Brooklyn Zen Center

This teaching [of impermanence] thrusts us into realization. Most of us may think of impermanence as something that is solid for a while and then it decays and goes away. We think of impermanence as a kind of temporary permanence. But it isn’t.

The BZC audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support BZC, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

The BZC audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support BZC, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

The BZC audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support BZC, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

The BZC audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support BZC, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

The BZC audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support BZC, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

The BZC audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support BZC, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

Let the mind be what it is. Let it be sacred and mundane at the same time. Let it be profoundly boring and sleepy and bright, glowing and brilliant. And when it’s one or the other let it be that.

How to live in a world in a situation that is difficult and remain steady and grounded in the deepest way that we can, which is silence and stillness?

For me, over the past three weeks, the request and the challenge has been how to touch that quality [of stillness, that is our true nature], for ourselves and for others, now that we are all apart.

[The Dharma] is always between us. It is always the conversation that is happening even when we’re silent.  It is going on between us; that is where the Dharma always lives. Even when we’re at home in our apartments and we’re not next to each other, the Dharma is being expressed between us, and throughout us.

My deep gratitude for the many people taking care of those who are suffering. Boundless gratitude. And for all the people who are courageously keeping the basic functioning of our city going. Of course, the medical workers who take care of the sick, the people who drive the ambulances, the truckers who are delivering us food from the farmers, the people who are selling and delivering our food to u...

It’s really good if you can live without time. Don’t think there is a tomorrow that is going to be better. That you are going to fix something tomorrow, that it will be nice tomorrow. There is no tomorrow.

Resisting reality is a mistake. Because reality will win. No matter what that reality is. It’s safer and better to face whatever is happening with as clear a mind as you can possibly muster. And it’s from there that we respond to the world. This is an updated podcast version of the dharma talk offered by BZC’s root teacher Teah Strozer on March 21, 2020, which includes the Q&A portion of...

Resisting reality is a mistake. Because reality will win. No matter what that reality is. It’s safer and better to face whatever is happening with as clear a mind as you can possibly muster. And it’s from there that we respond to the world.

That’s where we live in zazen. We are grounding ourselves fully in the mud. We are not trying to clean it up. If we try to clean it up, we will kill life. We will kill the possibility of meeting ourselves and each other in ways that will clarify our karma, and clarify our conditioning.

It could be confusing when we hear that instruction: the middle way between gentleness and discipline.  As if we’re trying to find some quality that’s halfway between discipline and gentleness.  That’s kind of a watered down discipline, or an insincere gentleness.  And I don’t think that’s what’s meant by that instruction.  The middle way between gentleness and...

What would it be [like] this week to be completely devoted to the infinities that are sitting with us everywhere. To the mothers of our being that are sitting with us everywhere as dishes, as people, as prostrations, as clocks, as thoughts, as moods, as knee pain – whatever they are. However they’re showing up, to bring complete devotion to them.

There is a teaching in Buddhism called Buddha nature, which is such a loving and encouraging teaching, which says – my words – that love is a potentiality and a realizable force. Even if we feel a thousand miles away from it, it’s there. It’s available, we can return to it and live it!

The only thing that we can do is to keep the precepts and the bodhisattva vows and the refuges as measures of the heart. They can’t be measures of the intellect. They’re impossible for the intellect.

On the forth day of Rohatsu there’s an effort, an energy that is coursing through the zendo. But it is no longer our energy or our effort. We are all sharing it. So I think that is something we can enjoy and can rest in. Oryoki has become this dual choreography of giving and receiving. You don’t need to play a part in it anymore. You just need to be there and bow to the server and the nourishment...

Especially in practice, we talk about “being present,” as if it’s this kind of lovely pool of water that we can swim in, and relax and enjoy. But often it’s like a confrontation with experience, with reality, that stirs us up. And I love this part where it says it’s waiting and enduring, kind of like the dragon. Waiting, waiting for us to come and meet it. It’s...

Waking up is a good thing– but it’s not everything. It’s only a beginning.  Waking up is just an encouragement along the path. Just an encouragement. But what we really need to do, what our work is, is to live a life that is aligned with the deepest truth of our nature. That is really our work. Before or after you wake up is exactly the same thing. Our audio dharma talks are offe...

The buddha didn’t talk about evil, but he did about talk what are sometimes called the three roots of evil …. greed, ill-will, delusion. And again historically those have been understood individually. We work on them individually ourselves and we help other people work on them, but I think what’s become clear in the last generation or so is that today the three poisons are instit...

There is nothing for a bodhisattva that is not worthy of our devotion. But not everything is worthy of our refuge. And understanding the difference between devotion and refuge is central to our liberation.