Brooklyn Zen Center

To be able to free other beings, what we do is we actually just free them in our minds.

The Chinese character “Juryo”

My hope is that, as a community, we can support each other in the ongoing work of not turning away. That we can enter into a relationship with our own suffering, so that an appropriate response can be articulated.

We are all in a process of integration. What is the practice in relationship to everything that has happened? What are we in relationship to each other? What are the views that were in the sangha that needed to die? The ideas about who we were that needed to die?

The universe isn’t simply happening, the dharma wheel isn’t simply turning. The Buddha’s words turned the dharma wheel. The dharma wheel turns because it is both an eternal truth and turns, but also turns because human activity, acting out the dharma, is turning it. And both those things are happening simultaneously.

It’s wonderful how life works – there is an insistent disruption to any superficial harmony we make. We think we got it all just about right. And then something suddenly appears.

Openness requires the heart and the mind. Openness requires the mind to not be grasping. Openness requires the heart to be present, to feel, to make space for.

Often we feel the need to create our own shell, with our muscles, with our bodies, with our actions. But when awe are offered a container safe enough – a protective container – we can begin to release and let go of the shell, let go of the hardening of our muscles, of our ideas or our thoughts.

We are sitting at the center of the ten directions of this Earth, we are sitting at the center of the dharma wheel, we are sitting at the center of the spinning cycle of samsara. We are sitting at the center of them all and allowing the dharma to arise, allowing the dharma to be present with the dukkha that is this wheel out of balance.

Stillness manifests as care. […] I am talking about stillness with my karmic mind, with my conditioning. So, my conditioning rises up and there’s a choice to be propelled by it or to stop and see it.

When we come close together and listen to each other’s karma and to our own karma, and it’s difficult – what do we do? […] How do we know how much is mine and how much is yours? How do we discern that? 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” s...

One of the ways that I find it easier to navigate this world is to think that this stuff is not just mine. Our bodies and our histories are coming through us. They are not just mine, starting with the birth of me and ending the death of me. It’s not personal. 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 C...

On Wednesday night we had our full moon ceremony. It’s a way for us to feel ourselves as energetic bodies, connecting to something beyond our individuality. In this full moon ceremony we renounce our karma, we confess our karma and we wish for ourselves to live in alignment with the precepts, with a way of being with each other that offers a chance for us to be healing influences in the world, as...

We are recognizing here with this Hotsuganmon [sutra by Eihei Dogen] that we don’t exist by ourselves  We thought that the self existed right here, but actually it feels like that life is connected. That we all are affecting each other every moment, that nothing is perfect or permanent. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you wo...

We are a conversation. Each one of us is a conversation – a conversation between all kinds of ways of conditioning, trying to talk its way into wise ways of being in the world. […] Healing happens in conversation. If we are trying to get people to do what we do, there’s no conversation. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If...

I encourage that with each other, with the world, with our social and political systems, with everything that Dr. King pointed to, that we ask the question: “What is being just here?” Both here, in this moment, and what is being just here [in the world]. Because, ultimately, they cannot be understood without each other. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the don...

In the observation of each and every living being with eyes of compassion, the door to the true Dharma opens. Observing each and every living being with eyes of compassion is the situation, is the practice, in which the true Dharma is seen, and heard, and maintained. Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brookl...

When we observe sentient beings with eyes of compassion and that observation becomes whole hearted, each sentient being becomes a door to the Dharma. And when that door opens and we realize what we are being shown that is wisdom. 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 “Givin...

No matter what comes, we welcome it. This is the way of Buddha. Whatever comes, welcome it. No matter how it looks, welcome it. And in fact, in reality, whatever comes you do welcome it. That’s your original nature. 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” secti...

Each of us has the job of being the person that the universe makes us and doing that completely involves listening to the cries of the world. I can’t be fully me without listening to everybody else. Because everybody else is included in me. 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...

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 our website.

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 our website.

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 our website.

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 our website.

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 our website.