Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 9/26/25 - Taking responsibility allows us to make fresh and new karma, to heal what needs to be healed. The vows of atonement or repentance are at the center of this ceremony of Fusatsu. Hojin Sensei explores what the words of our vows in this context mean, and how our intentions can turn the tides of harmful karma -- born of greed, anger and ignorance -- and allow us to heal. (Dharma Talk during the Mountains and Rivers Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony)

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/14/25 - In this talk, Hojin Sensei offers a full recitation of the Genjo Koan by Zen Master Eihei Dogen—keeping his living relics warm within our hearts. Before beginning, she pauses to recall how Buddhism first flowed through oral tradition, carried mind to mind, committed to memory. She invites us to take up this same practice: to steep ourselves in the Dharma by reading quietly or aloud, by copying, by chanting, and by listening.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/7/25 - “Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we, we in the future shall be Buddhas and ancestors.”

This quote is from the 13th century Zen master Eihei Dogen in his Bodhisattva Vow to express gratitude for the ancestors continuous guidance in our practice for the benefit of all beings. Hojin Sensei shares this recognition that we are the recipients of innumerable currents of life streaming into and influencing our own lives. She follows this with an introduction to the life of Great Ancestor Eihei Dogen and his fascicle Genjo Koan that we are studying this Ango.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 8/3/25 - Often overlooked, kinhin (walking meditation) is a most important, exquisite practice of the transition of rising up off our mountain seat and walking into our everyday lives in an undivided manner. How do we walk in accord with the Dharma—touching this great earth with wisdom and care, amidst all that life presents to us? Are we walking towards or away greater understanding? Are these different? Hojin Sensei begins by sharing her own daily ritual for maintaining harmony and offers the teaching of Master Dogen, "We must devote ourselves to a detailed study of this virtue of walking.”

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 7/27/25 - The wisdom of our bodies can be invoked precisely because it is always present, within, as our inherent Buddha nature. How then does the bearing of the body at ease enable us to meet the cries of the world? What is it to be a noble being? And how, through practice, can we verify this for ourselves? Join Hojin Sensei for this Dharma talk at the end of Interdependence Sesshin.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 7/25/25 - What we do, how we use our minds and our time, can transform our lives. When we can quiet the constant referencing of a “self,” our internal preoccupations and obsessions, we begin to find the still point and rest there. In this Sesshin talk, Hojin Sensei invokes the stillness of a mountain range, and the stilling of turbid water as it settles, and the whole of reality that this can reveal.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 7/20/25 - What is this we think of as ‘my body’? Hojin Sensei brings in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutra focusing on Buddha’s teaching to meditate on ‘the body in the body.’ Our culture already encourages a focus on the mind and the intellect, and because we’re educated to be in our heads, it can be really hard to include the body in our awareness as we’re developing the capacity for more presence. Hojin offers this talk as a tribute to poet and performance artist Andrea Gibson —who passed earlier this week— and delivers her poem, "I Sing the Body Electric, Especially When My Power’s Out."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 7/12/25 - The Bright, Boundless Field is a practice instruction of Chan Master Hongzhi, found in the text Cultivating the Empty Field. Join Hojin in an exploration of this teaching of the great way to closely observe delusions using these ‘habits or seeming obstructions’ themselves to clarify and illuminate the field of awakening—opening to the truth body, the truth of our embodiment.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/15/25 - Here we are sincerely and directly acting on this urge to be still -quiet. We will most likely sense that THIS is a good desire—it seems to settle and ground us rather than pull us into yet further desire. When we sit still and quiet with nothing else to do or be —except ourselves, we often meet, if only briefly, a deep satisfaction. In that moment, whatever we are is enough. Joko Beck writes: “Only in that instant when we and the object become one can we see what our life is."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/14/25 - In this talk Hojin speaks of this gentle approach with ourselves called Maitrī in Sanskrit or Metta in Pali. Essentially the same concept, both refer to "loving-kindness", "friendliness", "benevolence", befriending -- What is it to befriend ourselves? For real? How does that steady us? (A Saturday Zazenkai Dharma talk.)