Shodo Spring has belonged to the natural world for as long as she can remember. She grew up running half-wild in the fields and woods of northeastern Ohio, with early mornings on the shore of Lake Erie and long days outdoors alone in the woods and creeks. Civilized human society was more difficult. She studied physics hoping to understand the universe, then psychotherapy to understand humans, then Buddhism to free herself – all while voraciously reading in history, anthropology, archaeology, political science, philosophy, and spirituality. She joined a series of political movements, finally focused on environment and environmental justice, what would be called deep ecology.
Along the way Shodo started one of the first battered women’s shelters, worked as a community organizer in inner-city Cleveland, trained to become a psychotherapist, and explored spirituality including Sufism, Dianic witchcraft, and shamanism, practiced nonviolent social change, and finally entered the practice of Zen Buddhism, which unlocked her internal cage. Shodo has two children and four young-adult grandchildren. She has practiced Zen for over forty years and taught for twelve. She still works part time as a psychotherapist.
Shodo’s written work includes Take Up Your Life: Making Spirituality Work in the Real World (Tuttle 1996), editing Shohaku Okumura’s The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” (Wisdom 2018), numerous essays in anthologies, and an ongoing monthly blog.
Shodo’s ordination name means “right way” or “true path.” That path integrates activism with spiritual practice and deeply nourishing engagement with the earth. Shodo has participated in long retreats, public sitting meditation as activism, and walking hundreds of miles, including leading the 2013 Compassionate Earth Walk along the planned northern route of the KXL pipeline. Mountains and Waters Alliance expresses her vision of humans working with the beyond-human world to heal and regenerate life on earth. She lives on a small farm which serves as a learning laboratory for growing those relationships, and as a residential community of practice.
List of Publications
- “Open Reality: Meeting the Polycrisis Together With All Beings” – PRE-ORDER NOW – Seacrow Press 2025
- “When The World Is on Fire: Reflections on These Times“ in Zen Teachings in Challenging Times. Temple Ground Press 2018.
- editor, The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” by Shohaku Okumura. Wisdom Publications 2018.
- “Finding Home in the Vow” in Boundless Vows, Endless Practice: Bodhisattva Vows in the 21st Century, Published by Sanshin Zen Community. April 2018
- “Right Action” in The Eightfold Path, Temple Ground Press 2016.
- Take Up Your Life: Making Spirituality Work in the Real World. Tuttle 1996
Other Information
Shodo Spring also does work as a Therapist. Click here to see her entry at Psychology Today.