About
Meditation training
Henry is a teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage and has trained in various other meditation schools and practices. After a spontaneous spiritual awakening at the age of 19, he embarked on a long journey of healing and deeper awakening, guided by Roshis John Gaynor, Joan Rieck, Ruben Habito, and Yamada Roshi, international abbot of Sanbo Zen, who ultimately appointed him a teacher in 2010. Since then he has been leading a growing number of practitioners on the path of awakening, in Europe and the US. He has also been authorized to teach Mindfulness by Shinzen Young, and is a certified dreamwork therapist. He is the Spiritual Director Emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Personal story
Henry grew up in Oxford, UK, where his parents were professors. His early love of poetry led to an interest in Chinese Zen poetry, and ultimately to becoming a writer and poet for many years. In time it also led to his getting into Zen meditation, though his first practice was Transcendental Meditation. He suffered from severe eczema from infancy into his 20’s, along with associated psychological problems, and meditation was a key element in a long journey of healing, in addition to various styles of therapy.
He has written of his own journey in his memoir, One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir. (Counterpoint, 2019).
Professional experience
Henry Shukman has an MA from Cambridge and an M.Litt. from St Andrews, and has written several award-winning books of poetry and fiction. His essays have been published in the New York Times, Outside and Tricycle, and his poems in the New Republic, Guardian, Sunday Times (UK) and London Review of Books. He has taught writing and literature at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico, has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow of Poetry at Oxford Brookes University, and Poet in Residence at the Wordsworth Trust.
Henry has taught meditation at Google, Harvard Business School, Esalen Institute, Colorado College, United World College and many other venues.
