Using a passage from the 14th century mystical text, The Cloud of Unknowing, Zuisei speaks of the bridge between the relative and absolute worlds.

She refers to the center of the present moment as the place where there is nothing and we are nowhere—the place where we “just sit"” “just walk,” “just eat,” as we refer to it in Zen. It’s the place where doing and doer disappear and we are free to respond to the world spontaneously and “magnificently.”

Anchoring her talk on the teachings on loving-kindness contained in the Karaniya Metta Sutta, Zuisei speaks on the importance of applying these teachings to oneself, as well as others. For the longer we practice, the more we understand that the lines we draw: inside and outside, self and other, exist nowhere else but in our minds.

“The only thing that stops you is your mind,” Zuisei says, quoting the late Burmese teacher Dipa Ma. But, as Zuisei points out, mind too is vast and without boundaries, which means that the very thing that stops us is unstoppable in itself.

Zuisei Goddard

Zuisei Goddard draws on the life of the Buddha to illustrate the six stages of pilgrimage—the call, homeleaving, the journey, contemplation, encounter, return.

Pilgrimage is both an inner and outer journey; it is travel into the unknown for the purpose of knowing ourselves intimately and drawing closer to our understanding of the divine. It is realizing that at the end of a long sojourn, we return to the home that we never actually left.

In this interview Zuisei shares a glimpse into her history around the monastic life and introduces her book Still Running—the Art of Meditation in Motion.

Pilgrimage is both an inner and outer journey; it is travel into the unknown for the purpose of knowing ourselves intimately and drawing closer to our understanding of the divine. It is realizing that at the end of a long sojourn, we return to the home that we never actually left.

What does it mean to open into, trust reality, instead of trying to force things into being? How do we reconcile accepting the things we cannot change with changing the things we cannot accept?

Zuisei explores the possibility of seeing things as they are, learning to work with this truth instead of against it, and basing this work on the realization of our interbeing.

The term mindfulness is ubiquitous these days. But its origins can be traced back to the teachings of the Buddha, whose main practice was anapanasati, “mindfulness of breathing.”

In this interview, Zuisei Godddard discusses some of the misunderstandings of mindfulness, as well as its true potential to help us cultivate awareness, wisdom, and compassion.

“What I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself—and there I found myself more truly and more strange.” —Wallace Stevens

Zuisei Sensei speaks from the heart about her own spiritual journey and her ongoing commitment to practice as she steps further into lay life.

Zuisei Goddard draws on the life of the Buddha to illustrate the six stages of pilgrimage—the call, homeleaving, the journey, contemplation, encounter, return.

Pilgrimage is both an inner and outer journey; it is travel into the unknown for the purpose of knowing ourselves intimately and drawing closer to our understanding of the divine. It is realizing that at the end of a long sojourn, we return to the home that we never actually left.

We have to be willing to take a risk in order to see clearly.

In this talk on case 31 of the Gateless Gate: Zhaozhou Saw Through the Old Woman, Zuisei speaks of the spiritual life as a perilous journey. “Every time we ask,” she says, “we expose ourselves. But when we don’t ask, we also expose ourselves. So we might as well take a risk—be wild and daring—and see what comes of it.”