Recording Category: Dharma Talks
The body we have is no different from the original Dharma Body. Using excerpts from Bodhidharma’s Blood Stream Sermon, Zen Master Nie will explore the personal and practice insights that come from exploring this teaching.
Byakuren’s approach to trauma integrates deep spirituality with directly facing your pain. She explores the establishment of a healing container for a traumatized emotional body by deeply entering our narratives, recognizing these formative conditions and healing the root causes of our suffering.
Interdependence and layers of causation have come up a lot recently. Kakumyo will explores these themes and how they relate to the activity of witnessing our self and being witnessed.
Jyoshin looks at two verse summaries from the Lotus Sutra that talk about Dharma Rain. This recording only includes the last 20 minutes of the talk.
As we become more aware of the workings of mind, our sense of who we are, our responsibility, and what our practice is keeps changing. Kakumyo explores this by taking a look at two paramitas and Dogen’s Eight Realizations to see how they interweave.
As we settle into Ango and witness the public ceremonies of one person becoming an ordained priest and another entering postulancy toward that same path, Genko looks at some of the different ways we practice. Each of our lives is different, and each of us has our own unique path. And yet, when we come… Read more »
We discuss the Three Minds of practice and how many Buddhists it takes to screw in a light bulb.
Jyoshin describes the liminal space of this time of year.
There’s a deep-seated yearning we all tap into that guides how we live our life. It’s vulnerable to let its voice be prominent, and it takes skill to be able to listen to it consistently. One of the misses we make is we substitute rules and procedures for this subtle guidance. Kakumyo explores this edge in practice.
Desire is one of the root causes of suffering in Buddhism. Using the teaching of the buddha, we will look at how desire entangles us and how to unravel its grip. Releasing our mind and body from the confusion desire creates, we open to wisdom and compassion.
Sometimes we find ourselves in stereotyped roles with another person, responding to another as though we are parent, child, hero, or villain. Why do enter into archetypal roles and how do we work with these in practice?
Recently over breakfast, several residents expressed interest in learning more about what goes on in our prison groups. The conditions there suggest new and different ways to approach familiar teachings. Genko shares some of the learning/teaching opportunities from Dharma Rain’s prison program.
Kyogen used to quote his teacher, Roshi Kennett, as saying “you chase enlightenment until it catches you.” There is both an active, effortful, element to this phrase as well as an its-not-all-up-to-you-entirely element. What happens when, after throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into practice, something remarkable and unexpected occurs?
The shuso role is a visible and important training position at Dharma Rain. Tsuho talks about his experience serving as shuso, how temple roles shape one’s practice, and how our edges find us no matter where we go
Kakumyo talks about the endless work of skillfully shifting perspectives in order to meet the world around us with a curiosity, dignity, and joy.
We emphasize sangha and the benefits of practicing together. Then we engage in a kind of solitary practice in the same room. We will talk about the differences between being together and being alone, and what ‘alone’ means.