I met Ana Mª Schlüter in 1984, when she was coming to Barcelona to give introductions to Zen. I came from other meditation practices and my first contact with Zazen was with her. With her I began to hear about emptiness, awakening, koans, all completely new and incomprehensible to my confusion at the time. With her, I also learned to exercise concentration and attention in a very systematic way, and I remember my surprise when, in the personal interview of each retreat, the Dokusan, she urged me not to give any importance to the mental experiences that concentration and attention brought to my restless mind.
I attended all of their retreats in Catalonia for five years. I remember her rigorous accompaniment, with a combination of demand and gentleness, which made me feel that she was by my side in my first clumsy steps on the path of Zen, encouraging me to look exclusively inward, to seek the most authentic and essential within myself.
I especially remember their Teishos, which is how the formal teaching sessions that take place during retreats are known, because he vividly commented on the hidden meaning of koans and related them to different cultural manifestations such as children's stories or Christian or Eastern mysticism, among others.
I was learning from her for five years, after which I went to live abroad and that interrupted my relationship as her disciple.
Two years ago, thanks to an initiative of the Dharma-Gaia Foundation, which proposed to elaborate a history of Buddhism in Catalonia by interviewing teachers who have played an important role in the presence and expansion of Buddhism in this part of the world, I thought that their testimony was basic. She was one of the first people to systematically visit Catalonia to teach thanks to the invitation of Raimunda Estil·les, a Catholic nun who was especially open, respectful and curious about different forms of spirituality.
With the intention of interviewing her, I contacted Ana Mª Schlüter. To my surprise, it remembered me after 35 years. She accessed the interview and I visited it in the summer of 2024 in Brihuega, at the Zendo Betania, which she, with the help of her disciples, created in the 80s of the last century. I had attended the inauguration of that zendo, organized by Enomiya-Lassalle, and I was able to see the transformation experienced by that space, which at that time was a wasteland and is now a garden.
So it was that in July 2024 one morning I headed to Guadalajara and, as soon as I arrived at Zendo, he invited me to go to his office, where we spent all afternoon preparing for the interview I would do with him the next day. That afternoon, the weather was in suspense. I don't know if we stayed 3 hours or 4 or 5. At this time, memories of him and mine began to emerge, and we trusted each other with “dharmic upsets”, painful disappointments that we both had experienced in the field of Dharma. Both she and I were surprised by the unforeseen confidences, and we also commented with satisfaction on what we could call, by contrast, “dharmic joys”: interesting conversations she recalled having with people she both knew, her trips to Japan and also her critical vision of machismo prevailing during her time in Kamakura. The reunion was what in Buddhism is called “i shin den shin”, from heart to heart. They were hours of profound harmony that compensated for the years of distance.
That distance was merely physical, because I have always had his translations and his writings at hand in the magazine he founded, “Pasos”, a publication imbued with treasures such as translations of “teishos” by Yamada Koun Roshi, and brushstrokes of his research on different aspects of Zen, such as the biographies of Zen teachers that he collected throughout his life and that he collected in two books; I know that in recent years he has been preparing biographies of Zen teachers, which I his disciples will soon publish.
I especially remember Ana Mª Schlüter's enthusiasm with which she approached her studies and teaching. It is the enthusiasm proper to what in Zen is called the beginner's mind. When she explained aspects of Buddhism that were difficult for the Western mind to understand, her eyes shone with complicity and enthusiasm, like a girl who really wants to share something very important and very good.
He always insisted that the practice of meditation alone is insufficient, that it must be complemented by the study of what the teachers who have preceded us taught, and his scholarship put it at the service of students and practitioners of Zen. He has left us an extremely valuable work.
Ana Mª Schlüter went out of her way to help us discover how to awaken to the essential reality that shapes us, insisting on looking directly at the authenticity in each one of us.
When I visited her to interview her, she, almost 90 years old, was still faithful in her commitment to the service of Zen, and my path during the time we had not seen each other had matured. Now that I feel the emptiness of his absence, I have mixed feelings: I regret not having been by his side anymore and at the same time I feel very fortunate to have received the initial impulse from his hand, with his direct and sincere way of transmitting something as unique as Zen Buddhism.
A deep gratitude for his great contribution throughout his life to the dissemination of Zen as a way of liberation and for doing so with respect for all beliefs.
Reading this quarterly publication, my admiration for his knowledge and dedication grew, as there he published his comments on different aspects of Zen, from translations of Teishos (formal teachings) by Yamada Roshi to biographies of teachers Zen. These biographies are compiled in two books, and I know that he was working on the biography of teachers Zen, which, in all likelihood, his closest disciples will soon publish.
Links:
“Interview with Ana María Schlüter Rodés, founder of Zendo Betania” by Daniel Millet Gil
“Video interview with Ana María Schlüter, conducted by Gloria Puig Kowerdowicz”
”Ana Maria Schlüter. On the Borders of Zen” by Beatriz Calvo.
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Gloria Puig Kowerdowicz she is former president of the Catalan Coordinator of Buddhist Entities and a member of Sakyadhita Spain. She has a degree in Art History and Philology from the University of Barcelona. He has been practicing meditation and yoga since he was very young and, in recent years, he has taught both disciplines.
