Zen Mind

This talk was given as part of a Weekend Sitting. It explores the question of how we enact practice-enlightenment (Dogen's concept) in our daily activities. It talks about the importance of pace for attuning to the field of undivided activity and specifies two requirements: (1) letting go of resistance or being truly open and (2) a change in worldview. To shift our view of the world not just intellectually but experientially, we need to notice and inhabit how attention works from moment to mo...

This talk continues to explore bringing attention to how attention functions in our lives. The distinction between focused consciousness (contents of mind) and nonfocused awareness (field of mind) is discussed as two different kinds of concentration. Learning to rest in and trust this nonconscious field, which is marked by interdependence and impermanence, is an essential part of the spiritual journey. While giving up control ("ungrasping") is difficult, we are rewarded with a sense of sponta...

Attention is our most precious resource. Where our attention goes, our life goes. The cultivation of attention is at the center of Zen practice. This talk points out that this cultivation is extra challenging under the conditions of what social scientists and critics have come to call the ‘attention economy’ and ‘surveillance capitalism.’ We’re not just dealing with the typical entanglement of attention with discursive thinking, we are now also facing algorithms that lead to ‘attention fragme...

This talk is about habit change from a Buddhist perspective. In one sense, it is a preview of BZC‘s upcoming Practice Course “Transforming Habits” (Oct 4-Nov 9, 2024). However, it also stands on its own. It explores what happens when we bring the question “What would a Buddha do?” to every moment in which we feel a misalignment between our habituated actions and our inmost intentions. What kind of decisional map and directional guidance does our felt sense of what a Buddha is provide for our ...

This talk continues the exploration of how to discover and develop a sense of community. It differentiates between intimacy as undividedness with all beings (the spiritual dimension of community) and intimacy as closeness (the conventional longing for being known and understood by others in our physicality, feelings, and thoughts). Regarding this longing for closeness, the talk examines the typical meditation instruction of LETTING GO of feelings and thoughts. This practice can engender the f...

This talk was given as part of a Weekend Sitting at the Boulder Zen Center. It highlights the distinction between the contents of mind and the field of mind and its importance for practice. Dogen encouraged his students "to be continuously intimate with the field of mind." The talk presents two attentional practices to discover and establish oneself in the field of mind: (1) "To pause for the particular," a version of mindfulness practice that emphasizes the creation of a dharmic pulse within...

This is a special conversational episode. Christian (Zenki Roshi) is interviewed by Dr. Greg Madison, a British psychologist and psychotherapist. More than usual, Christian connects the concepts and practices he teaches with his own biographical journey. In the beginning, the conversation centers around Christian's encounter of and interest in Gene Gendlin's philosophy and his psychotherapeutic method and social practice called Focusing. One of Gendlin's core concepts is 'Felt Sense," which p...

This talk explores the experience of loneliness and the practice and views we might want to adopt to foster a sense of community: (1) share space instead of expecting to share beliefs or interests, (2) prioritize doing things together over talking, (3) practice mutual embodiment (notice how we interaffect each other in our sensations and movements). Along the way, the talk highlights reductionism and psychologism (body-mind dualism) as errors of Western culture and suggests ways to understand...

This episode was first published in February 2022. We are republishing this episode because in it, Zenki Roshi addresses the most common questions asked by beginners and the issue of discomfort sometimes experienced by practitioners of all levels during zazen. What exactly are we doing in zazen meditation? What kind of effort is necessary? This talk addresses the shift we are inviting when we sit still, and it explores three zazen instructions and how they are interrelated: (1) just sit,...

This talk is the first of seven Sesshin talks. (A Sesshin is a 7-day Zen meditation intensive.) It starts with the question, 'What does it mean to love?' The word 'love' carries all kind of baggage. So much so that in American Zen it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of currency. Yet, we're all longing for the spiritual dimension of love. This wide-ranging talk explores the connections between love and unconditional acceptance, saying yes to life, sweetness, straightforwardness, meaning, self-...

This talk was given as part of the closing ceremony of the 3-month Everyday Zen Practice Period. At the end of retreats and periods of intensified practice, many practitioners wonder how they can carry the renewed and invigorated sense of practice into their everyday lives. The answer is simple but not easy to implement: continue to stay fully present in each situation, each action, each gesture. The talk connects this challenge to the wisdom of Dogen's Genjo Koan, which was discussed through...

This talk concludes the line-by-line commentary on the Genjo Koan. Dogen has given us a clear (and maybe disappointing) vision of practice. We are never done with our practice. It's not like we are practicing in order to reach enlightenment, and once we have realized it, we're good. Instead, we are challenged to express enlightenment through our practice — one moment and one action at a time. From this emerges a revised understanding of Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is not something we HAVE—li...

This talk is the eighth in the series on Dogen's Genjo Koan. Dogen views realization not as an experience of oneness or a discovery of the ground of being but as an endless and groundless path of engaging the mystery and challenge of the present moment. In comparing our human life on this earth to the life of a bird in the sky and a fish in the ocean, he shows that each person in each moment is the expression of the totality of interdependent being (the 10,000 dharmas). This expression takes ...

This talk is the second in the series on Dogen's Genjo Koan. It is a close reading of the first four sentences. First, it provides an understanding of dharmas as momentary experiential units. Then it discusses Dogen's seemingly contradictory presentation of the dharma (the teaching of liberation) in light of the classic path of awakening, the teaching of emptiness, and an approach that doesn't get caught in one or the other. The talk ends with a threefold reading of the famous line, "In attac...

This talk kicks off a lecture series on Dogen's most celebrated writing, the Genjo Koan. It explores the meaning of the title phrase, which informs the entire text. GEN means to appear, JO means to complete. KO can be understood as the universal, while AN points to what is particular and unique. So GENJO KOAN means: to complete what appears as simultaneously universal and unique. As a practice, the Genjo Koan asks us to realize in our everyday actions how each appearance is an expression of t...