Recording Category: Dharma Talks

In honor of the Two Ancestors, Dogen and Keizan, celebrated this week, we will consider the story of the Buddha holding up a flower, and ask ourselves, when is a flower just a flower?

Kakumyo speaks about the difficulty of staying available for practice. How do we continue to show up for difficult, transformative work over time?

One of the ways suffering occurs is when permanence is sought where there is no permanence. Ease occurs when the realization that we are grasping at concepts arises and the mind reorients. In other words, things change – even if we don’t want them to. Things change – often in ways we hadn’t expected or… Read more »

Linda Hoka Bebernes will show how ending the pursuit of happiness has enabled her practice to unfold, while sharing some insights from the edge of her practice now.

Seido will speak to our collective fears about the impact of a changing climate and how Buddhism liberates us from the two extremes of apathy and despair. This talk emerged after a January joint sangha sesshin in Corvallis focused on our intimate relationship to the natural world, the experience of deep time, our capacity to… Read more »

Buddhism is not a theology, but it is a religion. Many Buddhists have a deep relationship to a spiritual mystery. How do feelings like devotion and prayerful urges work in Buddhism and Zen? What does it mean to surrender in our practice?

The process of perception is a rich topic of investigation in Buddhism. So much of who we are and the world we inhabitat is mediated by our own filters. This talk will explore how the capacities for tranquility and discernment nourish each other.

Chimyo Atkinson was ordained in 2007 and received Dharma transmission under Rev. Teijo Munnich in 2015. She completed her monastic training in Japan and the US. Until recently, she served as Head of Practice at Great Tree Zen Women’s Temple in Alexander, North Carolina

Did you know that the Buddha addressed racism explicitly in his teachings? He was dealing with the caste system, and expressed clear views on it. If we are all one people, why and how did we get to this mess of perceiving different races, and treating people differently based on it. Why is it so… Read more »

This Sunday, Kakumyo will talk about the process of discerning whether some discordance in our life is ours to transform or not. If it is, what do we need to help this transformation along? If it’s not, how do we relate to it?

One of our Precepts says “Do Not Dwell on Past Mistakes.” We usually study this Precept as it applies to us personally, as we dwell either on our own or others’ mistakes. We’re in a place now nationally where many of our society’s past mistakes are coming home to roost, and we’re being asked to… Read more »

Bukkai retired from the Dharma Rain teaching group three years ago but returns to talk about summer ango and how we can relax a little while keeping our intention.

Kakumyo will be talking about some of the common misunderstandings and pitfalls in bringing more light and freedom to unwholesome karmic patterns.

This week Kakumyo will continue some themes from his last Dharma talk: Aliveness and interdependence; separation and solidarity; humility and clarity.

Many transitions are being marked this Sunday. It is the end of spring Ango, and so we will have a Term Closing ceremony. It is the end of the Dharma School year, and there will be a matriculation ceremony for those young adults just entering the adult sangha. And four new Lay Disciples will have… Read more »

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