*trigger warning: Suicide
Jaqui was a young, 22 year old free-spirited young woman who loved to plant trees and was a part of a tree-planting community.
She was an artist, a tattoo artist and an adventurer. Her dad had no longer needed a contractor van so she renovated it into a traveling van and went exploring.
Jaqui loved meditating and had been trying to get into a 10 day Goenka meditation retreat for awhile and when her name came up on the list to be able to go, she was very excited.
A few days into the retreat, Jaqui’s mom received a phone call from a volunteer saying that Jaqui had left in the night and they just wanted to make sure she had gotten home safely. In fact, Jaqui had not gotten home, and this led to a call to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to file a missing person’s report. While the police were able to locate her van about 30 miles from the retreat center, they did not find Jaqui.
Jaqui was found to have taken her own life.
This is not the first time someone has commit suicide after a Goenka retreat. We sit down and talk to Nathalie St-Maurice, Jaqui’s mom, about this story, about Jaqui, and what she and other families would like to see change with these type of Vipassana retreats.


 
 
 
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These retreats were a part of an investigative podcast on The Financial Times. You can listen to those here. 
Here is the article from John Pendall on the dark side of meditation.
Check out Cheetah House here, a website and community organization that helps support those who have experienced distress during/after meditation. Cheetah House will also have an online event on June 3 called Behind the Scenes at Retreat.
Here is the foundation Jaqui’s family started to celebrates and supports education in arts called Nice Day Shining. Their purpose is to advance education by providing scholarships to study arts at post-secondary educational institutions, and o raise awareness and provide support for mental health through disbursement to charitable organizations.
If you need help, or need someone to talk with please reach out by calling 9-8-8.
 
Photo: Pixabay
Podcast edited by Brad Parsons at Train Sound Studio, www.trainsoundstudio.com

Kellie Schorr has not only written for The Tattooed Buddha since 2018, she has been publishing as a ghost writer for the romantic suspense genre for several years penning commissioned novels.
She is a Buddhist yogi in the Tibetan tradition and worked as a prevention specialist in the field of HIV and AIDS. She said she has always been a writer. She talks about her journey as a professional writer and how it can take many, many submissions to get published. We also talk about how she found The Tattooed Buddha and began writing for us here.
Kellie recently wrote her own book, A Space Between Breaths, published by Brother Mockinbird, which is a Buddhist mystery story. See the review for her book here, and purchase the book here or here. See her first post from The Tattooed Buddha here.
Check out her website here.
Substack
Book club resources


Follow us on Facebook and Instagram! Interested in being a guest on our podcast? Contact us at editor@thetattooedbuddha.com.

 
Today we had a long term friend and former TTB board member, Daniel Scharpenburg on our podcast!
Daniel has written a lot for The Tattooed Buddha as well as many other Buddhist magazines. He has worked for the IRS for 16 years now and he became a Union Steward in 2018 and during the COVID pandemic in 2020 he was elected as the first Vice President of his union.
He has really enjoyed being a leader and activist during this time and is taking those leadership skills as first Vice President to also be an activist for social liberation. Daniel has been a Buddhist and meditation teacher for years and is active member and Dharma Facilitator of the Rime Buddhist Center & Institute of Tibetan Studies.
We discuss the Buddhist role in politics, what role Buddhists can, and has historically played, and how to peacefully and effectively take part in protests.
“Right now it’s like this, what can I do?” is one of Daniel’s favorite Buddhist slogans.
 


 
See Daniel’s Substack here.
See Daniel’s books here. See Daniel’s writing on TTB here, and on Patheos here. Check out 50501 here.
 
Podcast edited by Brad Parsons at Train Sound Studio, www.trainsoundstudio.com

 
Do Not Try to Become a Buddha is a collection of short essays. Irish Soto Zen priest Myozan Ian Kilroy describes how he came to practice Zen, introduces some basics of Zen philosophy, and recalls the challenges of establishing a Zen Buddhist community in Catholic-dominated Ireland.
A former journalist, Rev. Myozan’s clear yet entertaining storytelling style paints a clear picture of how Zen has adapted to the culture and traditions of Ireland. Rev. Myozan describes how he came to practice Zen, introduces the basics of Zen philosophy, and recalls the challenges of establishing a Zen Buddhist community in Catholic-dominated Ireland. He also explores the rituals and practices that Zen brings to everyday life, from holidays to weddings to birth ceremonies to funerals.
Dana and Claire Parsons, Tattooed Buddha columnist and blogger at Brilliant Legal Mind, sit down and chat with Rev. Myozan about rituals and teachings, his history of working as a journalist, his current job for the last 16 years at the school of media at the Technological University Dublin. He has represented Buddhism on national radio and television, in advisory panels for the Taoiseach (Ireland’s prime minister), and in the National Day of Commemoration in Ireland, which remembers all Irish people who have died in past wars.
We talk about the current state in global politics and how Zen fits into that, and into every day life.
 
Do Not Try to Become a Buddha
Rev. Myozan’s YouTube Channel
zenbuddhism.ie
 
Photo: School of Media
Podcast editing: Hallie Gornall


 
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

Ethan Nichtern is the author of Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds and several other titles, including the widely acclaimed The Road Home.
A renowned contemporary Buddhist teacher and the host of The Road Home Podcast, Ethan teaches meditation and Buddhist psychology classes and retreats online via Dharma Moon and around the US.
Kellie Schorr and Claire Parsons talk with Ethan about his new book and the concept of confidence and the idea of it being a practice. We also discuss how fear can play a role in our culture and how it can effect our ability to build confidence.
You can find his book on Amazon here. 
Follow Ethan here:
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/ethannichtern
Listen on iTunes or Spotify as well.
 


 

 
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Claire Parsons started writing for us here at The Tattooed Buddha with a column titled: The Bodhisattva of Power Suits, but she is not new to writing. She started her own blog called Brilliant Legal Mind and has also written two books: How to Be a Badass Lawyer, and Mommy Needs a Minute.
Claire E. Parsons is a practicing lawyer in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and the mom of two girls. She started meditating to manage stress and curb overthinking, but the practice changed her life. Over time, she got training and began teaching other lawyers and professionals about mindfulness. Claire is also a frequent writer and speaker for these and other organizations. She has published and spoken about numerous topics, ranging from complex legal issues, to law practice, networking and marketing, as well as mindfulness and wellness for lawyers and other professionals. She writes regularly on LinkedIn and even co-authored a book this year with 19 other women lawyers about how they used the platform to network and pursue career goals during the pandemic.
We talk about meditation, her job as a special education lawyer, her thoughts on Buddhism and how she got here to this point, and how to find time to write when she has a full schedule with career and parenting.


 
Check out Claire’s personal blog here.
Check out Claire’s books: How to be a Badass Lawyer and Mommy Needs a Minute.
Check out Claire’s blog on the Tattooed Buddha: The Bodhisattva of Power Suits.
Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelley
Link to Ben Gioia
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram! Interested in being a guest on our podcast? Contact us at editor@thetattooedbuddha.com.
 
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Rod and I have been friends on social media for awhile now but we have never interacted (as what happens often with social media and networking).
In this podcast, we talk about how Rod found the Dharma, his journey to writing and eventually working as director of marketing and publicity for both Wisdom Publications and then later editing Lion’s Roar. Rod started his own independent magazine (zine) originally to highlight how Buddhism shows up in different areas of our culture.
We also discuss about Canadian winters, mindfulness and anxiety, how digital publishing is changing the way we get our information and more!
See Rod Meade Sperry’s articles here at Lion’s Roar.
Check out Rod’s books here on Amazon.
Here is the book Rod brought up in our discussion: Relax & Be Aware: Mindfulness Meditations for Clarity, Confidence and Wisdom by Sayadaw U Tejaniya
Podcast edited by Brad Parsons at Train Sound Studio, www.trainsoundstudio.com

 



 
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A few weeks ago Gary Sanders went on retreat and took temporary vows to be a monk.
Gary walks us through some of the aspects of this process, such as wearing robes all of the time (including while he slept), eating only two meals a day and shaving his cherished beard. He explains why he chose to temporarily ordain, his experiences with retreats in the past and the fact that he likes to push himself. We discuss the concept of how retreats can be for the privileged, and opportunities that are available to open up these up to more people.
This was a fun conversation that could have easily gone on for much longer!
 


Podcast edited by Brad Parsons at Train Sound Studio, www.trainsoundstudio.com

 

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Escaping from Jehovah’s Witnesses through a Buddhist Path

Today we talk to Gary Sanders, Rebekah Reineke and David Jones about their experiences in the Jehovah’s Witness community.
While Gary and Rebekah grew up within the religion, David entered (and bowed out) later on in life. We discuss the framework behind the cult, the control tactics and how they have moved on a healed. We discuss the trauma as a result, the aspects of shunning as control and being disfellowshipped, the use of fear to control, and how Buddhism and mindfulness became a path toward healing.
Have you been in a similar situation and need someone to talk to? Here are a few resources:
Talk Space
Cult Escape
Leaving the Witness
Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion
 
 


 
Podcast edited by Brad Parsons at Train Sound Studio, www.trainsoundstudio.com

 
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Photo: Pixabay

We meet with Holly Herring---one of our columnists for The Tattooed Buddha. We chat about Holly's work with those that are homeless, her journey to being a writer and the process of writing. We also learn about how Holly and Michelleanne Bradley met and became friends, which in turn led her to write for The Tattooed Buddha!