Ocean Mind Sangha

By Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

A collection of dharma talks by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, Guiding Teacher at Ocean Mind Sangha.

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FAQs about Ocean Mind Sangha:

How many episodes does Ocean Mind Sangha have?

The podcast currently has 185 episodes available.

Ocean Mind Sangha episodes:

June 04, 2016 The First Bodhisattva Vow
This talk explores the first Bodhisattva Vow: Beings are numberless; I vow to save them. What does it mean to save another being? What does it mean to relieve someone else’s suffering?
As Zuisei explains, “… a bodhisattva enables others to be released from suffering by releasing his or her own suffering. By recognizing another’s pain as my own pain…by trusting that the best medicine is to turn to another and ask, ‘How can I help you?’”
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36min
March 27, 2016 The Four Bodhisattva Vows
No one is free until everyone is free. To take the Bodhisattva Vows is to commit fully to liberating all beings—despite of the insurmountability of the notion of ending all suffering.
In this introductory talk to a series exploring the Four Bodhisattva Vows, Zuisei explains why commitment to the path of a Bodhisattva is essential— why we cannot give up, even in a world with so much suffering and oppression.
“To save the environment and this planet? Impossible. To establish racial, gender, sexual, and age equality? Impossible. To put an end to poverty and hunger? Impossible.” Yet we vow to fulfill these vows, because we understand it is the only way to free ourselves and others from suffering.
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38min
March 13, 2016 Giving Paramita
Giving or dana paramita invites us to move outside of our conditioning, which primes us toward scarcity and individualism, and into an understanding that we are actually living in the midst of abundance. That’s why dana paramita is the first of the perfections— it is something that all of us can do, and the gift we offer touches not only others, but also ourselves.
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37min
February 28, 2016 Truthfulness Paramita
“Who will teach me how to live?” a student asks in Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.
In this talk, Zuisei speaks on the seventh paramita—truthfulness—and its critical place on the path to cultivating freedom for ourselves and for all beings.
Only each one of us can learn from our own expression, our own actions, skillful or not. But because every time we set down a mark, take an action, we affect the whole world, we’re actually saying that teaching ourselves how to live is the same as everything—every creature and every thing—teaching us.
Recorded at Zen Mountain Monastery 02/28/2016
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39min
January 31, 2016 Lovingkindness Paramita
Lovingkindness, one of the Four Imeasurables, is also the ninth of the ten paramis or paramitas (perfections). In this talk Zuisei speaks of the hunger we all have for love and warmth, for the touch, the regard, of another human being. We are hungry to belong and to know ourselves as part of a whole. Lovingkindness for ourselves can teach us that we have never been apart, never been broken. That is why we’re able to offer immeasurable love to ourselves and others.
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33min
January 18, 2016 Equanimity Paramita
To cultivate equanimity is to cultivate a stable quality of mind that is not swayed by externalities— it is strong, peaceful, and easeful in every moment. In this talk, Zuisei says: “It’s not unfeeling, it’s not uncaring, it’s not cold or distant or even protected. It is unshakeable. It is a mind free of suffering.”
This talk is part of a series of talks on the Ten Paramitas.
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31min
January 17, 2016 Equanimity Paramita
To cultivate equanimity is to cultivate a stable quality of mind that is not swayed by externalities— it is strong, peaceful, and easeful in every moment. In this talk, Zuisei says: “It’s not unfeeling, it’s not uncaring, it’s not cold or distant or even protected. It is unshakeable. It is a mind free of suffering.”
This talk is part of a series of talks on the Ten Paramitas.
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31min
January 10, 2016 The Five Remembrances
How often do we contemplate the inevitability of our own mortality?
The Buddha taught that as humans, we are of the nature to grow old, to get sick, to die, to become separated from all things dear to us, and that our actions are our only true belongings. These teachings, called the Five Remembrances, point directly to the fragile and impermanent nature of life.
As Zuisei says in this talk on the Five Remembrances: “This is not a pessimistic teaching. It’s not meant to bring you down— quite the opposite. It’s meant to remind you of the preciousness of human life. It’s meant to give us a way to fully appreciate the gift that we’ve been given, so that we can live completely. So we can keep our eye on what’s most important.”
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32min
January 09, 2016 Determination Paramita
In the eighth talk in this series of ten talks on the paramitas or perfections, Zuisei speaks on determination as “the unshakeable resolve to do whatever benefits others.”
Determination helps us to keep moving forward and keep discovering what there is to uncover along this path. It is a fierce commitment to realizing our potential and awakening, despite all hardship and possible resistance.
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34min
December 30, 2015 Wisdom Paramita
In this last talk in the series of ten talks on the paramitas or perfections, Zuisei speaks on prajna paramita, also known as the perfection of wisdom, and the Mother of all Buddhas.
Zuisei says, “[With wisdom] we can practice more skillfully, more effectively. We see that in this construct of the self, there are no rafters, no ridge pole, no house builder. If every time we pull a brick or two and when the house begins to wobble, we rush in to build it back up, then it becomes impossible to see. So it takes a certain kind of determination to tear up the house beam by beam and not hesitate when things begin to look a little bare.”
To move towards the cultivation of prajna paramita is to bravely embrace bare emptiness— total freedom.
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41min

FAQs about Ocean Mind Sangha:

How many episodes does Ocean Mind Sangha have?

The podcast currently has 185 episodes available.