Paul Weiss

Paul Weiss began his lifelong zen practice with Hakuun Yasutani Roshi in NY in 1966; and his tai chi practice with Cheng Man-Ching in 1967. Paul was drawn to Maine in 1969 to, as he says, "wrestle koans and milk cows" with Walter Nowick, one of the first American zen masters, who was now farming and teaching on the coast of Maine. Paul's subsequent broad studies in several traditions—Buddhist and non-Buddhist—have taken him from the Thar Desert of India to the mountains of China, where, during the 1990s, he was certified to teach by three schools of qigong.

Paul founded and directed The Whole Health Center in Bar Harbor, Maine, which, from 1981 to 2023, was the vehicle for his healing, counseling, and teaching work.  His counseling work has included communication training for couples, expressive emotional recovery work, and what he calls 'conscious neural re-circuiting." He has elaborated the Buddhist compassion practice of tonglen as a comprehensive 'technology' of integration and healing.

Throughout this time he has offered extended and formal zen meditation retreats, as well as tonglen and other healing and meditation workshops, and his Foundations of Spiritual Psychology training for clinicians. His True Heart/True Mind retreat, offered since 1983, is an intensive and transformative residential program that integrates contemplation and communication practice in a way that augments the awakening power of both. In the late nineties, much of his focus turned to Dzogchen study and practice; and he has been inspired by his long friendship with Anam Thubten Rinpoche since first inviting him to teach at his center in 2000.

Weiss is the author of Moonlight Leaning Against an Old Rail Fence: Approaching the Dharma as Poetry (North Atlantic 2015), a collection of his poems and their dharma commentaries. And in The Dharma of Direct Experience: Non-dual Principles of Living (Inner Traditions 2022) he addresses the nature and context of his own deepest experiences, as well as their indications for a life of integrity, reciprocity, compassion, and openness to reality. He continues to work with individuals, couples, and groups, and teaches a spirituality of ‘human maturity and conscious loving presence,’ which he calls The Blessing Way.

The woods and mountains are still his ultimate refuge, as are his ten grandchildren.