Brooklyn Zen Center

My experience in the undoing patriarchy group very much affirms that for me – that we come together to create a space where we can talk about how we harm, how we are harmed, share stories of brokenness. And the sharing of it reveals a wholeness there, a healing. And when that’s set in motion, compassion flowers out of that. Almost like it rushes into the space that’s created in t...

When you sit you could remember the story that the Buddha ascended the seat. Because when you are sitting, you are also ascending a seat, or “the” seat. Could your activity, when you ascend the seat, be Buddha activity? Have your heard about Buddha activity not reaching your seat? I never heard that the Buddha’s activity doesn’t reach the seats of everybody. It’s all pervading. So there is no way...

If we can’t make this life alive, where are we gonna go? It’s this life that we have to make alive. It’s this life that we find love. It’s in this life that we live a life of non-division. It’s this life, in which we wake up. Not somewhere special. Not somewhere else. Here, now. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we re...

I like this form of “practice period.” I used to wonder: why do we have to stop? This is great, let’s just keep going. But this period of integration afterwards is actually really important, because it’s when the practice becomes not something out there, but a part of our lives. And also, it’s a great opportunity to see when it’s not part of our lives. So we get to ob...

2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 5 Take care of yourself when you go back outside [at the end of sesshin] because you are more raw then you think you are. And here you are around a bunch of raw people so you can’t even tell. And then you walk out and whoosh – there it is. So this is the trick – how do we revere the vulnerability that is the gateway to Buddha fields when we are in places that...

2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 4 Equanimity is that feeling of what patience feels like, what understudying feels like. It’s very energetic actually. Sometimes people misunderstand equanimity, they think it’s like this evenness, like nothing is bothering them, there’s this unaffectedness. That’s not my experience of equanimity and I imagine you feel this too. It’s not like you are not affected by thin...

2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 3 Someone hands us a broom and we take it. We don’t go through all the reasons why we don’t want the broom right then and then. Because, really, who cares wether I want the broom at that moment or not. It’s not to say I still don’t argue. I do. My mind argues. But who cares? If it’s coming from a sense of service, who cares? If we are confusing the two [being of service...

Where is balance? I know from my years of yoga: you can’t hold balance.  Balance is found each moment. And the very moment that you feel like you’re falling over, is the moment of balance. When you’re leaning against something or holding onto something…that’s leaning against, or holding on. Balance is this moment right before free-fall. Our audio dharma talks are offe...

When I looked out at most of the people who are practicing, they are not priests, you guys are lay people.  And I know a number of lay people who are wonderful in their practice, deep in their practice, and perfectly capable of holding out their hand and bringing other people across.  So, I feel rather strongly, if most of the people are going to be lay people, then why don’t we completely r...

2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 2 You can all be visited by your demons in the middle of the night, in a period of zazen. They will come and find you. They are doing their part in helping you to wake up. So, can you relax with them? Can you welcome then? Can you play with them? Joyfully, playfully? “What are you doing here and what are you offering me right now? What is it that you believe in?” W...

Dharma talk offered by Laura O’Loughin during the one-day sit at Brooklyn Zen Center on May 19, 2018. Compassion, as we practice it in Buddhism, is the most radical act a human being can do – as well as the most natural. […] In Buddhism […] we say that our natural state of being is compassion and wisdom. And what we are doing in this practice is asking ourselves to come home to ourselves, to...

What is it to be vulnerable enough to express those different needs [of sangha members] and what is it to be vulnerable enough to be there for their expression? To slow down enough. We can’t always meet them, at least not in the whole way they eventually need to be met, but we can show up for each other in best way that we can with that intention. But to not lose sight of that, to not lose s...

This dharma talk was offered by Brooklyn Zen Center’s root teacher Teah Strozer during a three-day sesshin in 2017. We have this war inside, because we think of ourselves as an object. Good and bad, right and wrong.  And we think of it as ‘my life’, which is eventually seen to be a mistake.  It’s not my life. It is Life, in fact, living itself as me for a moment; for like a...

Talk offered by teachers Laura O’Loughlin and Sebene Salassie during a two-day retreat at Brooklyn Zen Center. The retreat, Reclaiming the Feminine in Our Practice , included silent and relational practices in stillness and in movement to explore the impact of patriarchy on our bodies, minds and hearts and what it means to reclaim the feminine in our practice and in our sanghas. To start, [we need...

It’s important to think about how harmful the word karma can be used. It comes out of a very different time and a very different cosmology than the one we live in right now. It has been misunderstood and also used to justify oppressive social structures. It has been conflated with this idea of faith, so that there is premeditated destiny or punishment that gets doled out based on action. It has be...

2018 Rohatsu Sesshin – Day 1 In the history of Buddhism, the location of working with karma is not only one’s self, but the Sangha. The Sangha is always a part of it. There were many people around the Buddha at the time who were practicing moksha practices, or practices of liberation. But the Buddha assembled a Sangha. The Buddha understood the necessity of vow and of holding the harm...

Rev. Francisco (Paco) Genkoji Lugoviña, Sensei is a Teacher & Priest in the White Plum Lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi & The Zen Peacemaker Order. Rev. Daiken Nelson, Sensei is a Teacher & Priest in the White Plum Lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi & The Zen Peacemaker Order. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would...

Kaira Jewel Lingo teaches meditation and mindfulness, with a focus on activists, people of color, artists, educators, families, and youth. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997 and she is an ordained nun in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, plea...

Kaira Jewel Lingo teaches meditation and mindfulness, with a focus on activists, people of color, artists, educators, families, and youth. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997 and she is an ordained nun in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, plea...

Kaira Jewel Lingo teaches meditation and mindfulness, with a focus on activists, people of color, artists, educators, families, and youth. She began practicing mindfulness in 1997 and she is an ordained nun in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, plea...

Dr. Swamini Svatmavidyananda Saraswati has taught at several universities nationally, including UC Berkeley. She is widely recognized as a scholar of Advaita Vedanta and a founding member of the “Global Women’s Peace Initiative.” Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the...

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, (pronoun she/her), is an author, poet, ordained Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, artist, and drum medicine woman. Her practice is influenced by Native American and African indigenous traditions. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of o...

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, (pronoun she/her), is an author, poet, ordained Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, artist, and drum medicine woman. Her practice is influenced by Native American and African indigenous traditions. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of o...

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, (pronoun she/her), is an author, poet, ordained Zen Buddhist priest, teacher, artist, and drum medicine woman. Her practice is influenced by Native American and African indigenous traditions. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of o...

Tenzen David Zimmerman serves as the City Center Abiding Abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. He was ordained as a priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi by Teah Strozer in 2006 and received dharma transmission from her in 2018. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “G...