In the first of a series of talks on the Four Vows, Bokushu looks at the value of life through the first vow “Sentient Beings are numberless: I vow to save them.”

In this talk senior student Tokuyu starts with issues his music students have with recognition, and the feeling of lack and never achieving enough.  Tokuyu looks at how psychology and physiology combine to create internal anger that can lead to chronic pain. This theory is expressed in the book “Healing Back Pain” by the late […]

November 11, 2018

In this talk Roshi fondly remembers her recently departed teacher Zen Master Bernie Glassman. She recounts how they met, and how Bernie used his actions and activism to teach and inspire a new kind of Zen practice. Roshi then shifts to the koan “Dongshan’s No Grass” and sees Bernie’s teaching of stillness in the midst […]

The punchline to the old stories is always the same: some monk was suddenly enlightened. What really happened back then, and what happens to us today when we have an experience of insight?

In this talk, Jiryu offers the following message: If we treat the Zen precepts as a set of rules to obey, that’s just conformity. Let’s use them instead as a tool for busting the hierarchy!

In this talk Eisho looks into the Heart Sutra in a fresh and inviting way. Recorded October 28th 2018.

In this talk, Soshin shares her experience bearing witness at the Montparnasse Cemetery and on Wikipedia. Recorded October 14, 2018.

In his talk during October’s zazenkai, Ryotan Sensei shares how the foot before and the foot behind in walking get nowhere, and everywhere. Recorded October 13, 2018.

In this talk, Kaku Hoshi offers an idea of what Dogen’s report to the MeToo movement might be.