Recording Category: Dharma Talks

Starting Monday evening, the Zen Center enters into a week-long retreat in preparation for our Jukai ceremony next Sunday. Is there a way to be part of this retreat even if you are not able to participate at the Zen center in person? For this week’s Dharma talk, Shintai offers suggestions and encouragement for deepening… Read more »

The word courage comes from the Latin coeur, which means ‘heart’ – it originally meant to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. Shin’ei speaks to fully inhabiting our lives, seeing things all the way through. Who is it you think you are and whose story is it anyway?

Sometimes the troubles of the world overwhelm us, and we sink into despair. We may feel depressed or angry as we see the suffering around us. Despair is actually a crucial experience in practice. How do we work with this state and the accompanying emotions? How do we move forward with compassion to ease suffering… Read more »

Bukkai’s talk is based on the Buddha’s last words “Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves.”

In Dogen’s chapter Kajo he says that the thoughts and words of the ancestors are “everyday tea and rice.” Having just returned from a sesshin in which this fascicle, which translates as “Everyday Activity,” was studied, Seido offers some reflections on Dogen’s meaning within the context of our lineage tradition. On Valentines Day, this talk… Read more »

A recurring theme in Kyogen’s Dharma Talks was finding or discovering what is ours to do. This Sunday David Choten Robinson will present a student talk on how his practice and work with this theme informed his ability to meet opportunities and challenges while living in Uganda in 2012.

This Sunday Kakumyo will speak about his upcoming kessei term as part of the preparation for becoming co-abbot. His taking up this challenge suggests a question for all of us: How do we blend the depth of insight and the routine of integrity with the complexities and inadequacies of our embodied lives? Drawing beauty from… Read more »

What are the markers of maturity in the practice? How do we define this subjective term? We teach that practice is enlightenment, there are no stages of enlightenment. Yet there are real markers of development in practice, qualities we develop and can recognize over time. One is generosity, giving the self freely. A sense of… Read more »

Following our Founder’s Day Service last week, we continue to commemorate with gratitude the great compassion that has been shown to us by our ancestral teachers. Fumyo explores the model for practice given to us by Shitou Xiqian (Sekito Kisen), our eighth Chinese ancestor. In his “Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage,” Shitou shows us how… Read more »

What does it mean to be dignified? We use the word freely and in many contexts, but may find that a definition is not easy. The Buddhist view of dignity is a little different from the conventional one. Is dignity an inherent quality? What does it mean to act in an undignified manner? Are there… Read more »

Once a year we hold an all-night vigil in honor of our founders Keido Chisan and Jiyu Kennet, both of whom died during the first week of November. This year, for the first time, we will hold this vigil in the Sodo, as we carry their work forward. Morning service on Sunday will be a… Read more »

Resonant of our recent Segaki retreat, this koan invites a changed relationship to one’s “ghosts” often understood as unresolved karma arising in the present. The dharma talk is about how we care for “ghosts” and what it means to save or release them. While many of us struggle to let go of these unbidden appearances… Read more »

Birth and death are moments in time – and yet the fact of our birth and death is called the Great Matter. How do we contemplate our own extinction from this life? The Buddha addressed his death directly. We will talk about the simple, profound questions of dying, caregiving, grieving, and planning for the inevitable.

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