Recordings

This Sunday, Genko explores bodhicitta, or Way-Seeking Mind. A few months ago, someone asked where it comes from, which brings to mind the old koan: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

What is bodhicitta? Is it something we cultivate? Something that just happens if we sit still long enough? Where is it, and where do we find it? How does it fit with other aspects of our practice?

Categories: Dharma Talks

This Sunday, Kakumyo will explore how we can look at the election in dharmic terms. Who are we now? Personally and collectively we are challenged to respond with clarity and integrity. What support, direction and perspective does Buddhism offer at this time? What might apply to us as individuals, as a temple, as members of a minority religion? This is a emotional and layered topic, so we’ll only pick out specific aspects for examination this week.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Buddhist history is filled with stories of mystical and supernatural power. Dogen said mystical power “is the tea and meals of Buddhists.” What can this mean for our practice today? Are there such things as miracles?

Categories: Dharma Talks

When we were children we made wishes on the first star, on a few lighted candles on a birthday cake, and on the “wish-bone” of the Thanksgiving turkey. There is usually a sweet innocent selfishness to childhood wishes. Now as adults, what do we wish for? How do we improve and broaden our hopes and intentions? What do we really want?

Categories: Dharma Talks

At last weeks Sangha Forum, members requested an opportunity to talk more about succession, the abbot’s role, how this might look and why it matters. This week, Kakumyo will speak briefly about his perspective here, and then invite questions.

Categories: Dharma Talks

People are sometimes surprised to learn that Buddhism has a long, rich history of confession and repentance. The flavor of this in Buddhism is quite different from what we may have experienced in other religious practices, but we still experience shame, self-hatred and regret as we face up to past mistakes. Dharma Rain will be changing its way of engaging with “Fusatsu,” or repentance, in this coming year. This talk will explore the experience of confession and its meaning in Buddhist practice.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Many of us spend the majority of our day in our workplace. How can we deepen our practice in the midst of distraction, busy days and competing demands for our time? How do we integrate the effort that we make in our meditation practice with the effort we make at work? Shintai will offer some simple and effective practices for expressing our deepest spiritual intentions during our regular, everyday lives at work.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Zazen is widely recognized as our core practice, but a small percentage of available teaching minutes are allocated to how-to instruction. Why is that, how do we answer the questions we have about meditation, and what questions do we need to have about meditation?

Categories: Dharma Talks

Zazen teaches us to let go of thoughts feelings and distractions that interfere with being present and aware of this very moment. Some of the commitments we make in our everyday lives – marriage, children, jobs, friendships – require us to stay engaged focused and even tenacious. What does zazen teach us about dealing with keeping those commitments? How can we cope with the inevitable glitches that interrupt our intentions?

Categories: Dharma Talks

Fall Ango will begin by recognizing old women in zen’s timeless koan heritage, the challenges and opportunities they offered then and even now. Bukkai’s talk is inspired by “The Old Woman of Mount Wutai,” a koan from ninth century China, and her own experiences of many years.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Science can explain how a flower opens, but watching a flower open is an entirely different experience. Jyoshin looks at aspects of Buddhism that came from Asia to the western world, and how the western mind works with these. One example is invocations to deities. What is the usefulness of considering such invocations as a vehicle for exploration, as opposed to dismissing them as superstition

Categories: Dharma Talks

Dharma Rain has many programs and many ways to serve and be served, but ultimately, Dharma Rain is a Zen temple. The strength of Zen is that it brings zazen and other practices and tools to help us transform the obstacles in our own minds. Gyokuko will talk about the significance of Zen and the process of transformation.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Many of us find a sense of identity in being part of a group, a family, a tribe. But sometimes conflict arises when we want our own independent identity and distrust the tendency to succumb to group-think. This conflict leads right to the central koan that we all grapple with – Who Am I? To what extent do we define ourselves as separate, special, unique; and to what extent do we belong to a wider group in society?

Categories: Dharma Talks

We are on Genzo-e Sesshin this week, studying Dogen’s fascicle Avalokiteshvara. In this talk, Kakumyo explores the interplay of witnessing and immediacy – how close do we get to our own experience? How many kinds of closeness are there?

Categories: Dharma Talks

What is the value of a human birth? We are reminded now and then that to be born a human being is special, of high merit. Why? What does this say about other beings? What does it say about how we should be living our lives?

Categories: Dharma Talks

What does it mean to practice with the daily news that arrives on the doorstep (or laptop) every day – tragedies from Orlando to Istanbul back to Dallas along with endless opinions and updates – and then return to our daily activity? Are we aware of our karmic habits receiving breaking news events and the impact on our ongoing functioning? This talk suggests a Zen practice that can engage “all the news that’s fit to print” in a way that serves wisdom and compassion through the teachings of oryoki’s “just enough.”

Categories: Dharma Talks

Finding our way through life decisions and the spiritual quest means clarifying our ideals and aspirations. Rarely can we see very far into the future but we can find inner and outer guidance.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Water is often used as a metaphor for Dharma. The choice to immerse ourselves completely or have a sip now and then is a personal one. How do we choose? How do we honor our own choice and the different choices others make?

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

We are in the process of discerning matters great and small throughout our lives. As Buddhists, how do we approach the “big” decisions about the shape and form our lives will take? Is there a difference between “deciding” and “discerning”? And what constitutes “success”? Thomas Bruner shares his process of discerning whether to ordain as a monk while a postulant at Dharma Rain last year.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Looking at Prajna Paramita (Great Perfect Wisdom) requires that we look at the difference between an acquired knowledge of ideas vs a dynamic knowledge of that which is.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

Categories: Dharma Talks

Bukkai’s talk carries a long thread of love of mountains in zen writing and mountains in themselves. She makes suggestions for study of the walking of human beings and the walking of mountains.

Categories: Dharma Talks

How do we live with the universality of suffering? Genko follows Kyogen’s path in working with the Buddhacarita, a mythical retelling of the Buddha’s life story and enlightenment. We’ll talk about myth and read some of the story and explore how we work with the facts of sickness, old age, and death.

Categories: Dharma Talks

Gyokuko explores the sacred and the mundane, and pays homage to Spring in this Sunday’s talk.

Categories: 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 your practice during our Jukai sesshin wherever you are.

Categories: Dharma Talks

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?

Categories: Dharma Talks

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 when it seems that nothing can be done?

Categories: Dharma Talks

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

Categories: Dharma Talks

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 will explore the less “romantic” aspect of the relationship between teachers and students and the everyday face to face exchanges that facilitate our awakening.

Categories: Dharma Talks

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.

Categories: Dharma Talks