Red Path Zen Hermitage (Akado-An)

Roshi Shoko Sings-Alone opened the Red Path Zen Hermitage in Massachusetts in 2012 as part of The Zen Garland Order. In April 2016 he named Roshi Genmitsu Tara Singer his successor and Director of Red Path Zen. Sings-Alone continues to teach and lead ceremony in an emeritus role as Founder.

Red Path Zen is an integration of Native American spiritual traditions and practices with Zen Buddhism, carefully respecting the integrity of each tradition. Red Path Zen flows from the Lakota phrase, Mitakuye Oyas’in, which means “All My Relations.” We are One with all creation: stones, trees, winged ones, four leggeds and two leggeds of all races.

Grandfather Duncan Shoko Sings-Alone, Roshi is an enrolled Cherokee, who studied with Cherokee-Shoshone Medicine Man, Rolling Thunder, and spent seven years of intensive training with Monacan-Lakota Medicine Man, George Whitewolf. His teaching lineage includes: Stirrup, Black Elk, Grandfather Fools Crow, Dawson No Horse, George Whitewolf and Grandfather Sings-Alone.

For thirty years Grandfather Sings-Alone was the spiritual teacher for a large inter-tribal community in Maryland, and smaller communities in Massachusetts and Michigan. In 2013 he became a Dharma Successor to Roshi Paul Genki Kahn and was empowered as an independent Zen teacher in the Soto Zen Buddhist lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi.

The Red Path Zen emphasizes awakening the mind of unity shared by both Native American tradition and Zen practice. The experience of Native American Ceremonies creates a direct, healing connection to the natural world. Zen offers a portable and practical way to embody that spirit of unity in all aspects of life. Zen Garland offers a structured and holistic approach to spiritual development. The Red Path requires devoted commitment to all aspects of its training, Zen Buddhist and Native American.

The practices include Zen Meditation and koan study, embodiment practices, Focusing for emotional integration, the Zen Garland Vows (ethics), Drumming Meditation, Ceremonies and Vision Retreats. Becoming a natural human being means to becoming deeply intimate with Grandmother Earth
and all her dimensions. In Red Path Zen we aim to move freely in the natural world and to see ourselves as an integrated part of it, with our resources, our skills and our limits as human beings. This is not fancy and magical but an earthbound spiritual path.

The Red Path Zen Creed

MITAKUYE OYAS’IN
Ho, Tunkashiela, Wakan Tanka (Grandfather, Great Mystery):

I honor you in this circle of life with me today. I am grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge you in this prayer….

To the Creator, for the ultimate gift of life, I thank you.

To the mineral nation that has built and maintained my bones and all foundations of life experience, I thank you.

To the plant nation that sustains my organs and body and gives me healing herbs for sickness, I thank you.

To the animal nation that feeds me from your own flesh and offers your loyal companionship in this walk of life, I thank you.

To the human nation that shares my path as a soul upon the sacred wheel of Earthly life, I thank you.

To the Spirit nation that guides me invisibly through the ups and downs of life and for carrying the torch of light through the Ages. I thank you.

To the Four Winds of Change and Growth, I thank you.

You are all my relations, my relatives, without whom I would not live. We are in the circle of life together, co-existing, co-dependent, co-creating our destiny. One, not more important than the other. One nation evolving from the other and yet each dependent upon the one above and the one below. All of us a part of the Great Mystery.

Thank you for this Life.

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