Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World
Earth Dreams explores Zen Buddhist teachings through the lenses of dreamwork and the soul. Amy Kisei presents awakening as the freedom, creativity and love of our original nature, emphasizing deep interconnection and non-separation. The podcast invites listeners to re-imagine human life and culture grounded in our awakened nature and our relationship with the living world and cosmos. Kisei teaches at the confluence of spirituality, psychology and somatics, drawing on her work as a Zen teacher, somatic IFS spiritual counselor, astrologer and artist.
Episodes
sparkling in pure light
Greetings!I am beginning a series of talks exploring the wisdom of Zen Master Shitou’s Sandokai, which is translated in various ways including: The Identity of Relative and Absolute, Being One and Many, The Harmony of Difference and Sameness.In this podcast dharma talk I explore the first stanza of the poem using Nelson Foster’s translation:The mind (heart) of the great sage of India
was intimatel
All is blessed, all is blessed
Greetings Friends,I am returning from the Grasses, Trees and Great Earth Sesshin at Great Vow Zen Monastery. An outdoor sesshin I have had the deep pleasure of co-leading for the past six years. During the sesshin we practiced various ways of listening to the dharma of the natural world, including:* Hearing with the eyes, heart, whole body. * Letting ourselves be seen by the sky, ferns, rocks and
Nothing in this World Frightens Me
Greetings!It’s Leo season (how is it the over 50% of people I know are Leos?) I have had the joy of some travel over the past month—Mud Lotus Sangha did our first weeklong sesshin at Saranam Retreat Center in WV, I saw Bob Dylan in concert in Cincinnati and spent a few days on the Atlantic shore immersed in Ocean Mudra Samadhi.I’m back in Ohio for a couple of weeks and then I will be heading to Gr
equanimity's full range
Greetings Friends,I have been reflecting on the art of living a life of attention and intention. This is an art form I have dedicated much of my life to, and one that continues to bear fruit as I continue to practice it.What is the art of living?How is attention an art?Last night I was walking home with my partner from meditation, it was dusk. The fire flies had just started to flutter about, offe
the size of awakening?
Greetings Friends,Happy Solstice! Here in the northern hemisphere it is the longest day of the year, one of two days of the year where the sun appears to stand still on the horizon. I feel interested in that teaching, here in what sometimes feels like the most active or busiest of seasons—what is stillness? where is stillness?What does it look like to let your inner sun rest, or to recognize that
Let the soft animal of your body, love what it loves
Greetings Friends,Happy New Moon! This past week we explored the Hidden Lamp Case 21: Linji Meets the Old Woman Driving the Ox.Linji Meets the Old Woman Driving the OxChina, ninth centuryMaster Linji Yixuan went to see Master Bingdian An. On the way he met an old woman driving an ox in a field. Linji asked her, “Which way is the road to Bingdian?”The woman hit the ox with her stick and said, “This
Shadeless Trees
Greetings Friends,We are moving through this wonderful collection of encounters with Buddhist Women found in the book The Hidden Lamp for our Summer Read. This week we met Keizan Zenji and Mokufu Sonin engaged in the dialogue below:Hidden Lamp Case 20: Sonin’s Shadeless TreeMaster Keizan Jokin asked the nun Mokufu Sonin, “The winter is coming to an end and the springtime is arriving. There is an o
Actualizing Care, Recognizing Beauty
Greetings and Happy Early Summer!We are continuing our Summer Read of the Hidden Lamp again this year. Every week we will explore a different koan story from the collection. If you would like to follow along, check out the calendar page for up to date information on the koan selections. On Monday night during the live online meditation event, I will give a dharma talk themed around the reading for
Not-knowing is Love
Greetings Friends,I am returning from the Light of the Ancestors Sesshin at Great Vow Zen Monastery and feeling deep gratitude for this path of practice and all the people who have walked this path— discovering freedom and love in their own lives.Over the past few months the Monday night online Sangha through ZCO has been exploring The Mountains and Rivers Sutra by Dogen Zenji. In wrapping up our
In Praise of Poetry
Greetings Friends,I’m a lover of poetry. A sometimes writer of poems. A sometimes reader. Poetry for me is more of a way of being, a willingness to be carried across by metaphor, to be turned inside out by image, to sit in the silence, to not know and to be transformed through the art of attention.The best poetry is wordless attention.And, also. Some poems really act as an arrow, straight to the h
Encounters with the Stone Woman
One of the figures that we encounter in the Zen literature is the stone woman. In the Precious Mirror Samadhi we find her dancing, in another story she calls us back from our dream of the world.In the study of the Mountains and Rivers Sutra, she shows up early on when Dogen quotes Furong Daokai. “The green mountains are always moving, a stone woman gives birth to a child at night.” He then comment
Circling Back to Ourselves
Greetings Friends,Happy April Fool’s Day! Last week I had the opportunity to co-facilitate a Zen sesshin in the mountains of West Virginia at Saranam Retreat Center.Sesshin, a zen-style silent meditation retreat which translates as touching the heart-mind, has been a huge part of my adult life. While living at Great Vow Zen Monastery, I practiced sesshin together in sangha for a week every month.
Mountains and Rivers are Sutra
I will be joining the Mud Lotus Sangha in West Virginia for our first sesshin of the year. Sesshin is now often translated as a Zen-style meditation retreat. But the words meditation and retreat are mis-leading. It is in its truest sense a practice of recognizing our true nature, of touching, encountering the heart-mind that abides everywhere.We are going to the mountains of West Virginia to pract
Being Born and Unborn
Greetings Friends,This past weekend I had the opportunity to join the Pause Meditation community for a deep dive into practice around the theme of the beginner’s mind. In the Zen tradition we celebrate the beginner’s mind. For it is both the unborn buddha mind— our original mind which is always right here and our curious, open mind that is constantly being born anew. So very much like the energy o
the world is not what we name it or think it
I wanted to share with you a profound, beautiful and somewhat unsettling teaching from the Diamond Sutra.I would say its unsettling precisely because it is so radical, it touches something true that we know at the core of who we are, and it also reminds us that everything we think we are or think the world is —is not the whole story, our thinking inevitably misses something.we are inconceivable in
Realizing the Mind that Abides Nowhere
dust returns to dust
earth to earth
mind always at home in itself
where does it return?This past week I was reflecting on the 6th Chan Ancestor, Huineng and his encounter with a verse from the diamond sutra.Huineng lost his father early in life, and supported himself and his mother by selling firewood. On one occasion, he was selling firewood to a customer, and someone passed by chanting the words
A Lotus Blooming in the Fire
A lotus blooming in the fire is an image that comes from the Zen tradition. And before I write further on the symbolism of the image or the dharma teachings it evokes—I would like to invite us to just sit with the image of a lotus blooming in the fire.For a moment, let yourself sense, imagine or feel into this image. Notice what you see, feel, hear, experience as you attempt to connect with the im
Our Extra-Ordinary Heart
Greetings Friends,I have been reflecting on one of the simplest and perhaps most profound teachings in the Buddhist tradition— the teaching of our extra-ordinary heart. Our extra-ordinary heart is the aspect of our being that doesn’t die, and isn’t born. That isn’t dependent on us but is a deep refuge and resource—one that we know and rely on all the time. One that we also see demonstrated and emb
Compassion is Our Nature
Greetings Friends,In the heartbreak, pain, confusion of this moment. I wish to remember together the Way of the Bodhisattva. The image or archetype of the Bodhisattva resonates deep in the hearts of those oriented towards love for this beautiful and broken world.For a Bodhisattva is motivated to relieve suffering and pain, as they work towards a liberation for all beings. This is the spiritual war
Stepping from the One-Hundred Foot Pole
New Years Blessings! And wow, it feels like its off to a chaotic start. In times like these, I find it vital to ground myself in this bodhisattva vow. To remember what is always reliable, no matter what circumstance or situation I find myself in.I would like to share a koan that has been close to my heart as we began 2026.Mumonkan Case 46: Stepping from the Top of the PoleSekiso asked: How do you
Faith, Heart and the Return of the Light
When faith and mind are not separate. And not separate are mind and faith, this is beyond all words, all thoughts.If you have been reading these posts this season, you may have noticed I have been writing about Faith. Writing, reflecting, wondering, wandering through the many expressions of Faith as I returned again and again to this practice poem, Affirming Faith in Mind. There is something both
Telling the Story of Awakening
Tis’ the season for story-telling. I don’t know about you, but there are certain stories I can hear over and over again. These stories often have mythic and archetypal elements, that seem to resonate with the poetics of the soul.In the Zen Buddhist tradition the first week of December is the week we commemorate/remember/celebrate the Buddha’s awakening. We do this with our bodies. Sitting retreat
The mysterious source
I want to return to this profound poem we are studying for the autumn practice period—Affirming Faith in Mind.If mind does not discriminate, all things are as they are as one. To go to this mysterious source—frees us from all entanglements.When all is seen with equal mind, to our self-nature we return. This single mind goes right beyond all reasons and comparison.This poem is about Trust in Mind,
When Obstacles Become the Path
One stanza from the Trust in Heart poem says:Cut off all useless thoughts and words and there’s nowhere you cannot go.Returning to the root itself, you’ll find the meaning of all things.If you pursue appearances you overlook the primal source.Awakening is to go beyond both emptiness as well as form.I appreciate the clarity of these instructions. Here we find an invitation to practice with our thin
Feeding the Hungry Heart
Calling all you hungry heartsEverywhere through endless timeYou who wander, you who thirstI offer you, this Bodhi MindCalling all you hungry spiritsAll the lost and the left behindGather round and share this mealYour joy and your sorrow, I make it mine. —KanromonGiving awakens the unbounded heart. What in our lives isn’t already shared? If we open to all the inter-relationships that make up our li
One Hundred Demons Night Parade
I am currently spending some time with this beautiful teaching poem, Affirming Faith in Mind as part of Autumn Ango through ZCO. As I was reading it this week, I thought about how would I summarize this teaching in one sentence. I came up with:Everything’s Included on the Path!Everything is included. Maybe it seems too simple, too obvious. And yet, how often are we looking outside of our experienc
The Bright Dark
Deep Autumn Greetings Fellow Travelers of the Way!As autumn becomes us, I have been contemplating darkness and the creaturely way my body seems to respond to the cold-dark. Maybe you too feel a little more intimate with the night and the dark creature of the body at this time of year. Sometimes I feel, and I know others feel, that we are living in dark times—and whether this feels true for you—I t
Playing in Polarizations
Polarization & PlayPolarization (def)—division into two sharply contrasting groups, sets of opinions or beliefs. When we stop seeing similarity or what is shared, but only see difference. When difference becomes a threat.Play (def)— to engage in something for enjoyment or for sport. Be cooperative. Try something out.I want to say, we are living in a polarized time. But I find myself questioning ea
Heart Mirror Gazing
Greetings Friends,I have a deep love and appreciation for the wonderment and creativity of this life. It’s un-pin-down-able, slippery, un-define-able—like a water color painting that continuously repaints itself.One story from the Zen tradition that has always helped me stay awake to amazement and in courtship with the great mystery is the Zen Mirror of Tokeiji.A partial-telling of which can be fo
Transmissions from the Crescent Moon
Hello Good Friends,It’s late summer and I can feel the seasonal shift. Here in the northern states the Earth is darkening earlier and staying dark later, its cooler too. The humidity has dropped and the insects have grown quieter in my central ohio village. The tomatoes, peaches, corn, and zucchini are in abundance, the pawpaws are ripening and chicken-of-the-woods are blazing orange on fallen log
Like a Mountain
Greetings Friends,I am returning from 10 days of monastic practice at my former home, Great Vow Zen Monastery. While I was there I had the opportunity to celebrate my teacher Chozen Bays Roshi’s 80th birthday, to practice and lead the annual outdoor sesshin that we call Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin and to facilitate a precepts ceremony. I love monastic practice. I love merging with t
Remember Being A Flower?
Being FlowerOn Monday night during meditation we sat together as a community of flowers. Sun flower, daisy, rose, violet, marigold, milkweed, celosia, echinacea, blue vervain, poppy, queen anne’s lace, crocosmia, zinnia.We were studying the koan Case 19 from the Hidden Lamp, Flowers in the Buddha Hall.The nuns of Tokeiji were famous for their beautiful elaborate flower decorations on Buddha’s Birt
The Shape of Faith
This life is mysterious.I often marvel at how there is so much more that we don’t know then that we do. Walk into a forest or a city.Even if I knew every being in the forest by name.Will I ever be able to comprehend the relationships between them?The relationships between the cells in my own body?Even the mystery of what a tree is, this tree—the sycamore standingright here, at the entrance to the
A Wild Love for the World
Greetings Friends,Here we are in the heart of summer. I am writing this a week after the passing of beloved eco-dharma elder Joanna Macy. We are also in the middle of our summer read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. The koan story that we explored this week was Case 13: Chen’s Mountain Flowers and the commentary happens to be written by Joanna Macy. So I want to take the time in
Hearing the Sounds of the World
Greetings Friends,As we move through our Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women this week we focused on Case 10: Asan’s Rooster. The koan is one of devotion, deep listening and awakening to our true undivided nature.Here’s the case.Asan was a lay woman who studied Zen with Master Tetsumon and was unremitting in her devotion to practice. One day during her morni
One-what is that?
Greetings Friends,I am just getting back from our Interdependence Sesshin— five-days of residential silent retreat practice in the hills of West Virginia with the Mud Lotus Sangha. It was moving for me to practice sesshin in a new environment with many people who it was their first longer retreat.Sesshin is healing, no matter what the theme, it transforms us to sit and live in silence together, to
Life as Pilgrimage
Greetings Friends,We began the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women with the first koan—The Old Woman of Wutai, a story about the spiritual path, pilgrimage and life direction that features crone wisdom. If you are interested in joining the summer read, more information and reading schedule can be found here.In this email I would like to share the koan and some reflection
Meeting Fear with Love and Understanding
Happy Summer Solstice!I feel deep gratitude to be on this path of friendship, communion and inquiry with you. The path of dharma is a path of truth, of getting closer to the actuality of our lives—to the heart of what is right here.In this journey of the heart there are so many encounters, so many opportunities for reflection, so many relationships, learnings, emotions, sensations. Fear is a natur
Love: one-hundred-thousand times
I have been reflecting on the nature of practice-awakening. In the Buddhist tradition this refers to the process (both sudden and gradual) of realizing our fundamental wellbeing. This is a transformational practice. This is a healing practice. And it is mysterious. It doesn’t happen in the way that we expect.Insights happen, and then are forgotten. Love is awakened and then seemingly covered over.
The Failure is Wonderful Indeed
One can, the other cannotBoth are freeA god mask, a demon maskThe failure is wonderful indeed —Mumon’s poemIf I reflect back on my life, it is possible to see a series of failures, mistakes, broken dreams and incomplete projects. Relationships that I probably should have left before they ended, others that I probably shouldn’t have even pursued, still others that I could have worked harder to repa
Getting Unstuck
I have been contemplating being stuck. You know that feeling that something else should be happening. Something more, or different, or better. The sense that whatever is happening is somehow wrong, or bad, or amiss in some way.The sense of being stuck can even manifest as an over-identification with the hope for growth or healing in a particular area of life.I want to share a koan from the mumonka
Meeting the Ancestors
Greetings Friends,I am returning from a 10-day stay at my former home—Great Vow Zen Monastery. While I was there I had the opportunity to co-lead a sesshin (weeklong silent meditation retreat). The sesshin’s theme was The Light of the Ancestors.Yunmen said to the assembly of practitioners, “Everyone has a light. When you look for it, its dark, dark, hidden. What is this light that everyone has?”Wh
Conversations in a Dream
Are you dreaming? How is your experience, like a dream?In one sense, the words you are reading, the sounds you are hearing, the thoughts racing through your mind and the ones seeming to linger in the background, the worries, and any other emotion that you might be experiencing, including experience itself—all are un-pin-down-able, you can not grasp them, you can not even find a single unchanging s
Dream as Medicine, Dream as Love
Dream as Analogy for RealityThis world is psychoactive. So much so that we don’t even realize how are fundamental beliefs and unquestioned assumptions shape our sense of who we are and what the world is.One of those assumptions is the referent to this simple, and often thought/spoken phrase I am.Its innocuous, we think it constantly. I am hungry, I am tired, I am sad, I am lonely, I am scared, etc
What's Real?
What is real? What is true?These questions are fundamental to the spiritual path, to the path of awakening.There is much confusion in our world right now. Blatant lies or mis-truths are being thrown around about immigrants rights, dei, trans and queer people, how the economy works, science, climate change, you name it…The question of what is real in a spiritual sense invites us to look into the ba
Ryonen Scars Her Face
Hello Friends,Happy April 1st! Here we are, its Aries Season, it’s Spring, Mercury and Venus have both been retrograde for a while now (which can give a certain feeling of friction or underworld journey to our days), there is much happening in our geo-political world that I (we) wish wasn’t happening. And still the magnolias are blooming, the songbirds are back, tulips are pushing through the mulc
Will it be destroyed?
Book of Serenity #30: Dasui's Aeonic FireA monk asked Dasui: When the fire at the end of an aeon rages through and the whole universe is destroyed, is this destroyed or not?Dasui said: Destroyed.The monk said: Then it goes along with that?Dasui said: It goes along with that.A monk asked Longji: When the fire ending the aeon rages through and the whole universe is destroyed, is this destroyed or no
Dharma Practice in times of Uncertainty
Greetings friends~As we be together in this political moment, I wanted to offer some of the dharma teachings and practices that I have been leaning into. One of which is sharing poetry, so first a poem.For When People Ask by Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerI want a word that meansokay and not okay,more than that: a word that meansdevastated and stunned with joy.I want the word that saysI feel it all all
Prajna Paramita's Great NO!
As we began 2025, I returned to the teachings of the Heart of Great Perfection Wisdom Sutra. In times of chaos, something in me turns toward what is most true. The Heart Sutra is one such text that invites this kind of turning.Moving through the Heart Sutra we arrive at a set of stanzas that read as a series of negations.Therefore, given emptiness, there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no
coming home to ourselves
Greetings Friends,I remember when I first entered a space dedicated to dharma practice, after sitting in the zendo that first night my body felt like I was home.Which was strange because the building and atmosphere was so foreign to me, the spicey smell of incense, the monotone chanting, the long black robes that the monks wore, being told to sit still and face a wall. None of these things were re
The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion
Greetings Friends,As we begin this new year, I want to spend sometime with the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra. This chant is one that is chanted across Mahayana Buddhist traditions, within our own Zen school, it is chanted daily in most monasteries and regularly in many practice communities.It’s a pithy teaching that cuts to the heart of our practice. And it starts with the Bodhisattva of Gre
Our Dream of The World
A monk asked Hongzhi, “What about the ones who have gone?”Hongzhi said, “White clouds rise to the top of the valleys, blue peakslean into the empty sky.”The monk asked, “What about the ones who return?”Hongzhi said, “Heads covered in white hair, they leave the cliffs andvalleys. In the dead of night they descend through the clouds to themarket stalls.”“What about the ones who neither come nor go?”
The Dark Side of Enlightenment
When we enter the path of practice, two paths open up simultaneously—first we have the path of what we think we are doing. This is the practice method, the conceptual framework, the spoken vow that we turn towards, that we make effort at, that we can talk about more or less.The other path is the path of what is actually happening. It is darker, more mysterious, often below the level of consciousne
Eight Realizations of Great Beings
As the calendar year comes to an end, I offer this poem as a re-write of a text that one of my Sanghas has been studying. The text is called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, one story says it was one of the last teachings given by the Buddha before passing into PariNirvana.I re-wrote the teaching as a way of distilling and remembering the practices we did together during our Autumn Ango. Th
Let's Awaken Together
While sitting under the bodhi tree through the night, Shakyamuni Buddha saw the morning star, was enlightened and said:I, together with the great earth and all sentient beings, simultaneously attain the way.In the Zen tradition today is Bodhi day. The day that we commemorate the Buddha’s awakening and celebrate our buddha nature. Last night, locally, people from the Zen Columbus Sangha, Mud Lotus
A Sensuous Solidarity
What do you want?What do you really want?The cyber Monday sales have been flashing items, workshops, experiences that we could possibly want, that we should want, that we somehow need.In one of my Sanghas we are exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings. This past week we have been exploring the nature of desire.The invitation to explore is part of what I love about the Zen Bu
What Haunts You?
Greetings Friends! In these last few weeks I have been reflecting a lot on the story of Matchig Labdron and the roots of a practice known as Chod, a practice that works directly with fear through generosity. I want to share some of these reflections about fear, generosity and the awakened feminine. I also want to share that Jogen and I are facilitating our next session of Sky+Rose on Sunday Dec. 1
Fierce Hope
It’s beautiful to be taking refuge together in all the various places we find ourselves.Ah. Here we are. Survivors of the election. Spiritual warriors attempting to live a vow-fueled life. Hearts turned towards love larger then fear. Even if fear is rattling in your gut, or anger is raging strong in your body or numbness has you hiding out.Whatever you are feeling is welcome.Whatever you are feeli
Hidden in the Shadows
A couple weeks ago I heard a sound near our back screendoor, as if an animal were wrestling with a large bag of cat food. I assumed my cat Sasha was trying to break into her bag of treats, and noted the sound but didn’t respond right away.A few minutes later, the sound long faded, I went to check on Sasha to see how far she got with trying to claw her way into her treat bag. As I approached the ba
Realizing Impermanence
As part of Autumn Ango with the Zen Community of Oregon, we are contemplating a text called the Eight Realizations of a Great Being. A text that some sources say is the last teaching that the Buddha gave. We are working with an interpretation by Thich Nhat Hanh edited by Hogen Bays, Roshi.I want to start this reflection with a poem that was read to me by another Zen Teacher, Daniel Terrango during
The Play of Light and Shadow
Since leaving the monastery a few years ago, I have become interested in how the ancient Zen teachers talked about the spiritual path. Language about the realizations that compose awakening are nested in the Zen chants that I would chant daily as a monastic, but we were so immersed in the continuous-ness of practice, that rarely would we stop and try to map out the territory. We were living it, wh
The Harmony of Difference and Sameness
I am just returning from my first in-person Zen sesshin here in Ohio. It was wonderful to practice the familiar rhythm of a silent, Zen-style meditation retreat so close to the place I currently call home. We practiced as the winds and rain from Hurricane Helene blew through South Western Ohio felling tree branches and power lines on the property of the Jesuit Spiritual Center where we were sittin
Being One and Many
A thousand times at least I asked my Guru to give Nothingness a name. Then I gave up. What name can you give to the source from which all names have sprung? –Lal DedLanguage has a trickster quality. At one moment it limits. We find ourselves hard pressed to find the word that captures a feeling, mind state or emotion. Other times, a single word can invoke so many meanings and associations that we
The Deeply Secret Mind
We are emerging from the monthly return of the moon’s dark face—where from earth’s perspective the sun and moon appear to kiss, an aspect that astrologers refer to as a conjunction. In the Zen tradition, the moon cycles served as markers for the calendar year—with the new and full moons being opportunities for ritual and ceremony around atonement and renewal of vows.In my own life and practice, I
Encounters with the Golden Haired Lion
Blue Cliff Record Case 39: The Golden Haired LionA student asked Yunmen, “What is the pure and everlasting body of reality?”Yunmen said, “A fence of flowers and healing herbs.”The student asked, “What’s it like when I reach there?”Yunmen said, “A golden-haired lion!”I am landing back in Ohio after about two weeks visiting my old homes in Oregon, Great Vow Zen Monastery and Portland. I was at Great
What Are You Devoted To?
For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?The cry of the cuckoo is calling you home;hundreds of flowers fall, yet her voice isn’t stilled;even deep in jumbled mountains, it’s calling clearly. —DongshanOne way of appreciating this experience we call life is to see it through the eyes of devotion. Whether we are conscious of it or not our lives are woven together through simple, ordinar
Within there is a Jewel
Our attention is a precious resource. We use it all the time, and so, might forget what a resource it is. Contemplative traditions throughout the ages recognized the preciousness of attention. And also recognized that if we don’t put in the effort to train our attention, our attention may get hijacked, scattered, frittered away by the thieves of time or thoughts of worry, disappointment, greed and
Looking into the Source
With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together, and then the bottom fell out.Where the water does not collect, the moon does not dwell.—ChiyonoThis is the awakening poem of Chiyono, a Japanese Zen practitioner in the early 17th Century. The poem comes after a much longer story about this person’s path of practice. In the story, Chiyono has a sincere aspiration to practice the dharma, but i
Bodhisattva Vision
Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana there is not a moment’s gap. Continuous Practice is the Circle of the Way. —Dogen ZenjiIn Dharma practice we are invited to reflect on our view—the beliefs that rest at the root of our hearts and influence how we perceive, make sense of and respond to our lives.For what we think and believe has a deep effect on what we see and perceive. Our t
Engaged Buddhism: The World Wound
This talk is part of a series of talks exploring the Engaged Buddhist Precepts of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Order of Interbeing. In this talk we explore how to practice with the suffering we encounter in ourselves, others and the world—recognizing that our suffering isn’t separate from the world’s suffering.The concept of the World Wound comes from Joan Halifax Roshi’s book A Fruitful Darkness, quot
Engaged Buddhism: Turning Towards Suffering
In the Buddhist tradition we are invited to look into the nature of suffering. To do this we have to be willing to turn towards it. While this may seem obvious—we all have habits + behaviors for avoiding what is right in front of us, especially if what is right in front of us is painful, unpleasant or uncomfortable. For even a single-celled organism moves away from a painful stimulus.And yet, what
An Engaged Buddhism
The path of Zen meditation is a path grounded in love and the deep realization of our shared being, we often call these two aspects of the path—wisdom and compassion.During this Podcast Episode we meditate on the koan from Yunmen.What is Zen?An Appropriate Response.This question and response runs deep. An appropriate response isn’t something we find once and for all, and then live by it. It is an
Sun Face Buddha; Moon Face Buddha
Greetings!I am sending this Podcast Dharma Talk that I recorded last Monday, after viewing the Total Solar Eclipse. Which was spectacular, really beyond words, eerie, beautiful, humbling, I was struck with a deep sense of awe and gratitude.Below is the written version of the Dharma Talk. The exploration inspired by the eclipse is an active contemplation of the koan, Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Budd
Within Darkness it is Most Bright
We are in the midst of eclipse season. And while it happens twice a year, many of us living in the US are living close to the zone of totality or traveling to a place that falls in the zone of totality. During this dharma talk I explore the Zen teachings of the dark/light. Included is exploration of practice of bowing or touching the earth, the Dark Night of the Soul and the Koan: Everyone has the
Being Tamed by Our True Nature
I always consider it quite a blessing to have found my way to the Spiritual Path. I didn’t always feel this way. I remember early on in practice wishing that I could just be satisfied with the flow of everyday life—tv, movies, music, entertainment, a regular job. As an 18 year old, I wished that the urgency of my spiritual angst wasn’t so pressing. That I could go back to normal.I’ve heard this se
Caught by our True Nature
We explore the confusion or doubt that can come in when we habits return after having a taste of awakening. We also talk about how the mind will often try to recreate the peak experience, and how to meet that inclination.The heart of this stage is a deepening of faith, an awakening of devotion for the path and perhaps even beginning to recognize that we can’t fall off the OX, we can’t possibly los
Seeing Our True Nature
Greetings Friends,In the on-going exploration of the Ox-herding pictures, this podcast episode focuses on Kensho—the Japanese Zen Buddhist word for seeing into our true nature, which is the third of the ten ox-herding or bull-herding pictures. The image above is a bull painted in the Lascaux cave in France around 20k years ago. While maybe not as apparent to a modern person, the Ox and bull have a
Traces of the Self
The path of Awakening is sometimes referred to as the Great Unbinding and consists of un-learning our deeply conditioned habits of mind and perception in order to truly meet our Selves as we are—This is a recording from my free online Zen Meditation group that is hosted through the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join, we meet at 6P ET on Monday nights for a period of meditation follow
What is your motivation?
This is the first of a series of talks exploring the Ox-herding pictures, a set of teachings on the Zen path of Awakening. This first stage is foundational and is often called The Search, Arousing the Mind of Awakening or Awakening Bodhicitta.Each of the Ox-Herding pictures includes a stanza and a poem. The stanza reads as a teaching to accompany the image. What follows below is an excerpt of this
Awakening the OX
I originally started this Substack as a clear way to share my weekly dharma talks. Every Monday at 6P PT / 9P ET I host an online Zen gathering through the Zen Community of Oregon where I am one of the teachers.The gathering begins with two twenty minute periods of meditation, followed by a Dharma Talk.Dharma Talks are ways of connecting to the voice of the ancestors, the path of awakening that ha
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