Today is part one of a three-part series of episodes featuring our very first special guest star, Mushim Ikeda. Mushim is a Buddhist teacher, author, mentor and the community coordinator and a core teacher of Oakland’s East Bay Meditation Center. Mushim helps us unpack what may seem like a very basic question: why Buddhism? There’s a lot of directions this question could take us in, from questions of motivation, why people engage in Buddhist practice, why people are attracted to Buddhism, and so forth. And our conversation meanders from existential questions about the meaning of life as well as how to compassionately engage the world while knowing that we can never live up to our highest expectations. We find a lot of overlap between Mushim’s experiences in the Zen tradition and our own experiences with Shin Buddhism, an opportunity for substantive intra-Buddhist conversation. The conversation will continue… Part Two and Part Three of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda. East Bay Meditation Center Buddhism: A Way of Life and Thought, by Nancy Wilson Ross