Angel City Zen Center - Beginners Only Podcast

“Part of us dies in this process. It’s like a beautiful salad that starts to whither and you feel like something was lost… It’s like finding trust in the most unpromising place with no ground for solid footing. It's allowing the whole situation to penetrate through you and allowing yourselves to penetrate right through the situation…   But I'm still pondering. I don’t hundred percent agree with th...

“Enlightenment might be inherent, but it’s not natural to humans for some reason. In some places they will literally beat it into or out of you. So my question is, what are we doing here? What do you want to get out of this?” - Dave Cuomo   Dave takes a look at a modern Zen conundrum: is a Zen center a place of equal practice and training for all, or is it a service job with necessary hierarchies...

“It was always about what am I contributing? What am I doing out in the world? But yeah, I’m not shooting so high anymore. It’s true, there are important things to be done out there. And the reality is this practice is going to be really important to the future. So yeah, sitting is my contribution.” - Mota Mynttinen   Mota open up and regales us with the story of what he’s doing and why he’s here...

“If you train yourself to always be confident, competent, and charismatic, you're going to walk into a room and either alienate or inspire everybody, and connect with nobody. If you’re able to walk into a room with a tickle of anxiety and self doubt, next to some hope and aspiration, all cradled in the big old thromb of emptiness that animates everything, then you can actually connect with people....

“…when you’re totally beaten up and you don’t know what to do, that’s the moment of truth - when suddenly all those Buddhist teachings you’ve read about are no longer just something you read in a book….” - Gyokei Yokoyama On day two of our Mt Baldy retreat, Gyokei opens himself up for Daisan - a revelatory round of public practice discussion where he fields all of the sangha’s burning questions su...

“Bodhisattva’s determination is not something that makes you feel leashed or confined. This kind of determination frees you…. It's not self-sacrifice. It's the feeling that I cannot help but do this.” - Gyokei Yokoyama   Gyokei returns from a nationwide tour of the post-pandemic Zen Center scene with an impassioned (and important) message of unity and diversity for all the far flung sanghas of rig...

“There’s a thousand ways of speaking, infinite understandings, all just inviting you to befriend your unknowing.” - Shitou Xiqian   Dave brings us a fresh original translation of Shitou’s timeless, “Straw Hut Song” - a beautiful and deceptively simple piece that moves from a humble nap in the hay to the boundless fringes of everywhere and nowhere at the drop of a line. Why can’t Shitou just live a...

”…it was like, ooh, I don't have to count breaths? I liked that idea… no anchor, nothing holding me to this cushion… where was I going to go? It was scary, but liberating. I thought, ‘Hmm… maybe I shouldn't tell anybody that I'm doing this… But I can do this. This is something I could do every day.’” - John Nilsson   John shares the raw unvarnished story of what he’s doing and why he’s here, from...

“The goal here isn't to stop feeling pain. We need you to feel pain." - Dave Cuomo   In pt 4 of our Vimalakirti series , the great bodhisattva Manjusrhi finally meets the enlightened laymen Vimalakirti himself for some playfully profound dharma combat as they tackle the big questions; why do we have trouble? How should we care for other people when they have trouble?? How should we care for oursel...

“We all think that we're a good person, that we're some form of intelligent. In the monastery, they compassionately take that away and help us remember that there is something more important.” - Gyokei Yokoyama   Gyokei takes us on a personal tour of zazen from the monastic perspective; from the enlightenment of certain failure, to the raw self underneath we may or may not be ready to meet. How is...

“Part of grief is that you can't predict it. It just happens and you have no control over it. And some of that aspect of grief is accepting that you don't have control; or maybe not accepting, actually resisting it entirely and rebelling against it, and being afraid that you don't have control over your loved ones disappearing and going. And maybe getting over it is accepting impermanence, accepti...

“If anything you say is going to be wrong, you might as well say it right” - Colin Young   Dave takes a Zen look at making choices - what are wise discernments and what is the delusion of discrimination? Along the way we get a dramatic reading of the Xinxin Ming, Sengcan’s classic treatise on choice and non duality, and some practical advice on how to deal with the annoying DJ in the apartment ups...

“A professional artist is someone who understands what they're doing and are just going to do what they understand.  An amateur is going into something with the understanding you're going to get lost.” - Jason Dodge   Jason takes us on a delightful walk through the life and work of Ryokan, the famous wandering poet monk of Edo Japan, while holding up Ryokan’s poetry as a mirror to reflect on how Z...

“If you can sit zazen until you don't need to get up in the middle, then you're really content with nothing. When you're content with nothing, you don’t need to go out and find things to fill that big empty hole inside of you. The less you need, the less you have to worry about. I highly recommend it.” - Dave Cuomo   In the thrilling conclusion to his Yogacara series, Dave wraps it all up with som...

“You might think you're no good or you can't do anything. But the more you think that, the more you might be missing that little hairsbreadth of difference that could be the difference between heaven and earth.  Anything can happen at any time.  The message is to not believe anything. To just be cautious. And to take everything with a grain of salt.” - Erik Andersen   Erik brings us the story of o...

“Ultimately, you can't separate yourself from the things that you or others do wrong. There's no glory in being better than other people.” - Dave Cuomo   In pt 3 of his thrilling Vimalakirti Sutra series, Dave regales us with the story of the time our titular hero, the enlightened layman Vimalakirti, sought out each of Buddha’s best monks to explain to them exactly how they’re doing it all wrong....

“They say there is only suffering. Even happiness is just another form of suffering. And I can see that. But what do you do with that knowledge? Do you still go to birthday parties? Do you go on dates? And what do you say? Do you just say ultimately happiness and unhappiness are just the head and tail of the same snake? I don’t know if there’s a quick and easy solution I can give to that. And if y...

"Precepts are what humbles us. It's not designed to inflate our imagination. It sobers us. The precepts come with an understanding that we are constantly, in each moment, failing. And that's why we uphold the precepts." - Gyokei Yokoyama   Gyokei returns to the hot seat with an in depth and personal look at precepts and Jukai (lay precept ceremony). From the historical and cultural roots, to his o...

“If we started with the goal of becoming happy and wise enough to attract better people into our lives and making a better world together, now they’re telling us the real liberation is to not need to think like that at all -  to be so free that you’re not worried about what kind of world you live in. In fact if you were truly free, you might just choose to go for the most troublesome people in the...

"The funny thing about zazen is, it can’t be fooled. The funny thing about Zen is I can’t crush it or not crush it. So all I really want to do is be honest and convey something true for a second. And when I remember that, I kinda can" - Jordan Mylet   Jordan regales us with a warm and insightful love letter to zazen, as part of our series where long time sangha members (like you!) tell us the stor...

“When we’re talking about joy, I mean the kind of joy that you might feel at a funeral, a crying aching joy that encompasses everything. It's like, no, this whole thing is beautiful and I'm glad we did this. And I would do it all over again.” - Dave Cuomo   Dave brings us an optimistic look at the afflictions - greed, hatred, delusion, anger, guile (a personal favorite), arrogance, laziness, and a...

"To that voice who's saying, ‘Are we good enough?’ This is saying we exist. And that's enough" - Emily Eslami   Emily shares with us Dogen's bright and clear treatise on fundamental self worth, "Brightness." What does Zen mean with woo woo sounding words like 'Buddha's light?' and how is that supposed to apply to us? And where does the light go when everything looks dark?? Find out here!

“The most important thing you can be doing is just to be doing it, and that's doing it right. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be there.” - Sara Campbell Sara shares her experiences with Master Clown (yes, that’s a thing!) Moshe Cohen’s “Levity of Pause” workshop, all about the intersection of Zen and clown. Join us as she helps us bring a little humor to our stodgy old zazen and, if...

“Slowly, over time, you might get used to not feeling crappy about yourself. You might get used to not hating everyone you disagree with. And then when some of that old negativity does come back up it can seem like a big problem. But that’s a good sign. Don’t turn back when you notice how crappy of a person you can be. When the afflictions become a noticeable anomaly, that’s great because it just...

“You are what's happening, what's happening is you. What else could you be? Even when what's happening is that you're doubting what's happening, that's still what's happening.” - Dave Cuomo   In a totally timely New Year’s talk, Dave brings us a dramatic reading of “The Time Being,” Dogen’s classic treatise on time and reality and where exactly we fit into all that. What is time (us!)? What does i...