This podcast is grounded in the Dharma and devoted to contemplative care. It explores Buddhist teachings and practices, offering guidance for meditation and mindful living. The show aims to support listeners in cultivating compassion and awareness in their daily lives.
Episodes
When the Teacher Leaves the Room | Koshin Paley Ellison
Editor's Note: As you may have heard, the New York Zen Center is moving! On November 30th, we'll begin a new chapter in our new home at 330 7th Avenue, Suite 1801, just 5 blocks north of our current zendo. Koshin Sensei and Chodo Sensei will be away for much of November, so we have a wonderful lineup of guest teachers and community events ahead, including a procession from our old zendo to the new
Learning to Love What We Cannot Keep | Chodo Robert Campbell
Editor's Note: This recording of Chodo sensei’s talk offered at the recent Contemplative Care Retreat began a little late, so from the very first moment you'll hear Chodo already in the middle of a story about his mother and his childhood. It's an abrupt, intimate opening that somehow feels perfectly suited to what follows. We hope this talk moves you as much as it moved us.What are we really afra
The Five Hindrances to Practice | Jisho Sara Siebert
“Many Buddhists reject even healthy, compassionate engagement with the world because they haven't figured out how to be in the thick of the world's conditions without developing ill will.”What if the things that get in the way of our practice aren't signs that we're doing something wrong, but invitations to pay closer attention?In this dharma talk, Jisho Siebert explores the Buddha's five hindranc
Setting Down Our Greed | Koshin Paley Ellison
"The teacher's role is not to give you what you want. Their role is to help you set down your greed, so that you're joyful no matter what happens."On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, Koshin Sensei reflects on accountability: to ourselves, to each other, and to our practice.He shares a classic Zen story: a young student named Tangan keeps asking his teacher, Sengai, for permissio
This One Note Is Enough | Chodo Robert Campbell
“We don't have to save everyone, solve everything, or understand the whole mystery of our lives. All we have to do is be in this moment, this breath, this body. Then bow, let go, and listen.”Chodo Sensei shares the story of Kakua, one of the first Japanese monks to travel to China and study Zen. A recluse who preferred remote mountains to monastery fame, Kakua was eventually summoned by the empero
No Single Act Defines You: The Thief, the Robe, and the Possibility of Change | Chodo Robert Campbell
“The robe of liberation does not hide our imperfections. It doesn't erase our history. It's stitched together from many different pieces of cloth, just as our lives are stitched together from moments of joy and grief, cruelty, clarity, confusion, generosity, and fear.”On the final full day of sesshin (silent retreat), Chodo sensei takes up a story from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones about Shichiri, a Zen ma
Awakening in the Butcher Shop | Koshin Paley Ellison
“We have to be endlessly humbled and endlessly receptive. And what a joy! That, to me, is the joy of practice: to be endlessly receptive to being changed by whatever kind of ‘meat’ you're getting.”On the 26th day of NYZC’s summer practice period, Koshin sensei turns to a classic story from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:When Banzan walked through a market, he overheard a customer demand the best piece of me
“Is That So?” Hakuin, Equanimity, and Seeing All the Perspectives | Jisho Sara Siebert
Editor's Note(s): Just a few weeks ago, Jisho Siebert, teacher at Zen Fields in Ames, Iowa offered the first guest-teacher dharma talk for our summer Commit to Sit. It's an incredibly refreshing take on a classic Zen story which you may have heard a number of times and we are glad to share it with you here. Alongside it, we are very delighted to announce our three Fall courses are now open for reg
A Quiet Orientation of the Heart | Chodo Robert Campbell
Editor's Note: In celebration of Commit to Sit starting this week and Chodo sensei's birthday last week, we share his talk from this past Winter Commit to Sit. Enjoy and may it offer some comfort and guidance for you. In this recent talk, Chodo Sensei asks a deceptively simple question: Without a vow, how do you live?Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's teaching on great effort, Chodo explores what a vow ac
The Potter and the Fire: Using Suffering as a Gate | Koshin Paley Ellison
Editor's Note: In honor of our Commit to Sit practice period starting July 1st and our Wholehearted Sesshin (silent retreat) in August, we share this opening talk from the first night of both our Winter Commit to Sit and our Winter Sesshin in January. May it serve you! In this opening talk, Koshin Sensei invites us to consider how the very places where we suffer can become gateways into deeper int
What Must Change, What Must Remain: The Future of Dharma | Koshin Paley Ellison
“How you bow is not just for you.” In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei reflects on what it means to practice consistently: to be the same person regardless of who's watching, what conditions you're in, or whether you're getting what you want.Drawing on Dogen Zenji's teaching on the Four Embracing Actions (giving, loving speech, beneficial action, and identity action), Koshin explores what sh
Finding the Buddha in Others | Chodo Robert Campbell
“The precept does not ask us to be passive in the face of injustice. The question is always: from what place do we speak?”In this recent talk, Chodo Sensei explores the sixth and seventh precepts: not speaking of others’ faults and errors, and not elevating oneself while blaming others.What can seem like simple teachings become a profound invitation to examine the energy beneath our speech. Are we
Doubt Digs Up the Whole Blue Planet | Chodo Robert Campbell
“The purpose of practice might be to enter the question so fully that it begins to reshape us.”What is the purpose of practice after all? In this talk on doubt and the practice of not-knowing, Chodo Sensei shares a teaching from his favorite Zen teacher: Zen Master Raven, the wise old bird from Robert Aitken Roshi's animal sangha stories.When Badger asks what the purpose of practice is, Raven does
Not Turning Away from this Fractured World | Chodo Robert Campbell
“In Zen practice, we talk about bearing witness; not as a passive act, but as a form of deep engagement. To really see what's happening. Not escaping into numbness, but also not hardening into fixed views.”In this recent talk, Chodo sensei reflects on the fourth and fifth precepts (truthfulness and not clouding the mind) as practices for living in a fractured and overwhelming world.Speaking to the
What Do We Do With Our Anger? | Chodo Robert Campbell
“In this moment, what does it mean to care?”What do the precepts ask of us in a time of injustice, division, and outrage? In this recent talk, given the day after millions took to the streets in protest across the US, Chodo Sensei reflects on anger, activism, and the thin line between harm and care.Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's teaching that we don't observe precepts to attain enlightenment but to act
The Gift of Fearlessness | Koshin Paley Ellison
“Faith is not blind belief, but confidence born of seeing what's actually possible—the willingness to plant a seed without yet seeing the fruit.”In this recent talk given on a snowy Sunday morning, Koshin Sensei explores the Buddha's teaching on three forms of generosity: giving out of faith, material generosity, and the gift of fearlessness (abhaya dana).Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's gardening metaph
Opening the Closed Fist: Money as Spiritual Practice | Koshin Paley Ellison
“Do an audit of how you spend your money. Does it match what you say you really care about?”In this powerful recent talk, Koshin Sensei tackles a topic many spiritual communities avoid: money. Often, topics like finances and business can be deemed “not spiritual”, but does it have to be so?Drawing on Suzuki Roshi and the Buddha's teachings on generosity (dana), Koshin explores how money is simply
Where Do Wars Begin? The Second Precept & Human Dignity | Chodo Robert Campbell
“Our practice doesn't ask us how to end wars, it asks us where the wars begin. In this body. In this flash of rage. In this certainty that I am right and you are wrong.”Amid news of global conflicts and war, Chodo Sensei offers a profound reflection on the second Buddhist precept: do not steal. But what does stealing mean when the world is organized around taking; lives, safety, homes, childhood,
No Arrival: Practice and Realization Are One | Koshin Paley Ellison
“When you encounter obstacles, do not see them as hindrances separate from practice.”In this talk from the beginning of the year (and in preparation for the Year of the Fire Horse), Koshin Sensei reflects on what it really means to make effort. Not as self-improvement, but as a vow to be fully here.Drawing on Dōgen’s teachings on continuous practice, he offers simple, direct questions we can live
Safeguarding What Matters Most | Koshin Paley Ellison
“Many people can study lots of things, but are you living that way?”On the 12th day of our Commit to Sit, during a winter blizzard, Koshin Sensei explores a profound question: What's the difference between talking about spiritual practice and actually living it?Drawing on teachings from Suzuki Roshi and the 13th-century Zen master Dogen, Koshin examines how we often get caught in our thoughts; arg
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