Recordings

This talk is not about the television series “Breaking Bad,” though the title is intriguing, and the show rates some discussion. In Fukanzazengi (“Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen”), Dogen says “Do not think good or bad, do not judge true or false.” How does this work on a daily basis? Genko takes another look at being an ordinary person, as Jiko put it a few weeks ago, and explores some ways to accomplish this.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

Sosetsu gives a student talk on Fudo. Fudo Myo-o is the center object on one of our zendo altars and an icon of importance in our lineage as well as in other sects, particularly Shingon Buddhism. Fudo (or in Sanskrit, Acala) means “immovable” and relates to qualities inherent in us for removing obstacles and finding stillness. 

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

Spiritual companion. What does that phrase mean to you? Friendship? Listening? Closeness? A group of members of Dharma Rain have recently come together to focus on spiritual companionship and being good friends to others at the end of life. Jyoshin speaks about spiritual companionship within sangha connections as well as what this new program is orienting towards and how it hopes to benefit our sangha.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Each moment is a rare opportunity for us to wake up, to drop our idea of what is happening and to stay present to what is directly under our feet. Standing in the fire of the lotus, we open our life to a vast universe and the lotus blooms. Every moment is like this

Categories: Dharma Talks

One of the three pillars of Zen is Great Doubt, when we come to question everything we have heard. Another pillar is Great Faith. How can faith and doubt work together? What does it mean to question everything? What do we do when the structures we rely on begin to fail?

Categories: Dharma Talks

Sometimes transformation flows and we feel we’re making headway; other times nothing seems to change regardless of all our effort in practice. Kakumyo explores some of the persistent beliefs and patterns that prevent us from making progress along this path.

Categories: Dharma Talks

There’s a line in the Song of the Grass Hut that says, “Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.” Return to what? It could be talking about coming back to here and now, but Genko finds that many aspects of life and practice cycle around and become new again, deepening with each turn of the wheel. Join us for an exploration of returning.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Jyoshin explores the Buddhist teachings on compassion and suffering through the lens of her work as a hospital chaplain. How does her practice sustain her in the work, and what struggles does she face as she cares for the dying and their families, as well as overwhelmed hospital staff, during this ongoing pandemic? Learn how Jyoshin’s work in the hospital has challenged and affirmed her practice, and what we can learn from her experience.

Categories: Dharma Talks

What is the meaning of right effort? Following several days of retreat practice focused on finding the balance between effort and ease, we will talk about being busy, being lazy, and how we know when we’re getting it right.

Categories: Dharma Talks

What is this “self” that seems to move forward through time and how might our Zen practice influence our relationship with it? And why does it carry so much baggage?

Categories: Dharma Talks

What is Transmission and why is it a big deal in Zen? Gyokuko explores the concept with different lenses.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Kakumyo talked about the opening of term and setting our intention for practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Shin’yu just spent a week in the hospital. One of her nurses had a lot of questions about Buddhism. The answers are still unfolding.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Zen is sometimes called a “formal” religion or practice. We do have a lot of forms. But what does that mean? What is a form? How do we practice with it? Why do we have them? Genko explores these questions in this talk.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Rick Hogetsu Mitchell gives his first student talk at Dharma Rain. The talk reflects on the nature of friendships, personal and spiritual, and their role in supporting our practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Some of us find that summer changes our routines, and makes the schedule lighter. And yet, the number of hours in the day are the same, and there are still tasks to be done. What does it mean to take care of business in the summer? What is our true business? How do we know? Genko explores these and other related questions in this Sunday’s Dharma Talk.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Sometimes practice flows and we’re carried along by it, sometimes it’s a struggle and we can’t gain any momentum and keep running into setbacks. Although we may prefer the former, there are expressions of Right Effort in each mode. This Sunday, Kakumyo will explore how we relate to this phenomenon and what it signifies.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha tells the story of a group of tired travelers who come to a beautiful city where they can rest. He reveals this to be imaginary, the skillful means required to allow them to continue the long journey. What do we conjure for ourselves and for others? When are such resting places useful, and when do we need to shake them off and move on?

Categories: Dharma Talks

Transformation and spiritual growth tend to be common topics among Zen practitioners. For all that our teachings advise us to sit without a specific goal, often there is some aspiration towards ease and comfort. This path towards ease is not always smooth. We might encounter bumps along the way. How we meet a challenge or difficulty conditions our strategies around meeting the next challenge or the next difficulty. This Sunday, Jyoshin talks about growing pains in spiritual practice, encountering challenges, and drawing strength from that which inspires us.

Categories: Dharma Talks

The ordination ceremony contains the phrase: “I have changed my form but kept my wish…” This is an allusion to the continuity of our way-seeking mind, and the variety of particular forms our practice may take over time. This Sunday, Kakumyo will talk about particular ways we realize and display lay and monastic paths of practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Recent news articles discuss prevalent mind states of people during the pandemic and now as we emerge. The word “languishing” has come up more than once, along with its opposite, “flourishing.” Languishing suggests becoming faint, feeble, or ill, also suffering from being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation. The New York Times adds that it is “a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” Flourishing speaks to thriving, growing, and developing rapidly. What has your experience been? Genko will explore these mind states and others along with what Buddhist teachings might have to say about them in her talk this Sunday.

Categories: Dharma Talks

In Buddhism, we spend a lot of time talking about suffering and the relief of suffering, but relatively little time talking about happiness or joy. Should we expect to find joy in “objectless” meditation? Is it OK to pursue happiness? Will Zen practice make us happier? Annen considers these and other questions in this week’s talk.

Categories: Dharma Talks

In celebrating Wesak, and contemplating the miraculous story of the Buddha’s birth, we may not find our own circumstances quite so auspicious. Kakumyo will talk about a Zen approach to noticing miracles in our practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Concern with how our karma developed is sometimes compared to being shot with a poison arrow. Don’t ask who shot it or how it was made, just get it out. But practice pushes us to confront past events and how they shape us. How do we look at the past in a wholesome way?

Categories: Dharma Talks

This week we welcome a guest teacher, Ryushin Hart. Ryushin’s talk will explore a pervasive and pernicious obstacle to wholeheartedly living our spiritual path and the steps to decrease its impact.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Kakumyo talks about discovering the absolute within the relative.

Categories: Dharma Talks

There’s a Christian song that starts “Have Faith, Hope, and Charity; that’s the way to live successfully.” These somewhat old-fashioned words, Biblical words, words in a song, speak of values we cherish in Buddhism as well, though we may express it somewhat differently.

What are these three virtues, and how do they manifest in our lives? What does it mean to have faith, to have hope, to have charity? Genko explores these questions and more in her Dharma Talk.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Sometimes the dharma rain seeps in and nourishes us in the way we’re hoping. Other times it seems to bounce off like a spring hail. Perhaps there’s no obvious button to push to change things. When we’re caught like this, we’re probably narrowing the range of our experience so the specific insult takes up more space than is warranted. This Sunday, Kakumyo will speak about how our basic relationship to emptiness subtly impacts virtually every other dharmic and life decision and perception. When we can make a little pivot in a very deep, central part of our experience, the effect can ripple through many different aspects of our life.

Categories: Dharma Talks

All the qualities of our identity are empty of self-nature, especially the qualities of the body. Yet such things as skin color and gender are often treated as “real” – as permanent, fixed, and conveying value. Suffering is the result. The talk this week will focus on this ‘injury of identity,’ particularly in regard to gender, and what it means to ally on behalf of such identifiers even as we reject them as true identity. Why do we recite a women’s lineage? Why do we point out gender as a characteristic when the Dharma tells us all such characteristics are empty?

Categories: Dharma Talks