to face anything.
Beverly:
As a small business entrepreneur, someone who’s just starting, what is something that you would tell them to do today to help them maybe find their unique opportunity or help them ignite their business? Like what is the thing you would say? You know what? This is my advice to you. Do this and it will help your journey.
Marta:
In the old times we used to call this sharpening the saw and now we call it replenishing the well. And now I would say find some me time to tune into what really matters because otherwise running a business could be a 24 7 endless task list. And burnout. And yes, it’s going to reward you in a way, but it also going to eat you up if you don’t stop sometimes and pause. And I definitely find it much more viable to do the pausing, stopping, appreciating, and not waiting for my life will be okay when my life is okay. The ordinary moments. Yeah,
Beverly:
it’s a good reminder. Okay, so before we go, Marta, how can our listeners learn more about you? Your Zen temple and how can they connect
Marta:
with you? My last name is unique and many people just. Can Google me Marta Dabis, it’s a B in the middle, not a V, so D-A-B-I-S. And if they say reverend, or if they say zen, then it’s definitely leading first and Google finds are going to be something that I’m doing as Reverend Marta Dabis. The Zen is called JissoJi Zen Ann Arbor. So within Ann Arbor there are many Buddhist lineages and we are the Japanese Soto Zen lineage of the Suzuki lineage from the San Francisco Zan Center tradition. How to find me good old Google. I do have a LinkedIn page, but people sometimes write on LinkedIn and I don’t find it for a week or two. People sometimes send an email, and even though I handle the JissoJi Zen email separate from my other emails, there is just volume there that I might take a day or two to respond. But it’s also true that if you just Google Map with Ann Arbor and JissoJi Zen or Zen in Ann Arbor, you will find me together with my phone number and everything else.
Beverly:
Thank you, Marta. This has been so insightful and lovely, and just reconnecting has been so nice. It’s nice to just spend time with you as we conclude this conversation with our zen priest, Marta, we’re reminded of the profound wisdom and clarity that Zen practice offers. Through her experience and teachings, we’ve gained valuable insights into the path of zen priesthood and the transformative power of spiritual practice. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Marta for sharing her journey with us and illuminating the path of Zen. For our listeners, may her words inspire. Reflection and growth and a deeper connection to the present moment for all who tune in. Thank you for joining us, and until next time, may you find peace and clarity on your journey.
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