This talk is the seventh and last talk given during Boulder Zen Center's seven-day December Sesshin. It raises questions about the relationship between being on retreat and practicing in the context of daily life. To address these questions, it shows how the Bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism goes beyond the idea of transcendence in Early Buddhism. To live as a Bodhisattva is to be committed to this world and its problems while continuously practicing non-grasping and non-resisting. The imperturbability, we cultivate through zazen doesn't mean we're never disturbed; it means we're not disturbed by being disturbed—time and again for the rest of our lives. Taken to its logical conclusion, being a Bodhisattva means to use each moment, whatever it is, as material for awakening with all beings.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

If you would like to listen to all 7 of the Dharma talks given during this intensive and from other intensives, please become a premium podcast subscriber! Doing so will give you access to talks given during all of our intensives plus the recorded Q&A sessions with Zenki Roshi that follow each of the regular public Dharma talks. Memberships begin at only $9/mo! Your support goes a long way towards helping the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings.

Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/becomeamember

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

We live in an "achievement society," in which we are encouraged to constantly improve our lives in search for happiness. This talk presents Zen practice as a series of simple instructions like sitting down, not moving, and attending to breath and body, which facilitate the discovery and cultivation of a breath-body-attentional-space that can flower into a presence that doesn't go anywhere in the midst of changing experiences. This always-there presence hosts all of our experiences—pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad. This attentional presence can become for each person, independent of particular circumstances, the timeless source of contentment.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" is now available in a self-paced online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits.

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk is the third talk given during the seven-day December Sesshin held at the Boulder Zen Center. It is a detailed investigation of why, despite our sincere mindfulness practice, it can be so difficult to disentangle our attention from the thinking process. It explores the hypothesis that thinking can be non-consciously used as a defense against the anxiety and disturbance we experience around existential facts like discontinuity, uncertainty, powerlessness, and pain. As a remedy, we can practice to invite our most disturbing existential feelings with gentle fearlessness. The stillness and stability of the physical zazen posture (discussed in the first Sesshin talk) is an invaluable resource for this.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

If you would like to listen to all 7 of the Dharma talks given during this intensive and from other intensives, please become a premium podcast subscriber! Doing so will give you access to talks given during all of our intensives plus the recorded Q&A sessions with Zenki Roshi that follow each of the regular public Dharma talks. Memberships begin at only $9/mo! Your support goes a long way towards helping the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings.

Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/becomeamember

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk asks what it means to be identified with thoughts, opinions, emotions, personal characteristics, roles, and positions. And then, what it means to dis-identify from those aspects. It explores Dogen's practice instruction "to take the backward step that turns the light around and inward." Dogen's stepping back is to first discover and then establish oneself in the 'field of mind' that is always present "behind" the many 'contents of mind' that are coming and going from moment to moment. This is the realization of non-attachment and freedom. However, there remains a dualism between field and content, self and other, subject and object. So after taking the backward step, what does it take to "step back in" and release one's self and this dualism?

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" explores how we can discontinue dysfunctional habits, and instead, form habits that create a wholesome, nourishing life. The course is now available in a self-paced online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits.

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk is plucked from the middle of the 6-week Practice Course 'Transforming Habits' which just concluded at the Boulder Zen Center. The talk provides a summary of some of the ground that has been covered during the course up until this point: the nature and purpose of habits; the structure of habits – cue, craving, behavior, reward; how habits can become dysfunctional; and the "gears" we can use to transform habits: (1) mapping, (2) disenchantment, (3) awareness, (4) transformation through untangling. The idea of gears is borrowed from research psychologist Judson Brewer (see book recommendation in the show notes). Using concrete examples, the talk outlines how to work with the first two gears and then centers on the role awareness plays in habit transformation. A guided meditation is offered to demonstrate how readily available this transformative awareness is to all of us at any time. The fourth gear, which goes beyond Brewer's model, doesn't get covered in this talk. If you're interested to learn more, check out the show notes to access the self-paced version of the complete course 'Transforming Habits.'

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" is now available in a self-paced online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits.

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This episode is a conversation with meditation teacher and author Gaylon Ferguson about his new book "Welcoming Beginner's Mind." The conversation touches on the main themes of the book and their importance in our practice and everyday life such as welcoming experience just as it is, spaciousness, control and grasping, stages of practice, and what is called our true nature or Buddha-nature.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was given in preparation for this year’s Lay Initiation Ceremony (Jukai). It explores the ethical dimension of Zen practice as expressed in the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts. On the one hand, the precepts don’t appear to be different from other religious moral codes. They formulate common sense behavioral guidelines. On the other hand, they can be interpreted from the point of view of emptiness. Then they become the description of how a Buddha functions in the world. They are inseparable from zazen practice. As we begin to use zazen to be intimate with the field of undivided activity and realize it to be our own mind, we find (maybe to our own surprise) that the precepts are a natural expression of this wide, open, and inclusive mind. The intentions to kill, steal, objectify others for sexual pleasure, etc. simply do not occur in this mind. So instead of trying hard to be a good person, when we find ourselves contracting into our small self with its self-centered intentions, our practice is to widen out and shift to Buddha mind. With this shift, refraining from unwholesome action and doing wholesome action are effortlessly present.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was given to kick off this year's fall course on 'Transforming Habits.' It considers Ken Wilber's distinction between 'waking up' and 'growing up.' It then asks how being intimate with the field of mind (open awareness) can be used to facilitate the transformation of unwholesome habits, which is essential for the process of growing up. In contrast to popular self-help approaches to habit change, which aim for becoming our best selves, Buddhism emphasizes freedom (without dismissing self-improvement altogether). The talk considers and uses three mental postures derived from (slightly modified) statements made by Suzuki Roshi: (1) You are all Buddhas just as you are, and there is room for improvement. (2) What is more real, your problem (bad habit) or you yourself? (3) The best way to control your cow is to give her a large spacious meadow.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" explores how we can discontinue dysfunctional habits, and instead, form habits that create a wholesome, nourishing life. The course is now available in a self-paced, online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits.

Become a Boulder Zen Center Member and gain access to sliding scale pricing to get up to 60% off on all our courses and events, PLUS you'll support the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings! Learn more about membership here: https://www.boulderzen.org/becomeamember

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.