Recordings

Twice a year, the sangha has an opportunity to hear from our governing bodies, to ask questions and give feedback. The spring forum is primarily sponsored by the Dharma Council, giving updates on classes and programs. The Board will also report on where we are in our multiple transitions. Have questions about the progress on the property? Finances? This is the place to get some of those answers.

Categories: Sangha Forum

Now that we’re sitting on-site, sometimes the zendo is cold in the mornings. Discomfort arises. What then? Buddhism has a long history of mining this dilemma. We’ll look at some of these approaches and how this applies to the rest of life.

Categories: Dharma Talks

I met my teacher and said “I have only always wanted to be helpful.” She probably thought: “Oh, here comes another one suffering with some heavy stuff to sort out.” Then she said to herself with sincerity: “Great beginning.” To me she said instead, “well, let’s put that on hold for awhile, learn our practice and see what happens.

Categories: Dharma Talks

In preparation for our Jukai ceremony on March 22nd, Shintai offered a Dharma talk about practicing with the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts during different stages of practice. For those participating in Jukai, it was a time to consider the significance of making this public vow. For those who have already made this vow, it was a time of reflection and renewal of our intention. The talk explored how deeply engaging with the Precepts supports our practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

The first precept we learn is “Cease from evil.” If Buddhism teaches us not to make dualistic concepts, why does it set up the pair of good and evil? What is evil in Buddhism? What does it mean to cease from it? This challenging word pushes us to explore many aspects of behavior, karmic conditioning and how developing wisdom shapes our life.

Categories: Dharma Talks

The title of this talk refers to a relatively early (1980) collection in English of writings of masters in the Soto Zen lineage. Bukkai explored the ordinary moments in which we share eternity in our awakening practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

“Standing on the shoulders of giants” is a well-known aphorism that describes how we discover truth by building on the previous discoveries of those who came before us. This is also an apt description of the process whereby we learn to experience the truth of our own Buddha natures by building on the experience and relying on the guidance of our teachers and of the Buddhas and ancestors before them. During this Sunday’s Dharma talk Fumyo will discuss aspects of this student-teacher relationship, its process, paradoxes, and its continuing importance in our Zen practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Last Sunday we celebrated our annual Nehan Festival, and Gyokuko gave the Dharma Talk. This week Kakumyo picks up two themes that Gyokuko talked about, and explores them further.

Categories: Dharma Talks

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Our annual Nehan Festival commemorates the parinirvana of the Buddha and his final teaching. This involves a special service in place of Full Morning Service. This year, Gyokuko gave the Dharma Talk associated with Nehan on February 8.

Categories: Dharma Talks

What does it mean to “function secretly, like a fool”? The final lines of one of our daily scriptures is packed with important teaching, in the simplest of language. The Zen fool is different from the conventional meaning of this world. So is a secret – and so is the host. We will look at the Five Ranks, beginner’s mind, and what it means be the “host within the host.”

Categories: Dharma Talks

We sometimes use the phrase “the edge of my practice.” What does this mean? What kinds of edges do we face? And what about plateaus, ledges, mountains, and other geographical features of our practice? Genko will trek through some of these in this Sunday’s talk.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Sekkei Harada gives this advice in his lectures in a new book Unfathomable Depths, Drawing Wisdom for Today from a Classical Zen Poem. Let’s see if Gyokuko can draw any wisdom from that.

Categories: Dharma Talks

One of the fruits of spiritual practice is that we trust those around us. It’s not that we become gullible, but we see more layers. It’s important to look at trust because we tend to undervalue its place in our lives. This talk explored who trusts, and where that trust lands, rather than how we decide what to trust.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Buddhists around the world have been celebrating the Buddha’s enlightenment this past week. This week’s talk is a reflection on the Buddha’s life and how so many elements of his story serve as a support for all of us today who walk the spiritual path.

Categories: Dharma Talks

The World-Honored One ascended the seat and Manjusri announces, “Clearly observe the Dharma of the King of Dharma; the Dharma of the King of Dharma is thus.” Then the World Honored One descended from the seat.”

What is this mysterious and unspoken wisdom? How do we find it? Dogen called it “brightness,” and said we all possessed it. Jiko considers the words of various masters and the suggestions of our lives today as we consider this wonderful, invisible Truth.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Genko has been working with a new Buddhist approach to recovery from addiction, called Refuge Recovery. Using the Three Refuges, Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path, the approach takes the strengths of the 12-step movement, replaces the Steps with the Path, and increases the emphasis on meditation as a tool for recovery.

Through her work both for herself and with prison inmates, she is discovering connections between addiction and suffering, recovery and healing, as well as new insights into liberation.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Shin’ei endeavors to reacquaint us with depth in the arts, to encourage us to look with different eyes. She speaks to the rediscovery of soul in Buddhism and American culture by way of Karma: a rich, colorful, and creative source.

Categories: Dharma Talks

For whom have you washed off your splendid makeup?
The cuckoo’s call urges you to return.

Zen practice is endlessly subtle and ever-changing. Is the dance a waltz or a tango? When we first come to practice, we “see through a glass darkly” and later “face to face.” What is it that moves us forward? What keeps us from getting stuck? In this talk, Seido draws upon Dongshan’s “Five Ranks” teaching, which was one of Kyogen’s favorites, five pairs of koans that have been steady companions, sources of both frustration and inspiration, over the course of her training.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Kate Wolf sang, “Give yourself to love, if love is what you’re after.” Why is it so hard to give ourselves to each other? What holds us back from real intimacy? As individuals and as a community, we carry many patterns of fear and withdrawal, but we also have the opportunity to see and be seen clearly. Zen has a particular definition of intimacy. Exploring this can lead us back to simple human closeness.

Categories: Dharma Talks

If you watch your mind with any regularity, you’ve noticed that awareness is heightened when we realize that things are not as we expect, and is lowered when we perceive things as routine. But, like all generalizations, there are exceptions. Understanding these provides some useful handholds for practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Twice a year, the sangha has an opportunity to hear from our governing bodies and to ask questions and give feedback. This fall forum is primarily sponsored by the Board of Directors, giving updates on where we are with the multiple transitions we are going through. The Dharma Council will also give a brief report.

Categories: Sangha Forum

On October 12, Abbot Gyokuko Carlson took on a Zen koan that goes like this:

Dogo and Zen-gen went to a house to show sympathy. Zen-gen hit the coffin and asked, “Alive or dead?” Dogo replied, “I won’t say alive, I won’t say dead.” Zen-gen demanded, “Why won’t you say?” Dogo repeated, “I won’t say.”

Later after Dogo died, Zen-gen went to Seki-so and told him the foregoing story. Seki-so said, “I won’t say alive, and I won’t say dead.” Zen-gen said, ” Why won’t you say?” Seki-so repeated, “I won’t say, I won’t say.” At these words Zen-gen came to awakening.

Gyokuko also offered suggestions and possible chants and practices that people might be able to do on their own to help through this time of transition and grief.L

Here’s the Mettabhavana for Dharma Rain that she re-wrote and that we chanted together at the end of the talk.

We settle gently into a place of peace and trust that the gentle guidance of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and ancestors will guide us through whatever changes come our way. We extend that hope to all people and forms of life, seeking to surround all with Infinite Love and Compassion. We send out compassionate thoughts to those in suffering or sorrow, to all those in doubt and ignorance, to all who are striving to attain Truth, and to all those whose feet are standing close to the great change we call death, we send forth oceans of Wisdom, Mercy and Love. Particular to all those in our community, near and known to us or far and invisible, who are in sorrow, grief, or fear, we offer our tender hearts, the salt of our own tears, the warmth of our smiles, the support of our patient presence. May we all be at peace, may we all be kind, may we all be free from fear.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

On Sunday, September 28, we did our annual Two Ancestors memorial service to honor Eihei Dogen and Keizan Jokin. Genko talked about honoring our ancestors, and of course this included some talk of Kyogen as he takes his place in the ancestral line. Who are our ancestors? How do we honor them? Why do we chant all those names? What are their stories and why does that matter? And maybe even more important, how do we continue to learn from and listen to our ancestors?

Categories: Dharma Talks

People often use the metaphor of climbing a mountain when describing spiritual practice. For example: “there are many paths but they lead up the same mountain.” There are number of problems with this view. The main one is that spiritual attainment has many different facets, and we confuse ourselves by rolling them together. “Mountain” might better be plural. This view may make practice seem less heroic and more approachable. We’ll discuss the trials and tribulations of evaluating our progress, and point out some footholds that are trustworthy.

Categories: Dharma Talks

For the first Ango Sunday in fall 2014, Bukkai referenced a Pete Seeger song, with words from the book of Ecclesiastes:

To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven.

Categories: Dharma Talks

What is “sacred?” Why have we human beings, throughout our existence on this earth, nearly universally created rituals and images invoking the sacred? How do we use the word today, and just what does it really mean? What then, if anything, fits that definition? Does Buddhism, specifically Zen, point us toward the sacred? What about the zen of “everyday mind,” and “nothing special”? What’s holy, or sacred about that? Join us for the Dharma Talk this Sunday as co-abbot Kyogen Carlson explores these and related questions.

Categories: Dharma Talks

This Dharma Talk is about actively engaging in the practice of not criticizing, and specifically not complaining. Taking the practice of cultivating acceptance off the cushion and into all the situations and people we encounter in the course of our lives is quite a challenge. Is it even possible to really do this practice of “criticizing nothing”? Shintai has been wrestling with it since November and will offer up both the challenges and gifts of diving into this practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Everything is always changing; on what can we rely? All passes away. Where is our ground? We seek for something and it is pulled away. The Buddha repeatedly predicted perfect enlightenment – Buddhahood – for all beings; how can this be true if everything is conditioned and dependent and changing? The word sometimes used for this prediction also means affirmation. This talk follows a recent talk on trust, which focused on our willingness to trust others as well as ourselves, down the rabbit hole of no one on which to rely, nothing on which to depend, and whether there is a little light at the end of that tunnel after all.

Categories: Dharma Talks

This Dharma Talk is about Gratitude. Kakumyo finds much to be thankful for.

Categories: Dharma Talks

The Dharma Talk for Sunday, August 3, was about family. Bukkai’s way in is an unusual koan from The Hidden Lamp collection entitled “Ganji’s Family.” Bukkai found much food for thought in the story and she hopes that those hearing this talk will as well.

Categories: Dharma Talks

A “being,” according to the Buddha, is made up of “aggregates,” or “heaps.” These, of course, are common translations for the Buddhist term “skandha,” which originally could refer to a “mass,” “heap,” “pile,” “gathering,” “bundle” or even “tree trunk.” So, we are an amalgamation of changeable things, in five layers from “form,” the body, to “consciousness.” Even the continuity we feel over time is included in the skandhas, and this offers important clues to our practice.

Co-abbot Kyogen Carlson, one set of “heaps,” offered a Dharma Talk on this to all other sets of heaps that gathered together into one big heap on Sunday, July 27, at Jason Lee Elementary School. Look at the Scientific American article on “Habits” he refers to.

Categories: Dharma Talks