The OzZen Podcast

The teaching of Zen in the USW by newly arrived teachers from Japan such as Shunryu Suzuki, coincided with the rise of self-psychology found in the work of influential therapists such as Carl Rogers and Heinz Kohut. Rogers and Kohut popularised the notion of self-esteem and how the self could be injured in childhood leading to disorders of the self. This social construction of the individualistic...

In our individualistic culture, it is all about “me”. Often this has been referred to as the age of narcissism. A common form of suffering in our affluent culture is variations on the sense of shame, the sense of not being good enough, of being inadequate, of being a failure. This is to be contrasted with the zen teaching that we are okay just as we are.

How we relate to our pain, physical or emotion, is the key to ending suffering or escalating our suffering. Our competitive culture can also create shame-based forms of suffering such as personal failure, Developmental and relational trauma also creates shame-based forms of suffering. The practice of Zazen is the best antidote to self-rejection, founded in profound self-acceptance.

This is the first talk I gave at the Promised Land Zendo. It is my “Christmas” talk on the meaning of giving and receiving in the context of Zen Buddhist practice. Ultimately, from the perspective of the Absolute, when we are “giving” we are “receiving” and when we are receiving with gratitude we are giving.

This talk is a commentary on the poem “The Guest House” by Rumi, a 13th century Islamic scholar and Sufi mystic.

This talk is about how the scandals in western zen and subsequent disillusionment led to the increasing awareness of the need to integrate a psychological mindedness into traditional zen practice to ensure that zen could not be used as a form of “spiritual bypassing” or means of dissociation from psychological problems.

This talk is the first talk given at the Sawtell Zendo, and is a commentary on a famous zen story. In this story, the teacher asks the student, “what is your purpose or intention in doing Zazen?” and the student replies, “I seek to become a Buddha”. Thereupon the teacher picks up a roofing tile and begins to rub it with a stone. The student asks, “Teacher, what are you doing that for?” and the tea...

This talk, is a commentary on the chant, “On Opening the Dharma”. This is traditionally chanted prior to the teacher giving a dharma talk.

This talk is a commentary of the four practice principles developed by Charlotte Joko Beck and her students when she formed the Ordinary Mind Zen School. These were later revised by my teacher Barry Magid, who changed the second principle. The principles are a contemporary reworking of the four noble truths and capture the essence of Joko and Barry’s teaching in four lines. We chant the four princ...

This was my first talk given in Coffs Harbour, Australia to a small fledgling sangha. This talk focuses on the centrality and uniqueness of the student-teacher relationship in the Zen Buddhist tradition.

This talk was given after receiving both Jukai and Denkai or lay entrustment from my teacher Barry Magid. Denkai is transmission giving permission to teach and offer the precepts. The talk expands on the positive interpretation of the first two precepts: to cherish life, to love life and to practice appreciation and gratitude fir what we freely receive.

This is my first ever talk as a zen teacher. It is my commentary on case 45 of the Gateless Barrier, “Who is That Other?” My reading of this Koan is that it goes to the heart of our Zen practice: that is, it asks the question, how do we integrate our understanding of the oneness and interdependence of life, which we discover in Zazen, with how we conduct ourselves in our everyday life embedded as...