The Jizo-an Zen Community Podcast

Kyosei's talk explores mushotoku, the Zen practice of acting and sitting without seeking reward, progress, or a future spiritual attainment. Drawing on Huang Bo, Dogen, the Heart Sutra, and Taisen Deshimaru, it explains how zazen embodies Buddha nature in the present and how a non-gaining mind can extend into compassionate, attentive daily life.

Gessho's teaching explores Dogen's instruction to study and ultimately forget the self through examining the identities formed from roles, experiences, beliefs, and social conditioning. It considers how attachment to fixed identities creates division and suffering, and how recognizing their impermanence and emptiness can open space for growth, compassion, and more inclusive action.

This talk explores Buddha nature as the wholeness obscured by afflictions, self-centered stories, and habitual reactivity. Drawing on teachings about contingency, the Noble Path, and daily practice, it considers how awareness helps us recognize the causes of suffering, stop feeding old patterns, and remain present amid uncertainty.

What does it mean to live an awakened life, to live in an awakened way? How do we bring our practice and the Dharma teachings into our everyday lives? How do we realize or actualize our practice in the world? Fortunately for all of us, the Buddha and our many ancestors left us a great treasure trove in the many Dharma teachings, sutras, and commentaries that have been handed down for generations. Those teachings are like a guide-map for us, not simply instructing us on exactly what to do, but rather pointing the way toward our own discovery of living an awakened life.

This teaching explores right view as the foundation of the Noble Eightfold Path: seeing suffering, impermanence, causation, and personal responsibility clearly rather than seeking happiness through attachment and control. Drawing on Buddhist teachings, contemporary reflections, and personal stories, it presents right view as a fluid, embodied practice of meeting each moment honestly and responding with greater acceptance and skillfulness.