The Jizo-an Zen Community Podcast

For those touched by awakening, the complexities of existence allow for words to be molded like clay… and so poetry lends itself to the wonderful mysteries of what lies beyond the temporal and transitory…not allowing the reader to fully put their finger on it, for it would just be another case of the finger pointing at the moon. Each time the Dharma is composed into intellectual and coherent vocab...

In 1994, the late American Zen master, Roshi, Bernie Glassman founded the Zen peacemakers; an organization of practitioners and teachers that has grown globally. He also established the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers, a path of practice to relieve the suffering of all beings through contemplative social action. Those three tenets – Not Knowing, Bearing Witness and Compassionate Action are a f...

When we begin walking this path, we start the process of taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Then, we may come to the realization that we are ready to take formal refuge as we experience the transformation that naturally happens when we make the genuine commitment to fully embrace this way of being in the world. Let's explore the meaning of the powerful statement and action of...

First, the Buddha, and then Dogen Zenji, in their final lessons to us, described eight qualities to guide us as Bodhisattvas in training. These eight are necessary to develop if we are to become true adults and to step past the un-resolved, erratic emotions that continue in the unconscious mind, so that we may actualize the Buddha field in our everyday life.

In Buddhism, the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance are regarded as mental, afflictions, that cloud the mind, and are the root cause of our suffering and discontentment. Our conditioned reaction is to see these poisons simply as enemies that must be avoided or eliminated. But, what if we see them as our teachers and the very springboard to insight and awakening?

In Zen we do a lot of bowing. But there is so much more to a bow than just bending. Bowing is a practice of gratitude and non-duality. It is a physical expression of the Buddha's teaching. The dropping away of the ego and its myriad attachments. A bow represents the merging of heart and mind, compassion and wisdom.

These two possibilities are relative and absolute or if you like, awareness and ignorance…the point of speaking about the one reality is to help an individual pull himself out of the one-sided relative reality that 99% of us live in—me and you. Like everything in life, this requires balance, diligence, and effort. Just as a seesaw works best when the two weights are similar, our lives find balance...

We have largely been conditioned to believe that we need to constantly push ourselves very hard and make strenuous efforts to attain, achieve, or become this or that. We often bring this same mentality to our spiritual practice, believing that we must make strenuous efforts to awaken and realize our true nature. Dogen Zenji described practice as the dharma gate of ease and joy. He emphasized dilig...

There is a frequently quoted Zen saying - Seven times knocked down, eight times get up - that speaks to a core aspect of practice and training: namely, the cultivation of unflagging perseverance, even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances. The dharma points to the essential nature of great determination on the spiritual path because it recognizes the necessity for deep resolve in our ev...

Attending to the breath​ is the simplest of instructions for marshaling our attention into the current moment. Yet we tend to fall back again and again into thinking about, musing, judging and projecting our wants and needs upon our experience of it. Fortunately we can train the mind with a simple hint to maintain our focus and deepen our practice of zazen — stealing our attention back from the wa...

For many traditional religions, doubt is often seen as a weakness, a lack of faith, or the very antithesis of faith. Seen in this way, mere belief can harden into unquestioned dogma or doctrine. However, in Buddhism, and perhaps especially in Zen, Great Doubt is one of the foundations of practice, and is interconnected and inseparable from Great Faith. The great Zen Master Boshan taught that unlik...

Historically it is said that after his elightenment experience, The Buddha's first discourse was defined as the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. He offered the first teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path to five fellow seekers, who at first denied him an audience...but after noticing something different in him, sat and listened. They became the first Sangha; the commu...

Vasubandhu was a 5th century Buddhist monk who, along with his brother Asanga formulated the teaching called Yogacara. It arose as means of finding balance between the two major paths of the Early Buddhist teachings and The Mahayana teachings. Vasubandhu and Asanga sought to bring harmony to the vast differences in these two practices, showing that both of them have very important roles in freeing...

CLIP: You Have to Come in to Win (Community) by Jizo-an Zen Community

From Saturday, June 15th, 2019

More Together Than Alone by Jizo-an Zen Community

A Passover and Easter Minute to Change the World by Jizo-an Zen Community

Getting Beyond Fear & The Illusion of Differences initiative arises directly from the Great Bodhisattva Vows: to alleviate the suffering of every human being; to put an end to all self-serving desires; to profoundly study and realize the Dharma; and to perfectly manifest this real truth in every aspect of our lives. Tonight we will examine how the Dharma can illuminate the persistent forms of bias...

"And the simple fact that by being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen which cannot be learned any more than breathing), we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations." - Thomas Merton To "Hold Space" for ourselv...

Creating Clarity Through Morality & Mindfulness by Jizo-an Zen Community

As Spiritual and Religious Americans how do we respond to increasing violence, and the current rise of injustice, discrimination, racism, anti-semitism and hatred we are witnessing in our Country and around the World today? What would the Buddha do? What would Jesus do? What does the Torah teach us to do? Join Seijaku Roshi, Rabbi Simon, and Deacon Jim Casa for this most Inspiring, Educational, an...

The Truth will set you free, and the closer we get to our freedom, the more synonymous the effort and the reward. Spirituality or Training is about what Chogyam Trungpa called, "Cutting Through our Spiritual Materialism," both our cultural and social conditioning about being spiritual, ending our consumer oriented approach to being spiritual. Join Seijaku Roshi and Rabbi Richard Simon as they disc...

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - Dwight D. Eisenhower Dedicated to the healing of Our Veterans Serving Around The World: A Day of Serene Meditation and Silence for The End of War in Our World Characterized by silence and deep introspection, sesshin is recommended to anyone who is sincerely interested in expe...

"Underneath all we are taught, there is a voice that calls to us beyond what is reasonable,and in listening to that flicker of spirit, we often find deep healing." Central to Authentic Spirituality (Zen) is the teaching that, "We are not who we think we are, or who we think we should be." Therefore the aim and objective of Zen is to "Awaken from a lifetime of Ego-Delusion" to discover who and what...

Mindfulness and Meditation and washing the dishes, making the bed, doing the laundry go together. They always have gone together. How we hold the mundane speaks loudly about how we hold life. Sen Rikyu taught, "All can find peace in a bowl of tea." If you know how to make and drink a bowl of tea, if you know how to hold the tea bowl in your hands. Tonight we will explore how we can find "our Zen"...