A. Jesse Jiryu Davis's dharma talks

Running a half marathon, serving a prison term, practicing Zen for a lifetime: I'm trying to learn how people make friends with time, and how to appreciate each moment within an eon.

So often, I find myself lashing out at someone I intended to help. The expectation that my  generosity  would require only a certain amount of effort, and would lead to a predictable payoff, is the culprit. How can I practice a Beginner's Mind that has no expectations?

My mother plans to die at 85. What will that final year be like?

To focus the mind, you first have to understand and accept the mechanism of mind-wandering.

My father-in-law is a soldier and my mother is a peace activist. On Memorial Day weekend, 2017, I describe how Buddha's Middle Way allows us both to honor veterans and to oppose war.

On the 15th anniversary of 9/11, I describe my difficulties practicing nonviolence in a world full of violence.

Women have been systematically excluded from computer programming for decades. But it wasn't this way in the past, and it doesn't need to be in the future. The software industry, it seems, is waking up overnight to how unfairly we've treated women and minorities, and we're beginning to take action to fix it. A talk I gave at the Village Zendo on May 22, 2016.

Practice with fear and overcome it, bit by bit, for the sake of a whole and liberated life. A talk I gave at the Village Zendo on April 7, 2016.

Being satisfied with what I have. A talk I gave at the Village Zendo in December 2015.

On the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, I talk about our double complicity in the history of WWII, both as Americans and as Zen students. Can we face in both directions and see the facts about our lineage?

Living on the streets of New York, for just a few days, and depending on generosity to get by.

The second of the Four Vows is, "Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them." What do we really mean when we make this promise, and how can we accomplish it?

For my first dharma talk at the Village Zendo I take up the Book of Serenity Case 15, "Yangshan Plants His Hoe." The koan may seem obscure, but in fact it's about our work now in New York City, our work to understand and end homelessness, unjust incarceration, and racism.