The Zen Studies Podcast

From the time of the Buddha, Buddhists have spent time contemplating impermanence - often by deliberately meditating on their own mortality and eventual death. This practice isn't for everyone, but it can help motivate us stay motivated to practice, focus on our deepest aspirations, take responsibility for our karma, maintain equanimity, and remember the preciousness of this moment. It can also lead to profound insights about the nature of the self.

Offering you another episode on zazen risks me repeating myself, but I don't think it hurts to offer a fresh new talk on zazen periodically. The practice – while profoundly simple – also can be frustratingly elusive. What are you supposed to do during zazen, anyway? We're told to just sit, and then allow thoughts to come and go, neither chasing them nor pushing them away. Is that it? In this episode I explore exactly what we're supposed to be doing in zazen, and how to know if we're doing it correctly.

The core teaching of Zen is that understanding the true nature of self is of the utmost importance to living a life that is liberated, compassionate, generous, wise, and skillful. Mindful examination of a subject like the self classically involves something akin to deconstruction; once we recognize the component parts of something, our sense of it as monolithic thing or force is undermined. I parse "the self" into six aspects, and discuss how each relates to our practice.

When we play wholeheartedly, we engage the world with energy, joy, lightheartedness, and enthusiasm, welcoming challenge and enjoying our activity for its own sake. We rarely have the same attitude toward our work, responsibilities, difficulties, or even our Buddhist practice. What if we did? Chan Master Hongzhi suggests a playful attitude might actually be an enlightened one.

Uchiyama Roshi's Opening the Hand of Thought is a great book for the beginner as well as the advanced practitioner of Zen. Uchiyama manages to balance philosophical discussion of the most challenging Zen topics - the nature of zazen, and awakening to universal self - with a compassionate, down-to-earth, creative (and sometimes humorous) style that makes you think, "I just might get it this time!"

This book is a treasure in that it collects in one place the essential subjects and themes of Kyogen Carlson's teaching, which remains faithful to his Soto Zen lineage through Roshi Jiyu Kennett but reflects Kyogen's ability to express the Dharma in a down-to-earth, inviting, but nonetheless challenging way.

In this episode I review Issho Fujita's Polishing a Tile. This is far and away my favorite book on zazen of all time, and it covers other essential aspects of Zen practice as well. This book isn't available as a hard copy, although I wish it was! However, you can access a pdf online in a number of places.

In the last episode, I talked about the new phenomenon of a virtual space for practice, including its merits and benefits. In this episode, I talk about the merits of practicing in a "Dirt Zendo" - a physical practice space, in-the-flesh. I then describe, at Bright Way Zen, we are attempting to create a sense of Term Details"> Sangha that connects and includes anyone who practices with us, regardless of whether they participate in-the-flesh, online (in our Cloud Zendo), or both.

Since COVID lockdown, Buddhist communities have greatly expanded their online practice opportunities. Virtual spaces are surprisingly effective for practice and building a sense of Sangha. Many Buddhist and Zen centers are now facing the prospect of permanently including options for virtual participation, which brings many opportunities but also many challenges. I discuss how the virtual and physical practice spaces look at my Zen center, and how we structure hybrid meetings. Then I talk about the merits of what we call the "Cloud Zendo." In my next episode, I'll discuss the merits of a good old-fashioned physical practice space, which we call the "Dirt Zendo," and the ways my Zen center is trying to integrate and care for both of our Zendos and create a sense of being one Sangha.