Ekai Roshi explains the Zen koan “Does this clear, deep heart-mind come and go?” and emphasizes that while awakened awareness (clear, deep heart-mind) is ever-present, our sense of self or ego “comes and goes” and often obscures it. Meditation practices like concentration (shamatha) can quiet the mind and reveal this awareness, but deeper insight practice (vipassana) is needed to understand how our habits and conditioning interfere with it. The speaker highlights the Five Hindrances, laziness/lethargy, doubt, aversion, agitation and desire, as common mental patterns that cloud awareness. By recognizing how these hindrances arise in our own experience, practitioners can develop insight, stabilize awakened awareness, and continue the ongoing training that follows initial awakening.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

Spirituality and Spiritual Identity - Roshi Ekai Joel Kreisberg - FPP25 - October 18th, 2025

The talk introduces a six-week Shining Bright Lotus series on Junpo Roshi and Keith Martin-Smith’s When the Buddha Needs Therapy, exploring how Buddhism can meet modern psychological and emotional realities. It focuses on spiritual identity, the blending of meditation and therapy, and the difference between concrete practices, subtle emotional and conceptual life, and awakened awareness itself. Emphasizing Junpo’s innovation of emotional koans, the talk frames emotional triggers as opportunities for compassion, maturity, and integration. Buddhism is presented not just as meditation, but as a holistic path of meditation, ethics, and study, all oriented toward relieving suffering and embodying the bodhisattva vow in everyday life.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/fallpractice25

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action. 

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

How to Work with Emotional Koans - Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi - February 21st, 2026

Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi explains that traditional Rinzai koan training, systematized by Hakuin Ekaku, treats awakening (kensho) as the starting point of practice. Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi recognized that insight alone does not ensure emotional maturity, so he extended koan inquiry into the realm of feelings through “emotional koans.”

These examine emotions such as anger, shame, and disconnection as learned, constructed responses that arise because we care, and for which we are responsible. Practitioners slow down, welcome emotions as information, return to awakened awareness, and respond with compassion.

The work continues through daily reflection or journaling, teacher dialogue, applying inquiry during meditation, and sharing the practice with others, uniting awakening with emotional growth.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi and Emyo Darlene Tataryn introduce their four-month Foundations in Mondo Zen Facilitation program, describing it as a structured, relational, and embodied path rooted in koan practice and emotional inquiry. They emphasize that effective learning begins with sincere curiosity, clear intention, vulnerability, and compassion, supported by dialogue, small-group work, and a steady 108-day practice container, creating a focused environment for deepening insight and skillful facilitation.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

In this interview, Simha Frederick Marx recounts his Buddhist journey from beginning practice in 1988 with Nichiren Shoshu, moving to vipassana, and meeting Junpo in 2000, which led him to decades of practice with Hollow Bones Rinzai Zen. He describes attending 15–16 retreats over 26 years, his openness to all Dharma traditions despite a strong Rinzai focus, and his use of solo retreats to self-diagnose and settle recurring neuroses and anger loops. He shares his disinterest in social media, touches on themes from his recent book Confessions of a Sacred Fool, and notes that, after moving out of the city, he’s now launching a new sangha and stepping more fully into Zen teaching, something he feels is long overdue.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

Letting Be: Relaxing into Natural Wisdom - Hosho Don Koehler - January 24th, 2026 - WPP26

A Dharma talk exploring “Awakening Through Love” based on Chapter 2 of John Makransky’s work. Hosho Don Koehler reflects on innate wisdom beyond self-grasping, drawing from Dzogchen and contemporary psychology to show how relaxation, receiving love, and letting be reveal our natural compassion and clarity. The talk bridges non-dual awareness with heart practices, offering a gentle path of recognition rather than striving, and prepares listeners for a guided meditation on releasing the grasping self and resting in pure awareness.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/ 

This talk explains the structure and purpose of Mondo Zen facilitation as a living dialogue rather than a technique. Ekai describes how a facilitator uses precise, compassionate questioning to bring unconscious beliefs, emotional patterns, and fixed identities into direct awareness. The process relies on deep listening, embodied presence, and timing rather than interpretation or advice. Mondo Zen is framed as a way of helping students see through their own stories in real time, allowing insight to arise naturally through inquiry, silence, and resonance between teacher and student.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

Receiving Love: The Key to the Spiritual Path - Ming Po Larry Matthews - January 17th, 2026 - WPP26

Ming Po Larry Matthews teaches that spiritual awakening does not begin with effort, self-improvement, or performance, but with allowing ourselves to be loved as we are. Drawing on Makransky, Alan Watts, Rumi, Mary Oliver, and Zen teachers, he explores how giving love keeps us in control, while receiving love requires vulnerability, trust, and letting go of the belief that we are unworthy.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi offers an introduction to the Mondo Zen Facilitation, through an intensive look at the Thirteen koans of Jun Po Roshi. After a discussion of the context and history of Mondo Zen Facilitation, Ekai Roshi leads a pointing out meditation for the First Koan of Mondo Zen - Is it possible to purely listen without an opinion?

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/

Atta Dipa and Prayer - Heisoku Maik Bain - WSP25 - December 20th, 2025

Heisoku gives a reflection on the Buddha’s teaching to be your own refuge: recognize the inner light of selfless awareness, let go of ego, beliefs, and emotions as they arise and pass, and live with meditative awareness, clear intention, wisdom, compassion, and skillful action.

Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with ethical compassionate action.

https://www.shiningbrightlotus.org/