Join us online for this Dharma Talk by AZC Tanto (Head of Practice) Rev. Choro Antonaccio.

The lineage of ancestors in Zen is a fundamental aspect of our school. Indian, Chinese, Japanese teachers carried the practice of reality in their body/minds generation after generation from Shakyamuni Buddha and ultimately, to us. Dogen tells us that we are One Buddha and One Ancestor. This talk asks whether this all-encompassing notion of lineage, which move forward and backward in time, and even stands outside time, is applicable to other ancestors that we carry with us and who brought us here. Our Confederate ancestors, our disgraced national ancestors, our ancestors who enslaved the ancestors of others, and more. Can we liberate our ancestors as well as ourselves?

About Rev. Choro Carla Antonaccio: Rev. Choro is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest ordained in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi by her root teacher, Josho Pat Phelan Roshi. She began formal practice in 1999 at Chapel Hill Zen Center where she was a resident practitioner from 2005 until her recent move to Austin with her husband Bunkai. Rev. Choro has also spent time training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, San Francisco Zen Center City Center, and Green Gulch Farm. She was Shuso for the Chapel Hill Zen Center community in 2016 and has served as Tenzo, Work Leader and Ino in Chapel Hill. In 2018, after 30 years of teaching and fieldwork, Choro stepped back from her academic career as an archaeologist. She is the incoming Tanto (Head of Practice) for the Austin Zen Center sangha, and may be reached at choro@austinzencenter.org.