In Buddhism, there is a ceremony called “Jukai” which means receiving the precepts – where one takes up a public commitment to living our life by the precepts.

How we practice with the precepts. Discussion of Joko’s Beck emphasis on the importance of “experiencing” and “observation” and “labelling”. A Self-compassion approach to the precepts also includes considering our own needs as well as the needs of others.

Clarifying this great matter of life and death. Who dies?

Introduction to the precepts in Zen Buddhism. Dogen’s understanding of the precepts as expressions of our True Nature or Universal Self. In this talk I discuss how precept practice can be understood as the practice of self-compassion.

How to live a life of purpose and meaning? How to become an oasis of sanity and compassion in a crazy and often violent world? A Zen commentary on the myth of Sisyphus.

How to live a life of purpose and meaning? How to become an oasis of sanity and compassion in a crazy and often violent world? A Zen commentary on the myth of Sisyphus.

Ordinary doesn’t mean our normal, delusionary mind, neither does it exclude our normal, delusionary mind.

Begins with a discussion of the uncertainty that is inherent to life. What’s the only thing we can depend upon? Zazen can be seen as a alchemical container transforming our delusions into gold, or our suffering into compassion.

“To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forward and illuminate the self is awakening.” This talk is a commentary on these two lines from Dogen’s Genjokoan.

In zazen, we investigate both the nature of reality and the nature of suffering. However, our investigation is not a thinking activity. We investigate through our awareness of awareness and our ability to be just awareness.