“As long as human beings have walked on this earth, there have always been those who’ve said, ‘This is not the way. This isn’t working, it’s never worked. So let me spend my life looking for another way. Let me spend my life living another way.”

In this talk, Zuisei speaks on waking up from our conditioned sleepwalking to find the innate wonder that life has to offer. Through watering seeds of practice and presence, we choose wakefulness and seek truth.

The call to turn inward, towards our present-moment experience, is a call toward truth. In this talk, Zuisei explores the importance of letting our minds become still, so that when the call arrives, we can heed it.

Accepting the call is saying “Yes” to reality. It’s becoming intimate with that which we know to be true, which then allows us to see how we must respond.”

Zuisei speaks of silence as the way of wonder, humility, and reverence; of noble silence as the unification of awareness. Drawing on stories and poems, she highlights the importance of silence in our increasingly noisy and harried world.

In the eighth talk in a series on the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings, Zuisei speaks on the seventh awareness: cultivating wisdom.

Wisdom is the highest state we can obtain on the path—a complete integration of presence, compassion, and equanimity. It is understanding that all things—all things without exception—are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and devoid of self-nature. But this is not a problem. Wisdom is accepting, and therefore finding freedom in the fact that this is how things are.

In the seventh talk in a series on the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings, Zuisei speaks on the eighth awareness: avoiding idle talk (she changed the order of the talks in order to end with wisdom).

Master Dogen said, “To totally know the true form of all things is the same as being without idle talk.” In that complete knowing, there is no room, no opportunity, for idle talk. Knowing the true form of a thing, there is no one to speak about it idly, or to speak about it at all.

Words cannot express the reality. Live words can point to it, but they are not it. And yet, since we have to speak, how do we do so in such a way that we practice abstaining from thought and language that keeps us bound? How do we create space to rest in a deeper sense of knowing and trusting in our innate goodness?

In this mondo or question-and-answer session, Zuisei Sensei speaks on the Fifth Awareness of Enlightened Beings: not forgetting right thought.

To not forget right thought is to protect and maintain the dharma and abide in the Three Treasures. And by extension, this “not forgetting” can be understood as remembering. As Zuisei explains: “Not forgetting right thought is remembering: This is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself. This— whatever this is—is not apart from me. It is not a thing, and neither am I. This means I cannot possess it, but I also cannot lose it. This means I already have everything I need.”

In the fifth talk in a series on the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings, Zuisei speaks on the sixth awareness: practicing Samadhi.

Samadhi, also understood as single-pointed focus, is an access point of profound awareness. With intent presence, we are able to see the arising and passing of all phenomena. Samadhi is the state in which subject and object merge. We become the breath, the koan, awareness itself.

In the fourth talk in a series on the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings, Zuisei speaks on the fourth awareness: exerting meticulous effort.

Rather than over-exertion, this awareness calls us to place thoughtful intent upon what and how we practice, and it asks us that we dedicate ourselves fully to this effort. The more intent and dedication we put forth, the easier it is to abide in a space of freedom.

In the third talk in a series on the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings, Zuisei speaks on the third awareness: enjoying serenity and tranquility.

Serenity, or equanimity, is a quality that the Buddha spoke of frequently. As a state of mind that fosters non-attachment, equanimity gives us the ability to be grounded, stable, and capable of holding the totality of our experience, whatever that is.

Being equanimous doesn’t mean not feeling or not caring. On the contrary, it encourages us to care deeply without being disturbed by that caring. It means not being in conflict with one’s thoughts and emotions, with adverse circumstances, with others. Fundamentally, it comes from seeing others as ourselves.