Claim OwnershipZen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks
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© 2026 Zen Community of Oregon
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New podcasts every Tues, Thurs and Sat. Here you can find talks from various teachers involved with the Zen Community of Oregon. We share talks from our retreats, as well as our different weekly offerings between Great Vow Zen Monastery and Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple.
Zen Community of Oregon's purpose is to express and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teachings, as transmitted through an authentic, historical lineage. To support and maintain Zen Buddhist practice in order to realize and actualize our Buddha nature in everyday life.
For more information, please visit zendust.org.
Zen Community of Oregon's purpose is to express and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teachings, as transmitted through an authentic, historical lineage. To support and maintain Zen Buddhist practice in order to realize and actualize our Buddha nature in everyday life.
For more information, please visit zendust.org.
768 Episodes
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Hogen explores the central role of direct experience in practice, emphasizing that true understanding arises from living and sensing life, not just intellectual knowledge. He reflects on how retreats and meditation provide opportunities to experience clarity, presence, and insight, and why these experiences can fade when we return to habitual patterns. Hogen discusses the balance between respecting the miracle of life and the evolutionary growth of our practice, stressing that faith, practice, and engagement with others turn insight into living wisdom. He reminds us that every listener is extraordinary and that the foundation of practice is both appreciation for life and the continual cultivation of mindfulness, generosity, and awareness. This talk was given on Feb 22 2026 at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple.
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In this talk, Jomon continues the February exploration of parinirvana and the teachings of death, weaving together reflections from Frank Ostaseski’s The Five Invitations with the story and symbolism of Jizo Bodhisattva. Known as a protector of travelers, children, and those navigating difficult realms, Jizo represents compassionate presence amid life’s uncertainty. Through stories, Buddhist cosmology, and the metaphor of spiritual pilgrimage, the talk invites listeners to meet difficulty directly, cultivate “don’t know mind,” and embody the bodhisattva qualities of benevolence, determination, fearlessness, optimism, and vow.
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In this talk, Jogen explores why it has become so difficult to show up for one another in a culture of endless options and easy canceling. Through the lens of Zen practice, he examines social anxiety, the tendency to overextend ourselves, and the role of the critical mind in undermining commitment. By clarifying our obligations and affinities, learning to sit with discomfort, and ultimately living by vow rather than momentary feelings, the talk points toward a more grounded and reliable way of relating—one rooted in presence, honesty, and spiritual maturity.
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n this talk, Hogen continues the series “Turning Problems into Wisdom,” exploring how challenges in everyday life can become opportunities for clarity and insight. Through a vivid story about a major septic system failure at the retreat center, he reflects on how calm attention, community cooperation, and practical action reveal the wisdom hidden within crisis. At the heart of the teaching is the Zen practice of “not knowing”—approaching life with curiosity, openness, and humility rather than fixed assumptions—allowing us to meet problems with creativity, equanimity, and a sense of wonder.
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In this talk, Jomon reflects on the first of Frank Ostaseski’s Five Invitations—“Don’t Wait”—and explores what death can teach us about living fully. Drawing on the Zen teaching Identity of Relative and Absolute (Sandokai), a traditional koan, and a meditation on the elements, the talk invites listeners to consider the constantly changing nature of body, mind, and world. Through contemplation of earth, water, fire, air, and space, we are reminded that we are not separate, solid selves but expressions of a larger unfolding reality—at once here and disappearing.
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In this Rohatsu talk, Kisei shares the story of the Buddha’s awakening and the journey that led to it. Beginning with the Buddha’s birth and the prophetic dream of his mother, the talk traces his sheltered life in the palace, the transformative encounter with the four sights, and his years of searching through meditation and austerities. Through mythic imagery and traditional teachings—including Mara’s temptations, the rediscovery of simple presence, and the moment of awakening beneath the Bodhi tree—this story invites listeners to reflect on their own spiritual path and the possibility of awakening within everyday life.
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In this episode, Jogen continues exploring how Zen practice moves beyond the meditation cushion and into daily life. Focusing on the Bodhisattva path, he reflects on generosity as the first and essential practice—expressed through simple acts like appreciation, attentiveness, sharing resources, and imagining the inner lives of others. Rather than striving to be “good,” he invites listeners to cultivate a generous heart that naturally flows from clarity and awareness, transforming ordinary moments into opportunities to bring a little more care, beauty, and ease into the world.
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In this episode, Jogen explores how Zen practice extends beyond the meditation cushion into the challenges of everyday life. From observing habitual thought patterns and interrupting unhelpful mental habits to cultivating pockets of quiet mind in daily tasks, he emphasizes continual practice as a path to clarity, awareness, and grace. Listeners are invited to engage with their own minds, relationships, and routines as living opportunities for mindfulness, reflection, and transformation.
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In this episode, Jomon reflects on death, impermanence, and how mindfulness can deepen our appreciation of life. Drawing from experiences with wildland firefighters, Zen retreats, and the teachings of Frank Ostasewski, she explores how turning toward mortality and grief can cultivate presence, compassion, and wholehearted living. Listeners are guided through practices to recognize impermanence, connect more deeply with others, and fully inhabit the precious moments we often take for granted.
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In this talk, Hogen explores how to bring spiritual practice to life in the face of life’s inevitable endings. From confronting illness and loss to observing the fleeting nature of thought and time, he offers practical guidance on calming the mind, grounding in the present moment, and discovering wisdom and compassion in even the most difficult situations. Listeners are invited to cultivate micro-awareness and find stability, clarity, and meaning right here, right now.
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Responding to a question about fame, influence, and “sacrificing one’s life to a cause,” Jogen explores the Buddhist teaching of the Eight Worldly Concerns: pleasure and displeasure, loss and gain, praise and blame, fame and infamy. He examines the deep human desire to be known, respected, and powerful, and the spiritual dangers hidden within recognition and status. Drawing on stories from Zen tradition and his own experience, he reflects on how practice invites us to stop being buffeted by these worldly winds and to act from integrity rather than optics. What would it mean to contribute fully, perhaps even to change history, without needing to be known for it?
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In this talk, Kisei continues exploring the Faith in Mind poem, reflecting on the invitation to “cut off all useless thoughts” and return to the root of awareness itself. Drawing on the koan of Mu, the teachings of Mumon and Dahui, and her own experience of practice, she reframes “cutting off” as seeing through the thinking mind rather than fighting it. By investigating the nature of thought—its texture, duration, and source—practitioners begin to recognize the spacious awareness in which thoughts arise and dissolve. This talk points to the freedom of the unhindered mind and closes with a poem from Joy Harjo, reminding us that true clarity opens from the heart.
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Jogen explores the question of motivation for practice, reflecting on why spiritual practice matters in a disturbing and impermanent world and why it can still be difficult to sustain. He examines sources of motivation—from habit and benefit to suffering, wisdom, and mysterious calling—and introduces the traditional “Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind” as contemplations on suffering, impermanence, karma, and death. Through personal stories and practical reflection, this talk invites listeners to consider what truly motivates their practice and how deep contemplation can unbottle a more wholehearted commitment to the Dharma.
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Kisei reflects on the closing stanzas of the Affirming Faith in Mind poem, exploring what it means to trust the heart-mind beyond discrimination and thought. She considers seasons of practice, the tension between sidedness and non-duality, and the lived, particular shape of a practitioner’s path, weaving in stories of pilgrimage, faith in America, and the koan of calling out to one’s true nature. This talk invites listeners to recognize the mysterious source within, honor their unique karma and calling, and cultivate trust in the unfolding of their life and practice.
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In this dialogue, Jogen and Hogen reflect on practice, uncertainty, and how to find direction in life. Hogen shares what he would tell his 18-year-old self about confidence and liberation, while Jogen explores non-resistance, yielding to experience, and listening deeply to the body and mind. Together they discuss career choices, not knowing the future, and how Zen practice cultivates discernment, flexibility, and trust in the unfolding of a life.
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In this talk, Hogen reflects on turning problems into wisdom, exploring how fear, beliefs, and fixed stories can become inner prisons—and how practice opens a path to freedom. Drawing on teachings about equanimity, responsibility, and gratitude, he invites listeners to face fear directly, soften around difficulty, and transform life’s challenges into sources of insight, compassion, and appreciation for this one precious life.
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In this closing retreat talk, Jogen explores awareness, language, and love as portals into awakening, weaving poetry with Zen teaching to question what we mean by “the world.” Reflecting on impermanence, intimacy, and the bodhisattva path, he invites listeners to recognize the myriad worlds arising through their own body and mind—and to live so that life itself becomes an altar of love, responsibility, and presence. This is talk 5 of the 2026 Dharma Gates retreat.
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In this New Year Dharma talk, Kisei reflects on the Zen koan of stepping from the top of the hundred-foot pole, exploring what it means to move from insight into lived, embodied practice. Weaving together koans, tarot imagery, and reflections on aspiration, habit energy, and curiosity, she invites listeners to examine where they hold back from life and how playful, resourceful engagement can become a path of awakening. Through images of the Fool, the lotus in fire, and the bodhisattva archetypes, the talk encourages a wholehearted leap into intimacy with experience and a renewed connection to personal vow as the year begins.
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In this retreat talk, Jogen explores the inner disturbance that drives spiritual practice and the ways mistaken perception, fixed beliefs, and self-image shape our suffering. Drawing on Zen teachings, poetry, and personal reflection, he examines how we live in mental representations rather than direct experience, and how practice invites us to shed accumulated knowledge and see more clearly. The talk points to deep yielding and decisive, wholehearted engagement as gateways to freedom, inviting practitioners to soften resistance, question the reality of the separate self, and fully inhabit the living moment of practice as it unfolds. This is talk 4 of the 2026 Dharma Gates Retreat.
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In this opening talk of a series, Hogen introduces the Dharma as a practical path for transforming life’s challenges into wisdom, compassion, and clarity. Drawing on the Four Noble Truths, he reframes suffering as “challenge” and emphasizes that everything in our inner life is workable when met directly. The talk focuses on cultivating a clear mind through slowing down, presence, and discernment, learning to distinguish facts from problems, and understanding what is truly ours to carry. With humor and plainspoken examples, Hogen outlines how practice helps us meet fear, confusion, and dissatisfaction at the root—laying the foundation for real, lived transformation rather than quick fixes or abstract solutions. From Heart of Wisdom Sunday night on January 11, 2026.
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