Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
Susan Moon is a writer, editor, and lay Zen teacher. Alive Until You’re Dead: Notes on the Home Stretch (Shambhala, 2022) is her most recent book. Her other books include the memoir This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity; the groundbreaking collection, The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, with Florence Caplow; and What Is Zen? with Norman Fischer. Susan began her Zen practice at Berkeley Zen Center in 1976, and she still practices there, with much gratitude for her home temple. She joined the Everyday Zen sangha when Zoketsu Norman Fischer founded it in 2000, and Norman entrusted her as a lay teacher in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi in 2005. For many years she has led Zen and writing retreats in the Bay Area, around the country, and internationally.
Along with the Zen sanghas that Susan is a part of, she cares about working for voting rights (as a member of the Buddhist Election Retreat Committee) and celebrating women ancestors, both those of the past and those to come. She lives in Berkeley, California, happily sharing a house with her sister and brother-in-law. She has two sons and three grandchildren, and although she is sad that they live so far away, in Texas and Virginia, the more important point is that she is grateful that they live on the planet.