How are you with mistakes? What do you do when something goes wrong? In this talk we join three Zen adepts as they bumble their way through a tea ceremony, exploring what it’s like to own mistakes without being owned by them. This talk was given as part of our monthly Teisho and Inquiry at Castlemaine Zen.

With two sangha members about to begin the process of Jukai, we explore The Three Vows of Refuge and The Three Pure Precepts with some help from an old monk sitting high up in an old even older pine tree. Is it really possible to take refuge in precarity? Is it really possible to praise the mutilated world? What do we undertake when we take the Buddhist Precepts to heart? This talk was given in Castlemaine as part of our monthly Teisho and Inquiry.

When Shakyamuni Buddha saw the morning star he cried, “I and all beings of the great earth have in this same moment attained the Way.” He was not describing an experience limited to one human being. He was describing an experience that leaves nothing out, affirming the true human being. So how do we wake up together? And what does that even mean? This talk was given on the fifth day of the Great Ocean Sesshin 2025.

The young Wuzu was vexed. He’d heard about Zen and he’d heard about the teachings, but he did not know how to embody them “personally”. So he set off on a great adventure to taste the dharma for himself, bringing all of us along with him. This talk was given on the fourth day of the Great Ocean Sesshin 2025.

It’s easy to feel that something has been lost in childhood - something precious that we yearn to reclaim or embrace as we get older. The Chinese folk story “Chien and her Soul are Separated” brings this matter into direct focus, questioning whether anything is truly lost and how we might experience reunification. This talk was given on the third day of the Great Ocean Sesshin 2025.

Great Master Ma was unwell. The accountant monk came up to him and asked, “How is your Reverence feeling these days?” The Master responded, “Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha.” What are these mysterious words pointing to? And how might we realise them in our own lives? This talk was given on the second day of the Great Ocean Sesshin 2025.

We can travel a long way to discover ourselves right where we are. That’s one of the strange realities of Zen practice. The koan Mu, offered to us by Zhaozhou in 8th-9th Century, is an invitation to come home with every step, with every breath. This talk was given on the first day of the Great Ocean Sesshin 2025.

In this talk we take up a story from the Nipata Sutta, which follows a group of monks looking for the perfect place to sit over the summer. Where is the perfect place to sit? And what happens when it turns out to be less perfect than we imagined? Instead of running away from such a place, the buddha says, why not turn towards it? Why not learn to be a good friend, even to those beings you don’t quite understand, like earth spirits? In a time of great change, with earth spirits crying out for our human attention, how might we become a true friend of the many beings and save them from neglect?

In this talk we take up the sutra “Liberation Within Obstruction” and explore the words “I choose”. What does it mean to choose this moment, whatever it is? Is “I choose” a passive act, or a radically creative one? And what does this practice teach us about navigating even the most perilous moments of our lives? This talk was given as part of Zen Open Circle’s “Taking Part on the Gathering”, Term 1, 2025.

In this talk offered to the Contemplative Studies Centre at The University of Melbourne we explore the vitality of playfulness with the help of Keizan, Ryokan and Petrus Spronk.