Living Zen

This talk was given on April 7 — the day before Hanamatsuri, the traditional celebration of the Buddha's birthday. I'd been sharing a video that week of newborn lambs at the ecovillage where I live, jumping around within minutes of being born. Nearly everyone said the same thing: it's amazing how much they can do right away. People don't do that. Except — maybe we do. The story of the Buddha's bir...

There were daffodils on the altar when I gave this talk — narcissus, named after the figure who fell in love with his own reflection in the pond. It turned out to be exactly the right image for what the practice is. The central metaphor is one I return to often: imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a river. As the body settles, things begin to flow past — thoughts, memories, to-do lists, feelin...

Life keeps getting harder to afford — in time, in money, in simple presence. And yet here you are. This talk moves through the Three Treasures — Buddha, Dharma, Sangha — not as a Buddhism 101 survey, but as a question about how we actually live. Buddha: not just the historical man, but the principle of awakening itself — a pattern that repeats across human history — and at its deepest, our own nat...

In this talk, I reflect on form as a living, embodied Zen practicioner. Drawing on Rinzai Zen forms — gassho, sasshu, posture, breath, walking, and bowing — I explore how Zen is practiced through the body itself. The forms of practice are not symbolic gestures or rules to get right; they are precise, lived expressions of activity, receptivity, and stillness. This talk explores: plus, minus, and ze...

Animacy in Zen   In this episode of Living Zen , I reflect on Zen form — not as something merely procedural or symbolic, but as something alive .   This talk explores how breath, movement, sound, chanting, bells, incense, and shared attention all participate in the life of practice. Rather than treating form as a set of rules to perform correctly, the talk invites listeners to notice how the pract...

This talk was recorded during our first sit of 2026 at the University of Victoria's Multifaith Centre. It's a reflection on Zen practice, play, and seriousness—and how we meet the great matter of life and death without becoming rigid or grim. Beginning again, again and again, is at the heart of practice. Living Zen is a podcast about Zen as it's lived: sincere, embodied, and woven into real human...

In this episode, I explore one of the most treasured teachings in the Rinzai Zen tradition: Kōzen Daitō Kokushi Yuikai , the "Final Instruction" of National Teacher Daitō, founder of Daitoku-ji. This chant has accompanied my practice since 1995, and over the years its meaning has deepened in ways that continue to surprise me. Together we look at the stories surrounding Daitō's life, the clarity an...

In this talk, we explore one of the Buddha's most enduring teachings — the musician Sona and the image of practice as a stringed instrument. Too tight, the strings snap. Too loose, there's no sound. Somewhere between effort and ease, discipline and kindness, we find the middle way. Drawing on this metaphor, we look at how our lives constantly shift the tuning of our practice: relationships, work,...

WARNING - Sudden loud sounds in this podcast. In this episode, we explore the heart of embodied practice — how a single moment of presence can cut through all the noise and return us to the immediacy of our own lives. Zen form, the shout, the bow, the subtle choreography of entering the Zendo… each of these is a doorway back into awakening as a lived, physical reality. If you'd like to dive more d...

In this episode of Living Zen , Eshū reflects on two guiding phrases: the Zen teaching "To study the self is to forget the self…" and the Gàidhlig seanfhacal "Cuimhnich air na daoine às an tàinig thu" — remember the people you came from. As he returns to regular practice at Zenwest, Eshū speaks candidly about the pitfalls of spiritual bypassing, the power of ritual technologies like zazen and chan...

This week there's no Dharma talk from the Zendo — UVic was cleaning the carpets on Sunday, so our usual sit was cancelled. But I didn't want to leave the Sangha hungry. Instead, I'm sharing this reflection on how Zen was "de-animated" when it came west — and how we might begin to re-animate it, in relationship with land, ancestors, and the many seen and unseen beings who share our world. It's not...

In this episode, we explore the long arc of practice — how insight and awakening might come suddenly, but true transformation takes slow, organic time. Like digestion or composting, it can't be rushed. We reflect on moments of birth and death, on coming back to practice after seasons away, and on learning to pace ourselves at the endless feast of awakening. Whether you're tasting your first bites...

In this talk, I explore how practice invites us to return again and again — to breath, posture, intention — dissolving fear and self-criticism, and opening to the quiet miracle of simply being here. When we give ourselves fully to this moment — to a bow, a breath, a meal, a conversation — life itself becomes the miraculous medicine this world so deeply needs. Thank you for listening, and for walki...

"The Dharma is being preached in everything." This Dharma talk, offered just after summer solstice, reflects on the rhythms of breath, season, and spirit. It explores the natural arising and dissolving that moves through our practice, our emotions, and our path — and invites us to rest in the still point between. Recorded in the Zenwest zendo and shared here on Living Zen – Red Mountain Way . Supp...

This episode is a quiet invitation to long-time listeners and new friends alike. After years of practice, storytelling, and podcasting, Eshū speaks directly to those who've walked this path with him—often at a distance—and shares the next steps in the journey, including a return to leadership at Zenwest and the weaving of many streams through Red Mountain Way. Join the Sangha. Join the kinship. Th...

This short preparatory session offers a gentle introduction to the themes and intentions behind Rewriting Money Stories , part of the Thought Pattern Trancework series.   You'll be guided through a few minutes of grounded presence, some light reflection on your current money narratives, and an orientation to the deeper trancework session available through Patreon or the Monarch Trancework website....

After a long hiatus, I'm returning to regular teaching in the Zendo with Zenwest — and inviting you to join me on a new path of practice and connection through my Patreon, The Red Mountain Way. Support the work: https://www.patreon.com/redmountainway Thank you for walking this path together.

Almost everyone, at some point, runs into challenges, obstacles, or problems in their family, work, or intimate personal relationships - that at their root, involve issues around boundaries. Today's session will provide you with the framework you need to be ready to start clarifying, expressing, and maintaining healthy boundaries ! This preparation session will give you the framework to go forward...

Today I'll be sharing the preparation session for the next installment of the Thought Process Trancework Series which I've called "A Question of Control", in which you'll learn about how subconscious patterns that begin as natural survival responses become rigid, and overly-general rules that begin to be universally applied in our daily experiences, and can cause our lives to become increasingly s...

Today I'm sharing the preparation session for the next installment of the Thought Process Trancework Series which I've called "Understanding Patterns", in which we'll be doing a deeper exploration into how subconscious thought patterns first come about often when we are really young, how they become established and essentially automatic – our default way of reacting – and how, often in spite of be...