Mindfulness Meditation Teacher

Robert Kanjo Schwoch

Robert is certified by ZLMC as a “Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher”.

Robert Schwoch is a writer, educator, and longtime Zen practitioner who recently retired from his job teaching literature, sportswriting, and strategic communication in the School of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his college alma mater. He holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and was a sportswriter at the Milwaukee Journal in his twenties, later serving as press secretary and staff chief in the Wisconsin Legislature.

Raised between his mother's devout Catholicism and his father's Lutheranism, Robert's spiritual path took a profound turn when he came out as a gay man during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Exposed to the virus before testing or treatment existed, and watching friends die while receiving no spiritual support from the church, he found refuge with Unitarians and discovered meditation through a graduate school counselor. "Breathing exercises were a more effective alternative to prayer," he reflects. "It ended up saving a life I'd been ready to end."

Robert has practiced Zen mostly on his own for 30 years, maintaining a spiritual life that bridges Christianity and Buddhism. He remains active in a progressive Episcopal church near his Milwaukee home, believing "the two faiths express common ineffable truths in different human language."

After his husband of 32 years, Hal, died suddenly of a massive heart attack in March 2023, Robert faced a koan he couldn't handle alone. In a Madison bookstore, he discovered Appreciate Your Life by Taizan Maezumi Roshi. "I felt if I could appreciate my life at that dark moment, I was home free." Curious about the Maezumi lineage, he searched online and discovered ZLMC—where that very night a class on overcoming obstacles and loss was being held. He drove down from Milwaukee immediately and has been returning ever since, visiting a weekend or so a month.

"This sangha rocks," Robert says. "I feel like I was looking all my life for a vibrant Zen community tailored to modern America rather than the Asia of centuries ago. We're already overworked and sleep-deprived. We don't need additional layers of ritual complexity. The atmosphere at the center is amazingly warm, caring, supportive, and light-hearted—an antidote to so much of the rest of our culture. Yet the core of the teaching is intact and serious as a heartbeat."

Robert maintains his main home in Milwaukee with a small apartment near campus in Madison, where he also indulges another of his religions: Chicago Cubs baseball.

  • A woman at a Japanese or Buddhist ceremony or memorial with her hands in a prayer pose, wearing an orange apron with a purple flower on her chest, presents an offering or pays respects to an older woman dressed in traditional attire, at a table with gifts, flowers, and a notebook.

    Student Ceremonies

  • A Buddhist monk, with gray hair, glasses, and wearing a brown robe, is praying with hands clasped in front of a woman with glasses, gray hair, and a black and brown robe. The monk is reading from a book

    Buddhist Services

  • People sitting in a circle during a discussion or group activity, with one woman holding a microphone, in a room with wooden flooring and framed artwork on the wall.

    Conversations with teachers

  • People sitting with eyes closed, possibly meditating or praying in a classroom or workshop setting.

    Meditation