Ruth Ozeki Reflects on Writing, Zen and the Self at Unno Memorial Lecture

On Friday, April 21, to a packed crowd at U.C Berkeley, Zen priest and acclaimed author Ruth Ozeki delivered the 2025 Unno Memorial Lecture. Opening with an anecdote about scholar Taitetsu Unno, who Ozeki met at her time at Smith College, she then delivered a talk about writing and the nature of the self. She reflected on Dogen Zenji’s famous lines “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to reflect the self,” and the challenges of writing from the first person perspective as an Asian American woman. Like all of her writing, her talk was funny, insightful, profound, and introspective.

Following the lecture, Institute of Buddhist Studies student Amy Shoemaker received the 2025 Taitetsu Unno Thesis Award. Her thesis was entitled “Sharing Stories with Interbeing in Our Eyes.”

Ozeki delivering 2025 Taitetsu Unno Memorial Lecture

Left to right: IBS president Scott Mitchell, Amy Shoemaker, Ruth Ozeki, Paula Arai, Nancy Lin, Mark Unno