Angel City Zen Center - Beginners Only Podcast

“To remember that ignorance is enlightenment is to not separate myself from what's right in front of me, to not think that I can be better than the people in front of me, to not think that I'm going to be a better person by trying to be a better person. It’s to love and accept what's in front of me.  To embrace ignorance is a loving act. And that's why I like Zen. It sounds weird and ironic, but I...

"In classical Buddhism, the fundamental mistake is that getting what you think you want will make you happy. In Zen they seem to say the fundamental delusion is that you exist at all.  This is why Zen is so weird. We're trying to look at what comes before awareness, and that's hard. It’s really hard to be aware of something that precedes awareness. But not impossible....” - Dave Cuomo Dave takes u...

"When you get mad at yourself, that means you’re mad at another self. Maybe you turn your face and see yourself. Or you see yourself as other. This is very hard... If you become angry, you don’t stop being Buddha. Anger appears, that’s all." - Kobun Chino In the latest installment of her ever timely precept series, Emily takes on that molten hot lava of an emotion, anger. What do we experience whe...

"If you want to make peace with yourself and not hate zazen, it's going to help to like yourself, or at least just accept yourself the way you are. I promise, you're great and you're worth it. And it'll help. And fringe benefit, you might find yourself a little happier and nicer, your whole life might improve in every way you ever wanted it to. But that's not why we're here, that's not the point o...

"When you go to the mountain, and see a flower blooming, pick it, break it, and make it yours - this is attachment. If you let it be there for everything and everyone - this is 'no attachment.' Even your self does not belong to you. You are everything." - Kobun Chino In the latest installment of Emily’s ever timely precept series, she takes on the eighth precept, "no coveting," ie craving – what i...

"To love the mountains is not to know about mountains, but to climb mountains and to live and die continuously with them. The best way to realize the true beauty of Mount Fuji is to actually go climb it. If you do that, the beauty of Mount Fuji as you have known it will disappear. But this does not mean that the true beauty of Mount Fuji has disappeared. The beauty of Mount Fuji is eternal and unc...

"Sometimes I walk by a pile of poo and think "What jerk did that? I hate that guy. This is why we can't have nice things." And then I go around telling everyone about this jerk, and we all get upset and probably sound like a bunch of jerks. And sometimes I walk by and think, "Huh, look at that poo." Maybe I have to scrape some poo off my shoe, and then I walk on, smelling it for a minute, and then...

"There's a saying, do you want to be right or do you want to be married? I would extend that to, do you want to be right or do you want to be human? Do you want to be right or do you want to be in a relationship with anyone at all?" - Emily Eslami In her ever timely precept series, Emily takes on number seven, no praise or blame! Aka, our consistent habit of comparing to others. Who are we trying...

"If everything you know isn't working, what do you have left? What you don't know. When you stop and allow space for what you don't know to happen, something else can happen." - Dave Cuomo Dave delves into Dogen's famous "It" (Inmo) to see if it can offer us a way to pick ourselves up when the world knocks us down. But what is "it??" Some say the universe, some say enlightenment, some say God, whi...

“…other people’s mistakes, the mistakes you can’t stop talking about, your mistakes, the mistakes you think are worse than everyone else’s, look around you, we’re all in the mud making those same mistakes. But at least we’re not alone. At least we’re all stuck in the mud together.” - Emily Eslami Emily takes us on a journey through everyone's least favorite precept (/favorite precept to break) - n...

“With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together Then the bottom fell out. Where water does not collect, The moon does not dwell” - Mugai Nyodai In an ever timely topic, Dave brings us a Zen look at patience. What is patience and is that what we're actually learning here? Where are do we find ourselves when whatever we're so urgently waiting for never arrives in the moment we're in?

“It’s the emptiness we’re afraid of. Our life is not made up of magic, it’s made up of these empty moments, full moments, thats all we have; the pain we’re experiencing, the boredom, the fleeting happiness, that’s the moment. But we owe it to this great brightness not to run away, to see these moments as they really are. Because if nothing is special that means everything is special.” - Emily Esla...

"Understanding the true specialness of everything is a rare and wonderful thing. Apparently it takes a lot of practice to realize "just this" for what it really is. And for all of us who aren't there yet, we have words and teachers there to join us in our delusions long enough to help us figure it out, even while they know there's nothing they can do to help us. And that's very kind of them." - Da...

"In our ordinary world, we learn to play by the rules, to follow the recipe, to get it right, while in sacred space, cooking (and life) can be more than just following recipes.  Beyond rote and chore - doing what you've been told - is the freedom to realize the way to cook, letting the ingredients come forward to awaken and nourish, letting yourself come alive to cook, to do something that you've...

“Language will always fail us… We believe we’re speaking the same language but we’re using different English to English dictionaries. The only way to tell the truth is to acknowledge that our truth is not completely true.” - Emily Eslami Emily brings us a full exploration of the fourth precept, No Lying. Sounds simple, but it turns out before we can not lie, we have to know what truth is in the fi...

It’s like a guardian angel of doubt. Where by the grace of god, I would have this spark, this wonderful beautiful doubt of, maybe im wrong. Maybe im not right about this after all…" - Erik Andersen In a delightfully madcap affair, Erik challenges all those who say that Zen is difficult or enigmatic with a talk on the big question, “How hard is zen??” only to come up with the very Zen answer, “not...

"I lack therefore I want. I get what I want and I want more. I get what I want and it didn’t make me happier, so I’m going to push it away. This is why we sit. We're not advocating for celibacy or abstinence, We're advocating for awareness; for looking very carefully at yourself and your actions at all times."  - Emily Eslami In the latest installment of her all encompassing and ever timely precep...

"If you want to know why Zen survived, light the incense, do the sit, and listen. It's what the koans describe, what Dogen tried to explain. There's nothing that could go away, nothing to defend..." - Dave Cuomo Dave brings us the epic tale of Zen's golden age, when the great masters we know and love from the koans could enlighten you with a single well timed word, a shout, a blow from their stick...

“I feel like the right books and the right person always came at the right time. There's been a seamless way of following the practice where I’m not sure which one is leading the other.” - Wilcox Gwynne In a warm and generous telling, former ACZC resident Wilcox shares the story of what they were doing and why they were here. From a quaker upbringing to aspiring ballet pro, through motherhood, rel...

"Please remember this “no stealing” precept. It is the ultimate recognition that you have nothing to lose. Even if you, your whole body, is stolen by somebody, your whole mind by somebody, you have not lost anything." - Kobun Chino In our ongoing in depth precept series, Emily takes on the second grave precept - No Stealing. By which we mean, is it even possible to steal? What do we have to lose,...

“Get to know your own heart. It isn’t permanent or impermanent. It isn’t good or bad. It is clear and perfect.” - Shitou Dave returns to pickup our storyline to find that almost as soon as Zen had coalesced itself into one cohesive school of Buddhism, Shitou & Mazu come along and split into two separate streams that will run next to each other for the next 1300 years all the way down to today. It'...

“All the rules & commandments out there are trying to anticipate a situation. But right action, acting in the moment of an actual situation, can only happen in the moment of doing.” - Emily Eslami In her ongoing deep dive into the precepts, Emily takes on precept number one - No Killing! Which sounds simple, until she starts walking us through an honest look at the utter impossibility of such a th...

"The freedom, or liberation, she’s talking about is one that all of us inherently possess, and one that only we can grant to our selves. And it’s also a freedom that no one could ever take away from you no matter what they do..." - Dave Cuomo The thrilling conclusion to our two part series on the Vimalakirti sutra! Dave continues the story with the classic goddess chapter, where everyone's favorit...

In this extended two part podcast, Dave brings us a thorough cliff notes reading  of the Vimalakirti Sutra! An epic story of right and wrong complete with miracles and magic, bodhisattvas breaking all the rules, benevolent aliens, devils disguised as gods, snarky gender bending goddesses, and through it all Buddha finally answering the question of why the world is so screwed up and whether or not...

In an lightly amusing and deeply enlightening talk, Erik takes us on a very deep dive into a very short story as he gives us a close reading of Prajnatara’s classic three sentence tale of a very poor practice. Along the way we discuss the Zen shortcut to to truly mindful breathing, how to properly speed read the scriptures (hey look, there they go again!), self care, Zen mysticism, lion's dens, el...