We are a conversation. Each one of us is a conversation – a conversation between all kinds of ways of conditioning, trying to talk its way into wise ways of being in the world. […] Healing happens in conversation. If we are trying to get people to do what we do, there’s no conversation.

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I encourage that with each other, with the world, with our social and political systems, with everything that Dr. King pointed to, that we ask the question: “What is being just here?” Both here, in this moment, and what is being just here [in the world]. Because, ultimately, they cannot be understood without each other.

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2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 5

Take care of yourself when you go back outside [at the end of sesshin] because you are more raw then you think you are. And here you are around a bunch of raw people so you can’t even tell. And then you walk out and whoosh – there it is.

So this is the trick – how do we revere the vulnerability that is the gateway to Buddha fields when we are in places that do not revere it at all? Not only do not revere, but don’t have tome for it, see it as weakness, see it as not efficient enough – whatever.

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2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 4

Equanimity is that feeling of what patience feels like, what understudying feels like. It’s very energetic actually. Sometimes people misunderstand equanimity, they think it’s like this evenness, like nothing is bothering them, there’s this unaffectedness. That’s not my experience of equanimity and I imagine you feel this too. It’s not like you are not affected by things. You are deeply affected by things, you are sensitized to the subtlest, little hurt or pain. You can feel it even more so.

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2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 3

Someone hands us a broom and we take it. We don’t go through all the reasons why we don’t want the broom right then and then. Because, really, who cares wether I want the broom at that moment or not. It’s not to say I still don’t argue. I do. My mind argues. But who cares? If it’s coming from a sense of service, who cares? If we are confusing the two [being of service or being a servant] then it matters a whole lot.

Some religious communities confuse the two. They use the sense of service to convince you that being in a kind of servant position is a good thing. You should just accept your lot because it’s good to be of service. Well, those are not the same thing.

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2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 2

You can all be visited by your demons in the middle of the night, in a period of zazen. They will come and find you. They are doing their part in helping you to wake up. So, can you relax with them? Can you welcome then? Can you play with them? Joyfully, playfully? “What are you doing here and what are you offering me right now? What is it that you believe in?” We engage it. We don’t tight up against it or push it away. Or indulge it either.

Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 1

In the history of Buddhism, the location of working with karma is not only one’s self, but the Sangha. The Sangha is always a part of it. There were many people around the Buddha at the time who were practicing moksha practices, or practices of liberation. But the Buddha assembled a Sangha. The Buddha understood the necessity of vow and of holding the harm of the world. So even when he died and they were looking for a successor, his response was: “No successor, the Sangha is the successor.” So that is our way, to do this in community. Our way is to foreground community.

Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

In Ancient Buddhist cosmology we say that the whole world is created, maintained and sustained by our collective karma. So, we literally are constantly living in a karmic stream of influences. Every moment is a chance for us to either act out our karma or work with our karma in a particular way, from a practice perspective, in which it causes no more harm and it becomes a force for healing in the world.

Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

When we come together and sit, then we are supporting each other. And this is a interesting practice, to think that the person sitting next to me is practicing dying. And that when someone is stuck — we use that word when someone is stuck in their conditioning — that part of that stuckness is the fear of dying. It is a fear of actually letting go of, a fear of grieving, it’s a fear of falling into the swirl of the unknown. And so hopefully if we do that a great compassion will arise for those who are stuck in their conditioning. Because who wants to die?

We deeply desire to be in accord with the natural functioning of life, with dependent co-arising, with the way things interact and support each other, without these false senses of separation. That is what our heart and our lives desire in the deepest sense.