Zencare Podcast

“How open am I? Who and what do I not welcome in?” – Koshin

Providing safe harbor and true welcome to all others is deeply courageous. The Statue of Liberty symbolizes the bodhisattva vow to exclude nothing and no one from our care and compassion. “How many of us are that open?”

In this dharma talk, Koshin Sensei reflects on a recent visit to Liberty Island. He is moved to imagine what his own sojourning ancestors must have felt seeing this ‘mother of exiles,’ as Emma Lazarus refers to Lady Liberty, for the first time. The statue, an enormous beacon to our highest ideals as a nation, strikes an active pose. Her heel is raised, about to take another step forward, communicating the provocative truth that real welcome is an active, ongoing process. How often do we get complacent and sit back to passively stand by while the challenging surges of life assail us? Can we be moved to practice courageous welcome as an active, open, and curious response to all others? This is the bodhisattva vow. For Koshin, it brings to mind Dogen’s central question: If the “…way is basically perfect and all-pervading…”then  “[w]hat is the use of going off here and there to practice?” When we decide that only some things and some beings matter, we divide what is originally and perfectly whole and “the mind is lost in confusion.” May we practice being open together and learn to include more and more of ourselves and others. “Constantly perform in such a manner,” Dogen teaches, “and you are assured of being a person.”       

ZENTALK NOTES

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“When the mind calms down, we can treat ourselves and others more authentically.” – Chodo Campbell 

Morality and right ethical conduct is not about appearing a certain way or trying to look good. Doing what is right is about owning your own shit, vowing with every misstep to act more skillfully, and continuing to practice what you truly value with others. How can you pull yourself together over and over again to experience a life of freedom and connection?  

In this dharma talk, Chodo Sensei explores Sila, the paramita of ethical conduct or moral discipline. The occasion for these teachings is the Contemplative Care Retreat which gathered around the theme of “The Nobility of Imperfection”. Beginning with the verse of atonement, Chodo invites us to face our minds and actions exactly as they are in the messiness and confusion of life. Drawing on his own experiences and the insight from Norman Fischer that “…wrong conduct unsettles the mind and heart…,” we are encouraged to find our breath and take our seats to help settle our minds and ground ourselves in this moment.  It is difficult to see what is fresh and new when we are caught up in the swirl of unskillful behaviors, Chodo tells us. How can we interrupt unhealthy habits and begin again, right now? This talk concludes with Zen Master Raven and daffodils teaching us more about liberation.   

ZENTALK NOTES

Chodo Campbell Sensei is a Zen teacher, bereavement specialist, grief counselor and a recognized leader for those suffering with the complexities of death & dying, aging, and sobriety.  The educational non-profit he co-founded, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, touches thousands of lives every year through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices. Chodo has been featured in the New York Times, PBS, CBS Sunday Morning and other media outlets. 

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“Living fully is not an idea. Tenderness and compassion are always the barometer of how practice is going.” – Koshin Paley Ellison

Uncertainty about elections. Dozens of active wars around the globe. “Where do you focus?” Koshin Sensei asks. What practice guides your life? 

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei names where we find ourselves. Within the whirls of conflict, chaos, confusion, and upheaval we must be evermore receptive. The dharmas are boundless. What we celebrate and we what we abhor are opportunities to remain grounded in our practice. What grounds your practice, your life? Seeking after the right view and learning to act wisely means understanding that ethical precepts are not ideas. Living fully is not an idea. How are you able to approach others with tenderness and compassion? Koshin asks us to reflect on this question by turning our attention to teachings from Dogen Zenji’s work entitled Zenki, or “Full Function”. The founder of the Soto Zen lineage of Buddhism writes that “…there is leaving life and death, and there is entering life and death; and both are the great way exhaustively investigated.” What would it look like for you to be fully functioning in all your relationships? Together, with tenderness and compassion, may we exhaustively investigate how we are showing up in the world.   

ZENTALK NOTES

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“If we are going to maintain our practice carefully, we have to pay careful attention to what we think is not welcome.” – Koshin Paley Ellison

Our lives are complicated. Full of love and light; anger and judgment. Can we resist deciding too quickly what should and should not be welcomed in? 

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei shares teachings from Dogen Zenji about the precepts. “The great precepts of the Buddha are maintained carefully.” and “Receiving the precepts we are beyond the three times.” These gems are explored by Koshin as he offers his remarks directly after returning from a retreat with participants in the New York Zen Center’s Contemplative Medicine Fellowship. The Fellows, as medical professionals, have committed to living the bodhisattva vow to help others. But, like all of us, how they think, talk to themselves, and function in the world gets chunky and gunky. The heart-mind needs to be regularly swept clean. We should be carefully maintaining our practice by looking directly, and without flinching, at everything coming up within ourselves and happening in our relationships. “We are sure that what we think is true, and then we meet other people,” Koshin reminds us. Are we able to welcome all others as important teachers?  Shakyamuni Buddha, the great stories tell us, actually welcomed Mara in. We are encouraged to learn and understand what all of life has to teach us, perhaps especially from those we despise or find disgusting. Anyone who gets under our skin may be the best spiritual friend. They show you where the limits of your compassion are. May we practice being direct and unflinching with what our lives are showing us and be open to constantly learning together how to be more spacious and connected.  

ZENTALK NOTES

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“How are you indulging your bulls@$t? How are you indulging your mistaken understandings?” – Koshin Paley Ellison 

The awakening Way is not an idea. How can we free ourselves from the ideas of practice in order to practice? 

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei continues to engage with Dogen Zenji’s “Deportment of the Practicing Buddha” by paying close attention to the following lines: “Those who are not practicing buddhas are not yet liberated from the bonds of the buddha…’Bonds of the buddha,’ means precisely to be bound by the very knowledge, the very understanding that knows and understands bodhi as bodhi. We pass through each moment of thought without expectation of a time of liberation, vainly given over to our mistaken understandings. To understand bodhi as bodhi must be the knowledge that accords with bodhi.” Koshin encourages us to see how we can get caught up in our concepts and assumptions about what a practicing Buddha is. How do you not get bound up by an idea and just show up to do what is loving and kind? When we practice fully engaging with what each moment has to offer, we see the destruction and pain and separation all around us. We confront the sorrows of this world. But there is always more. When we are open, Koshin teaches, “joy is also possible where we think it isn’t. Sorrow and joy are side by side.” When we live our lives in service to others, we will receive feedback and notice opportunities to learn to flow with praise and correction. “Everything can be used to see the quality of your mind,” Koshin reminds us in this talk. How are you vainly given over to your mistaken understandings? How can you completely show up for others with love and compassion?    

ZENTALK NOTES

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“It is not enough that your carcass is here. Are you really alive to who you are, who you’re with, and what is around you in this moment?”  – Koshin Paley Ellison 

Can you bring more liveliness into your life? Whether walking down the street or sitting zazen, Koshin Sensei invites us to practice being fully alive, keenly attuned to the present. Too often, because we are human, we move in and out of touch with what each moment has to offer. Come back. Again and again, practice.

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin continues his series of talks on Dogen Zenji’s gyobutusu iigi, “Deportment of the Practicing Buddha.” Dogen writes, “For this practicing buddha, since his deportment appears in each thing, his deportment appears before his body; his teaching spills out before his words, spanning the times, spanning the directions, spanning the buddhas, spanning the practices.” The Way is about how one carries oneself. This is a central teaching. Deportment has something to do with posture, bearing, presence, and totally inhabiting your body and mind. Koshin encourages us not to merely follow our stream of thoughts and waves feelings wherever they take us. Rather, we are to allow the practice to spread its influence and grow to become that from which all our words and actions flow. This way of engaging with ourselves and others, Koshin reminds us, is dynamic and attuned and alive. Bring this liveliness into everything you do. This is how we will be able to meet whatever arises. Our thoughts may bounce from one thing to another or ruminate on one thing for hours. We may go from feeling bored, raw, tender, challenged, connected, and triggered from one minute to the next. How can we hold all of this? Can we remain in relationship? May we keep showing up to everything we do. And continue to do this together. 

ZENTALK NOTES

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“We need enthusiasm for practice to meet this opportunity, to show up to our life, right now.” – Koshin

Can you bring increased vigor and enthusiasm to your relationships, to your life? The pāramitā of virya is active and connecting. It does not have to appear or sound a certain way, but being vigorous has everything to do with how we show up. As Koshin Sensei observes, “You can feel when someone is completely with you.”   

In this dharma talk, from NYZC’s recent Contemplative Care Retreat, Koshin leans further into the theme of The Nobility of Imperfection by exploring virya, often translated as vigor or enthusiasm. While the six pāramitās are certainly interconnected, Koshin turns his full attention to virya in this challenging and spirited talk. Actually being of service to others requires that we be wholehearted. No maybes or we’ll sees. An enthusiasm for practice and an enthusiasm for caring go hand-in-hand for Koshin. To think otherwise is delusion. Drawing on his teacher/student relationship as an exemplar, Koshin emphasizes his vow to say ‘Yes’ to what is being asked of him at the bedside, in sangha, in life. We are invited to closely at our lives and to reflect deeply on what we do. What is holding you back?   

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“Compassion only really happens in community.” – Koshin

How does the nobility of our imperfection become a place of deep connection? 

In this dharma talk from the opening night of the Contemplative Care Retreat, Koshin Sensei introduces us to the Six Paramitas, often called the ‘six perfections,’ of dana, sila, ksanti, virya, dhyana, and prajna.  These are qualities to practice and life gives us chances to reflect on how our practice is going. How are we being generous, or stingy? Where in our lives can we be more patient? How can we bring more vigor or enthusiasm to our relationships?  It is actually not about reaching perfection, but about honoring however it is we keep showing up. Shakyamuni Buddha, Koshin reminds us, teaches us that the very thing we think makes us such a wretch is actually what makes us noble, which allows us to belong. Do you harbor a fear that if others really knew you, they would reject you? In this talk, Koshin encourages us to set down the artifice of perfection and allow the perfectly imperfect you to connect with others. That which you think will be the cause of your rejection, is really a gate through which true connections and relationship are possible. 

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“Moments in extremis point us to what is important, what is real.” – Koshin

How do you come to know who you really are and what you truly care about? Opportunities to learn are constant. 

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei speaks to us from within the waning moments of an unpleasant physical experience. Exhaustion, he teaches us, is a great place of practice. During any given day, or minute, of our life, we experience all kinds of sensations, feel all the feels, and are gifted myriad chances to learn something. “How do you avail yourself to receive teaching?” Koshin asks. He pays close attention to the way his fatigue can trigger a familiar response, the thought to cancel whatever is on the schedule for the day. But is tiredness the only feeling? What else is true? A liveliness, a quiet softness, and curiosity are also present. We are never just one thing. Whatever we ‘know’ we can always understand more deeply. This is why the student/teacher relationship is so important in Soto Zen. Through intimate relationship, our minds are turned to see more of reality – internally and externally. In this talk, we hear about Bodhidharma’s teacher, Prajnatara, and about how Prajnatara was instructed by her teacher in such a manner as to inspire these lines of poetry. 

Moonlight reflected in the bottom of the pond is bright in the sky;

The water reaching to the sky is totally clear and pure.

Though you scoop it up repeatedly and try to know it,

Vast, clarifying all, it remains unknown. – Keizan Zenji     

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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“If the duality of good and bad is broken through, then there is real good.” – Harada Roshi

Aphids, flies, worms, tigers, all living beings move away from discomfort. “Most of us spend most of our time sealing ourselves off from real connection,” Koshin Sensei observes. What Shakyamuni Buddha understood is that the miracle of human life is the ability to face what makes us uncomfortable, to see what separates us, and do something different. This glimpse of freedom is a capacity in all of us.  Change does not just happen. If you leave it to hope it will not happen. It takes energy not entropy. It takes practice and it can only happen together. Will you have the resolve to see it through?

In this recent dharma talk on the penultimate day of our last practice period (Commit to Sit), Koshin leans into what Harada Roshi calls the process of buddhahood. “It’s very important to look upon yourself with the knowledge that there is still a lot of work left to do. Awakening is to be deepened and deepened–awakening upon awakening.” Harada Roshi is reminding us that there is “ever-still-more”.

The opportunities to practice seeing our minds are everywhere. Will we stay with the practice or will we just continue to come and go? Try something for while then go somewhere else? This is very popular, Koshin says, both in Harada Roshi’s Japan and here. We often say we are too busy, have too many things to do, and have no time.

“The beauty of the process of buddhahood,” Koshin teaches us in the talk, “is really learning how to show up, to shut up.” Zazen is a delicious feast. Stay with it, stay connected, and continue into the freedom that is always available. Stop feeding your old patterns and conditioning. “What would it be life if you didn’t make excuses, just made the effort to show up to your life?”  

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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