Turning: Everyday Buddhism

Join me for a special summer mirror episode of the podcast, Zen At The Sharp End by Mark Westmoquette where I was invited to talk about my experience with "troublesome Buddhas."

The Zen At The Sharp End podcast focuses on how to turn difficult people and relationships into your best teachers. In each episode, Mark and guests discuss how Buddhist and mindfulness practices can help us see our difficult people or situations as troublesome Buddhas, our greatest teachers.

I am sharing this episode of Mark's podcast on my podcast because I think what Mark has to teach with this method is something everyone of my listeners can benefit from. I am painfully honest in the episode, so I debated sharing it directly with you, but I believe it is in our shared vulnerability that Buddhist practice comes alive.

Join me for a very special conversation with Ashley Lynn Olson, the author of the book, Confined to Align, and the author of a life that has consistently defied the odds. And that is, in no small part, due to her unbelievable spirit and ability to steer her thoughts, emotions, … and her life into the positive.

As you will hear, Ashley has overcome obstacles in her life that would knock many of so far down we would have trouble ever looking up again, including a car accident that killed her father and paralyzed her when she was fourteen years old.

But she demonstrates an amazing attitude—dare I say a "Buddhist" way of seeing life—evident from this quote from her book:

"Choose to choose. Feeling confined is a choice…. Choose compassion for yourself and those around you. Choose to see your situation as an opportunity to expand internally, or better yet, as a moment in time-space to re-align and focus on your path of well-being and purpose…."

Click play to listen to a conversation with Ashley you won't soon forget!

Buy the book: Confined to Align: A Journey to Wellbeing

Learn more about Ashley by visiting her website: https://wheelchairtraveling.com/

Her YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/wheelchairtraveler08

And her Instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/wheelchairtraveling/

Click here to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices For Real Change

Join me for a conversation with Arlene Faulk, as we talk about the ups and downs of living with the symptoms, diagnosis, and eventual healing of Multiple Sclerosis. Arlene went from a career as business executive to a calling as a Tai Chi teacher.

In the next two episodes, Episode 72 and Episode 73, I am in conversation with two amazing women who demonstrate with their lives how we can actively accept what seems unacceptable. Although these episodes represent something out of the ordinary for this podcast, they illustrate, in sharp detail, how everything changes and things that we don't want to happen to us WILL happen to us.

After these two episodes, look for another Bonus Contemplation on the Five Remembrances for members of the Community and the Sangha, presented by Bradley Nussbaum.

Join the Membership Community or Everyday Sangha now if you want to catch each of the upcoming Bonus Contemplations: Join Membership Community | Join the Everyday Sangha

Enjoy a preview of a NEW Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation.

They will be released regularly and presented by myself or some of my Bright Dawn Lay Minister/lay ministry student friends and colleagues.

To be sure you don't miss any of them, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community: Join the Membership Community

or the Everyday Sangha: Join the Everyday Sangha

Rev. Gyomay Kubose, my teacher's father, wrote about "purposeless purpose." He said: "Too much intelligence or too much efficiency can create trouble. So, we must learn non-intelligence, which is super intelligence." Does that sound nonsensical?

Our sangha is studying The Diamond Sutra now and it is filled with reasoning (or non reasoning?) like that. It is the the superpower of the Dharma because the wisdom it contains is transcendent. You can't "get there" from here, by what is normally considered intelligence. You can only get there by learning "non-intelligence", as Rev. Gyomay teaches.

My overall word of advice for enjoying being a student of the Dharma is to relax and not try to "figure it out." One of the main points of practicing with the Prajnaparamita sutras is to NOT try and understand it. That is what these sutras are teaching: It's NOT understanding. It's NOT about concepts. It's about living.

Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"

Red Pine's translation and commentary of The Diamond Sutra

And books from Rev. Koyo Kubose and Rev. Gyomay Kubose: Bright Dawn: Discovering Your Everyday Spirituality Everyday Suchness: Buddhist Essays on Everyday Living

The Center Within

In the past year I've noticed a feeling of "disappearing" in the world ... and to the world. A sense of my slipping relevance to the people and world around me. Yet, the good news about seeming to disappear is that it reveals the absolute truth of things as they are.

Am I disappearing or am I transcending? It's a simple twist of the head. A change in perception. A change in awareness that I realize through an understanding of emptiness, Japanese psychology, and the experience of meditation.

Listen as I talk about my incredible disappearing self that happens through meditation and through the understanding that active acceptance is the key to transcending. Holding on to what I think I might be losing keeps me suffering like a shimmering ghost that is unable to let go. Actively accepting the naturalness of this disappearance kills me completely.

Book, by Karl Brunnholzl, mentioned in this podcast: The Heart Attack Sutra: A New Commentary on the Heart Sutra

My book, mentioned in this podcast: Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices For Real Change

My teacher, mentor, and friend, Rev. Sunnan Koyo Kubose passed away suddenly last month. In his honor, I'm replaying Episode 20, a special interview with him, as the first of a series of episodes dedicated to honoring my teachers. It is through Bright Dawn and my Sensei, I learned how to bring Buddhism into the everyday.

Listen as we discuss what the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and its Lay Ministry program is all about, from Rev. Koyo's perspective ... its historical influences, its mission, vision, and special niche as a program bringing the Dharma to everyone in an ordinary, everyday way.

We'll talk about the balance of gratitude, humility, ambiguity, uncertainty, perfect studentship, and — most importantly — naturalness, in Bright Dawn and it's lay ministers, as they bring the Dharma to everyone.

Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism" And books from Rev. Koyo Kubose and Rev. Gyomay Kubose: Bright Dawn: Discovering Your Everyday Spirituality Everyday Suchness: Buddhist Essays on Everyday Living

The Center Within

Join me for a delightful conversation with Vanessa Sasson who told the Buddha's story in a way you probably never heard it. She masterfully places you in the lives of Siddhartha and his wife, Yasodhara, as Siddhartha comes to grips with suffering for the first time. His obsession with ridding the world of the suffering that so many accept as part of life, is his calling. Sasson's calling was to write this story, based on her many years of study, as a Buddhist and religious scholar, but—most importantly—engaging with her imagination to bring the reader right in the middle of it, as she "feels the story of the Buddha's life." Vanessa Sasson urges us to see Buddhism as an engaged imagination. Buddhist text is open-ended and invites you to tell the story as you imagine it in your own life. Put away your concepts and "play with" the bigness of the story Sasson tells. Find out more about Vanessa Sasson: https://www.vanessarsasson.com/

Join me for a fascinating conversation with Arthur Brooks, where we talk about two of his 12 books, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt and From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, his new book just released this week. Because we talk about both books, it is a wide-ranging conversation, but I think I can summarize it by using Arthur's words from this episode. He talks about how we see ourselves and others as objects when he said, "When you can't humanize yourself, good luck humanizing anyone else."

I invited Arthur to this podcast after reading his book, Love Your Enemies, where I heard a strong and rare voice in our current climate of divisiveness, urging us to look past the illusion of our separateness. A Buddhist theme, for sure. Or as Arthur said, "The sound of one hand clapping is an illusion, just like the illusion of the separateness of different people." Go to https://arthurbrooks.com/ for more about his books, podcast, and speaking engagements.

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