Angel City Zen Center - Beginners Only Podcast

“All the philosophies I grew up on were always trying to take me toward the light - be a good person, know what's going on, know how to handle things… It was always about happiness and positivity. Thats what led me here. That was the problem.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave rings in the New Year with an unflinching dive into darkness - what it means in Zen, why it’s nothing to be scared of, and why the light...

“Maybe we don’t need take everything as gospel, or maybe taking things as gospel doesn’t always mean what we want it to mean” - Dave Cuomo   Dave brings us a special podcast exclusive Holiday Story Time, with a dramatic reading of a somewhat bananas Buddhist folktale about a young king and his flying elephant trying to get good at giving. It’s a story for the season about the spirit of generosity...

 “A person with cloudy eyes is a person of fundamental enlightenment, a person of subtle enlightenment.” - Dogen   Jason dives into Dogen’s treatise on the flowery delights of delusion - ‘Space Flowers,’ while discussing the inspiration behind his recent benefit print for ACZC. Along the way we get a bonus peek behind the creative curtain and a constellation of poetic ponderings on the nature of w...

“If you’re not at least a little uncomfortable, you probably haven’t found whatever it is you really need to make peace with yet.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave dives back into the paramitas to learn about patience and finds out that Buddha apparently agrees with Sartre, hell is other people. Along the way we get some personal stories about the time Dave funded his monastic career by accidentally beating ca...

   “The spring has no particular shape, and yet spring manifests naturally. Or like the moon, it just emerges, versatile and free.    When something happens, nobody can really say who did it. That's why we get frustrated.  Nobody can know how it happened because everybody contributed.” - Gyokei Yokoyama   In our final retreat wrap up, Gyokei gives us an on the spot translation of a Komazawa Univer...

"The more you start to learn about what you are, which is absolutely completely interdependent and just a fractal of what everyone else is,  the more it starts to break down. I can't hate myself. It just doesn't make sense.” - Sara Campbell   Following up on our retreat theme of compassion and the five skandas, Sara gives us a raw and revealing look at self compassion. Plus, she gives us the naked...

“We don't downplay it. We don't sit here and say, ‘what I'm feeling isn't real and doesn't matter.’ It's this weird technique where it's like, no, no, go all in on it and take it very, very seriously with an enormous grain of salt.” - Dave Cuomo     Dave gives a pep talk for the deep practice of retreat (and in general) while introducing our theme for the season - the Compassion Monster, aka a Car...

“If Zen's teaching me that I have inherent value just for existing, part of that whole deal is that I'm going to be doing mantras or some other wacky sh*t that I come across in six months. And I'm okay with that.” - Sara Campbell   After finding benefits in affirmative mantra practices, Sara looks back on Zen emptiness teachings to find out if there really is a contradiction between self empowerme...

“You see the problems with the system, problems with teachers, and problems with yourself and realize, none of us can quite live up to what we're teaching here. But if I want do something actually good in the world, I can't think of anything more beneficial than providing a quiet empty room where everyone can do whatever they need to do to find some peace.“ - Dave Cuomo   Dave looks at morality in...

“Zen isn't there to sugarcoat things and cuddle you. We're not talking about being mean, we're talking about, how do we slap someone's face in the most compassionate way? (…metaphorically of course)” - Gyokei Yokoyama   Gyokei talks us through the spirit (and specifics) of… ‘Dhaaarmaaa Commbaaat!’ from the lion’s roar, to the three foot long venomous viper of truth, to how to wield the swift and s...

“The benefit of you existing is you get to figure out what that means for yourself. And then you can come back and teach the rest of us about that. That is a generosity.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave gifts us with a deep dive into generosity in the first on a new series on the paramitas, aka the six perfections, aka the six things that all good Buddhas have gotten really really good at to get them where th...

“Joy is not a failing. It’s not irresponsible. It’s not deluded. True joy is the birthright of every being. It's a normal thing.” - Curtis Fabens   Founding ACZC resident Curtis gives us an impassioned exhortation to the recipe for a life well lived - clarity, purpose, & joy. Is clarity really the path of least resistance and if so, why is it so often hard to see? Is it possible to not have pu...

“You burn the whole forest once. And what comes back is the same forest - the same aspiration, the same desires, the same dreams… But there's this indescribable difference. And that's what makes all the difference.” - Gyokei Yokoyama   Gyokei discusses alignment, blockages, and the prickliness that comes from trying to put our own ideals on a world that might already have a few ideas of its own. C...

“We don't need you to regurgitate our answers. We need you to go figure out who the hell you are. That's your contribution.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave shares a favorite legend about a cocky young monk crossing a river and a moment of self confidence so powerful we’re still talking about it a thousand years later. In a practice that glorifies not knowing, how do we know when we know something for certain...

“She asked, ‘How are you?’ And I said, ‘…good.’ But it was like nothing, like plain rice, like oatmeal without sugar and you forgot to even put the dash of salt - like original flavor.” - Jitsujo Gauthier   Jitsujo, University of the West Buddhist Chaplaincy department Chair, resident priest and preceptor at Zen Center of Los Angeles, and long time friend of the sangha, generously joins us for a r...

“I never feel freer then when I realize I'm the schmuck I've been trying not to be this whole time. If I'm the asshole, I can't judge anybody else. And then I'm free of all of us.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave returns with another practical probe into Buddhist basics - this week, the Five Skandhas, aka Buddha’s classic formulation of what makes us us and reality (seem) real that might even offer us a littl...

“Zazen is always kind of great, even when it's awful. When I don't understand what I'm doing, I can always sit Zazen.” - Ish Lipman   Long time sangha friend Ish brings us the story of what he’s doing and why he’s here while we just maybe learn something about those things for ourselves. From atheist upbringings as a skater kid in the city to becoming an artist and embracing the meaningful meaning...

“What was really liberating for me was finding out who I am when leaving or getting kicked out aren’t an option for anyone. When not I’m worried about my own survival or earning my place in the community, when you can't fire or cancel people or really even get away from them…. It was like, oh hey, we're actually family now.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave gets down to brass tacks basics with a deep dive into...

“Really question what you perceive or know and don’t draw many conclusions from it. Also don't think you know nothing. You do know something, and if you abandon what you know to be true you've missed it altogether.” - Sara Campbell   Sara sends us a dispatch from her post Zen Center exploits and dabbles in some serious storytelling with The Original Adventures of Herman the Worm Boy (as delightful...

“If you don't have the perception of a self, you’re probably not going to get angry. But… we can discuss whether maybe sometimes it's okay to get angry if someone chops off your arms and legs…” - Jason Dodge   In a flash, Subhuti understands everything, and in a flash Buddha pulls the rug out from him (and us!) and frees him from his own enlightenment. Join us as Jason bravely (and expertly) takes...

“Learning to love the a-hole is the way you fix the problem, not getting rid of the a-hole.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave takes a practical look at desire and how to work with it in real world terms, while also trying to figure out why people started treating monks as ceremonial objects, whether or not they warranted it, and why group chanting is such great fun. Can you trust someone who doesn’t want anyth...

“If we do not have stress, we will not be healthy enough to survive. We have to be in this. We have to be with our enemies. Even enemies make us healthy.” - Shumyo Kojima   Special guest Reverend Shumyo Kojima, Abbot of Zenshuji Temple (North America’s oldest Zen temple (100 years and counting!)) joins us for a talk about learning to love your stress and enjoy your enemies, with colorful stories (...

“Conditions can be perfectly aligned for you to do the right thing, but you have to meet that with a strength of will that comes from failing over, and over, and over again. And that's not easy.” - Henry Zander   Tasked with helming ACZC for the summer practice period, Henry boards a train and heads west for his date with destiny. Does Zen center life actually bestow us with its promised perfectio...

“The world of Zen is so full of sh*t, something beautiful is bound to bloom.” - Anonymous   Our long wandering resident priest returns from his stint in Japan with tales of monkly mayhem in the monastery. Did they really beat the self out of him, or just grind it deeper? Is traditional monastic training a test of enlightenment or merely endurance? Is there a method to this madness or has it all ju...

“I’ve definitely angrily swept the floor, definitely not been stoked. But I think the constraints are good for you, like in the way that creative constraints can be really helpful. On some level its a privilege and an honor to have a community relying on you. And on some level its like goddamn it, they’ve got me.” - Sara Campbell   Sara bids farewell to her tenure as an ACZC resident and seasonal...