Rick Fields
American journalist, poet and historian
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Rick Fields (May 16, 1942 – June 6, 1999) was an American journalist, poet, and historian specializing in the history of Buddhism in the United States.[1][2]
Biography
Born Frederick Douglas Fields in Queens, New York, he attended Andrew Jackson High School, where he was a track athlete, and later enrolled at Harvard University but was expelled in 1964.[3]
After leaving Harvard, Fields moved to New York City and associated with poets Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder.[3] He later relocated to California, engaging with Zen centers in San Francisco and Los Angeles.[3] In the early 1970s, he developed an interest in Tibetan Buddhism and became a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, focusing on the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions.[3]
Fields began his journalism career with the Whole Earth Catalog in 1969.[3] He was involved in founding Tricycle: The Buddhist Review magazine in 1991 and served as a contributing editor.[3][4] He also worked as an editor for publications including Yoga Journal and New Age Journal, and was editor-in-chief of the Vajradhatu Sun, later renamed the Shambhala Sun. Additionally, he taught at the Naropa Institute's Jack Kerouac School in Boulder, Colorado.[3]
Writing
Fields authored several books, most notably How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in America (1981), which traces the development of Buddhism in the United States from the 19th century onward.[5] Other works include Chop Wood, Carry Water (1984), Code of the Warrior (1991), The Awakened Warrior (1994), The Turquoise Bee: The Love Poems of the Sixth Dalai Lama (1994, with Brian Cutillo), and Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters (1996, with Bernard Glassman).[3]
In his later years, Fields wrote poetry addressing his experiences with cancer from a Buddhist perspective.[3]