Pandemic Zen

By Paul Gerstein, MD

What's Pandemic Zen about?

An experimental podcast exploring the healing and life-sustaining potential of Zen insight, meditation and mindfulness in a modern world of existential challenges to health, happiness and our very survival.

Recorded by:

Paul Gerstein, MD

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Pandemic Zen episodes:

04.24.2024
At the End of Time
Talk to Zen retreat group on how to approach the "end" of everything. We discuss koan #29 from the Hekigan Roku: "It will be gone with the other."
03.03.2024
An Invisible Shield
This is a Zen lecture (teisho) to a virtual retreat group. We start with a TV commercial from the 1950s and progress to the strange "preliminary koan" called, The Duck in the Bottle.
10.11.2021
Zen lecture: ”Lotus Leaves”
In this episode, Paul gives a teisho (Zen lecture) on a koan from The Blue Cliff Record (a Tang and Sung dynasty collection of 100 teaching stories). Recorded by: Paul Gerstein, MD Intro music: Dancing for the Answers by Nick Mulvey Ending music:...
08.08.2020
Hopeless and Fearless
In this episode, we discuss the rapidly worsening pandemic in the U.S. and the troubling opposition by many to proven mitigation efforts. We examine the famous statement by Milarepa, an 11th century Tibetan master: “Abandon hope and fear.” Finally, a...
07.15.2020
Observation vs Belief
In this episode, Paul starts with a brief bio of his training in both medicine and Zen followed by a deep dive into facts and fictions regarding COVID-19. The contrast between blind beliefs and careful observation highlights how the scientific...
06.30.2020
Something's Happening Here
The release of a cellphone video of the killing of an African American jogger, followed by one of a Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, leads to a world-wide explosion of outrage over racism and police brutality.
06.30.2020
Freeze Frame
Paul discusses the ongoing pandemic and its effects on our psyches and everyday lives.
06.29.2020
Jumping on the Horse Thief’s Horse
Podcast channel is given the name, “Pandemic Zen” and the general theme of using mindfulness to deal with real-life adversity.
06.29.2020
That I Am
Going further into “Stopping” and the reliance on intellectual meaning vs. the “meaning” of the sheer experience of sensory actuality.
06.29.2020
Pandemic Zen
In this first episode, Paul discusses the implications of the global COVID-19 pandemic and how attending to one’s sensations can be a doorway to a fresh relationship with the challenges of everyday life.

What's Pandemic Zen about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Pandemic Zen episodes:

At the End of Time

An Invisible Shield

Zen lecture: ”Lotus Leaves”

Hopeless and Fearless

Observation vs Belief

Something's Happening Here

Freeze Frame

Jumping on the Horse Thief’s Horse

That I Am

Pandemic Zen