The OzZen Podcast

In this talk I am going to share some self-reflections on the metaphor of awakening from the self-centred dream. Self-reflection means I simply ask myself a question to investigate and reflect upon my own experience. I am not suggesting that the understanding that I develop is necessarily the same as what you would come up with. But if we all participate in self-reflection we can then engage in dialogue with each other and then dialogue becomes another method of inquiry.

This talk is about working with Right Effort in everyday life and noticing the tendency to want to control and force outcomes. Seeing how this strategy of our core beliefs to control life, is a form of clinging and creates resistance and suffering. We explore the possibility of moving towards flow states where we pause and check in with our inner wisdom and trust and not take everything so personally. Knowing the deep interconnectivity and impermanence of life, we can still perform at our best, but our work becomes part of something bigger, and we can reach out for help. We become lighter, calmer and more open to creative solutions.

On receiving transmission of the precepts in the denkai ceremony, it is customary in our tradition, that the recipient gives a dharma talk acknowledging their teachers and the teaching path they feel called towards.

On receiving transmission of the precepts in the denkai ceremony, it is customary in our tradition, that the recipient gives a dharma talk acknowledging their teachers and the teaching path they feel called towards.

This dharma talk explores how the Zen teaching of “not two, not one” offers a middle way for relationships by holding together intimacy and difference, love and fear, and oneness and individuality. It suggests that spiritual practice and honest relationship both invite us to become intimate with the protective patterns that arise from fear, while trusting that love, grounded in safety, awareness, and compassion, can soften those patterns. Drawing on attachment theory, psychotherapy, Martin Buber’s distinction between I-It and I-Thou, and contemporary relational thinkers, the talk presents the Buddhist precepts as practical guides for meeting others with respect rather than objectification. In this way, our closest relationships become part of the path, teaching us that genuine oneness is not found by erasing difference, but by recognising and caring for it.

This dharma talk reflects on the meaning of denkai transmission as a deep commitment to receive, embody, and pass on the Zen precepts within sangha life. It explores transmission not simply as ceremonial authority, but as the living expression of compassion, responsibility, and relationship in everyday life, while honouring both continuity with tradition and the unique ways each practitioner expresses the dharma. Through the example of Louise and Jack, the talk also points to the importance of creating the conditions—personal, communal, and environmental—that allow practice to flourish and be carried forward into future generations.

This talk explores how Zen practice is supported by a felt sense of safety in three interconnected ways: having a secure home or practice environment, learning to feel safe within one’s own body and mind, and co-creating a trustworthy relational community. Drawing on attachment theory and polyvagal theory, it suggests that spiritual practice is not separate from our human vulnerability, but depends on conditions of safety, co-regulation, and connection that help body and mind settle. Rather than treating agitation or calm as good or bad, the talk invites us to meet each changing moment with compassion and wisdom, while understanding refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as an embodied experience of belonging, care, and love. In this way, zazen becomes not an escape from dependence and relationship, but a rediscovery of home within ourselves and with one another.

This nondual wisdom is the realisation that this is it. To me this is the meaning of realisation, awakening and enlightenment. To be enlightened is to love what is unconditionally. To say yes to everything. It’s all okay. But as human beings we struggle to say yes to everything. And this is it too!

I take refuge in Buddha.

I take refuge in Dharma.

I take refuge in Sangha.

In this talk invite you all to contemplate what the three Buddhist refuges mean to you on a personal level. To do this, I present three different perspectives on how the refuges (and the other precepts) have been understood from the Zen Buddhist tradition I belong to:

1. The Literal Perspective.

2. The Relative or Relational Perspective; and

3. The Absolute or Nonseparation Perspective.

Each different perspective is relevant to our practice and contributes to why we refer to the three refuges as the three treasures.

In this talk, we explore dependent arising: our deep interconnections in time and space with all existence. Deeply realising this, brings us to see the emptiness of self and to lose our fear of loss and even death. We look at engaged Buddhism and through poetic verse practice kinship and kindness in a novel way.