The OzZen Podcast

This topic that I have asked Barry to speak on continues our exploration of Buddhist modernism and is also deeply personal, as we reflect on the question of whether or not we wish to identify ourselves as Buddhists. I just want to preface Barry’s talk and our discussion by referring to our OzZen constitution. The relevant parts read: OzZen is established to transmit and maintain the teachings of t...

This meditation focuses on one of the core teachings of the Ordinary Mind Zen School: that there is nothing that is, or can be, broken with you as a person. Thus, there is nothing to be fixed. Often, and understandably, we get caught in concepts and judgements of good/bad. As an example, when experiencing emotional states that are painful or unpleasant, like anger, sadness, agitation, boredom, we...

In this guided meditation I explore the heart of the Heart Sutra: Boundlessness. The Heart Sutra is the most important teaching in the Zen Buddhist world. I want to emphasise that this sutra is all about enlightenment as a verb – enlightening. The realisation of emptiness or boundlessness is freeing – it lightens us up and fills us with great joy!

In this talk I am going to discuss the Heart Sutra, the most important teaching in the Zen Buddhist world. I want to emphasise that this sutra is all about enlightenment as a verb – enlightening. The realisation of emptiness or boundlessness is freeing – it lightens us up and fills us with great joy! First, I will once again situate ourselves within Modern Buddhism. I will then give some brief his...

This guided mediation explores awareness as a central aspect of both Zen and gestalt therapy. Drawing on Fritz Perls’ concept of the “three zones of awareness,” it leads meditators through different aspects of their awareness, encouraging focus on both the content of awareness (e.g., sensations, sounds), as well as the process of awareness itself.

This talk continues the discussion from last fortnight, about moving from traditional Buddhism, what I called the salvation model, to modern Buddhism, or what I called the human flourishing model. In this talk, I will review, how modern Buddhism is reinterpreting some traditional core Buddhist beliefs. Traditional Buddhism was embedded in Indian philosophy and religion. The salvation model was app...

Zazen can be considered as the practice of ‘being’. Sitting, doing nothing, we reveal ourselves to ourselves. We reveal the no-separation between us and life itself. We reveal the paradox of constant change. We reveal the impossibility of not being this moment, of not being ourselves. Robert Rosenbaum, in ‘Zen and the Heart of Psychotherapy’ puts it this way: “practicing Zazen we practice just bei...

The topic for this guided meditation is Embracing your Life: Cultivating Joy. It fits withing the Modern Buddhist Ethical framework of cultivating Happiness in This Life. Its okay to enjoy practice! The introduction discusses The Three Gates of Zen Practice – from a dharma talk by Barry Magid on 04/09/2010. The three gates of Zen practice are suffering, joy and compassion. Last weeks guided medita...

In this talk Andrew locates our on-going discussion about Buddhist ethics in the context of Buddhist modernism in the West. He makes a distinction between the traditional salvation model of Buddhism and contrasts that with the eudaimonic or Human Flourishing model, which he argues is more congruent with our culture in this time and place. Andrew also suggests that Zen Buddhism since its beginnings...

This guided mediation focuses on embracing dukkha as part of zen practice. Drawing on the “paradoxical theory of change” from gestalt therapy, it explores how growth, healing, and change are possible not when we try to modify ourselves, but rather when we fully become ourselves and our suffering.

This is the first of a series of Guided Meditations on Buddhist Ethics or the Cultivation of Character. It begins with an introduction to the Four Divine Abodes (Immeasurables): Karuna (care), Mudita (sympathetic joy), Metta (Love) and Upekka (Equanimity) followed by a reading of the Metta Sutta. The guided meditation commences with affectionate breathing moving the classic structure of metta prac...

In this talk Andrew gives an overview of the OzZen Way Study Program and answers questions on various aspects of the program. The written program can be found on the OzZen website.

By Dr Jed Blore. This is a meditation reflecting on “being just this moment”. What is “being just this moment”? It is reading these words, hearing the sounds around you, feeling the way your body is oriented in space and supported by the ground, thinking thoughts, feeling feelings. There is nothing outside of this moment. This moment contains everything. Memory is only ever experienced in this mom...

This guided meditation OzZen teacher Andrew Tootell continues the project of developing a Zen-informed Guided Meditation practice. It begins by outlining the four principles that all Buddhist groups adhere to: Life is Dukkha (Suffering); Impermanence; Interdependence (no separate self); and Nirvana. Although all Buddhism agree on these “four seals” they interpret them differently. We will be explo...

In this first talk for the year Andrew gives a general outline of Buddhism plus a discussion about the origins of Zen Buddhism. Andrew also answers some questions about what drew him to Zen Buddhism.

Gurdjieff (1866-1949) was a very influential spiritual teacher, and his teaching of the “Fourth Way” was ahead of its time and pre-dated the findings of later neuroscience, especially the “three centres”: the sensorimotor centre, the emotional centre and the cognitive centre and his teaching of multiple self-states. In this talk Elizabeth Barrett, a long-time student of “the work” gives us her sto...

Welcome home. Literally. This is our home, right here and now. You will not find this home on any map or travel guide. Wherever you travel, you will always arrive where you started - Here and Now. This is why, we have many stories in all the great spiritual traditions of people wandering in search of their home, finally realizing, THIS is their home. We are always at home.

This meditation reflects on our interdependence with each other and the world. How our body, mind and soul is dependent on nurture from the earth and from each other. Recognising this interdependence is the foundation for caring for ourselves and others.

If the image of the Buddha represents the experience of the timeless now, then the image of Janus, the two-headed Roman God of transitions, gateways, beginnings and endings, with one head turned towards what has been, and the other head turned towards what is yet to be, represents our experience of what I call mortal personhood. The smile of the Buddha conveys the sense of completeness – of serene...

My teacher's teacher, Joko Beck, was once asked, if she could summarize all her years of practice in one word, what would it be? And she said, kindness. This guided meditation takes us on a journey into the experience of kindness and cultivating kindness. As the heart opens, we become free from our reactions and are able to respond to the world, to relationships, from this place of loving kindness...

In a way all these guided meditations are kind of like an exploration of our core practice - the practice of just sitting or the koan of just sitting. It's the core practice in Soto Zen. Dogen said zazen is not a meditation technique. It is simply the Dharma gate of joyful ease. It is practicing the realization of the boundless dharma way. Here the open mystery manifests and there are no more trap...

I am currently reading a book called This Life: Why Mortality Makes us Free by the contemporary Swedish philosopher, Martin Hagglund, who argues against religious faith in favour of what he calls secular faith. He includes Buddhism, along with Christianity, as practicing a form of religious faith where some form of belief in eternity takes precedence over living this life. He argues that giving pr...

This guided meditation take us on a journey exploring the two dimensions of time. The first quote refers to our normal experience of time as linear. The time that passes by in a flash. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds gone by in a flash. This is time seen from the relative or delusional perspective of the separate self that feels itself to stand-out, apart from reality as it is. It generates the emotio...

In this talk, my teacher, Barry Magid introduces us to the precepts of bearing witness. Barry suggests that the metaphor of bearing witness is more suited to contemporary lay practice in the west, than the metaphor of making a vow. When we bear witness to for example, violence in ourselves, we lay the groundwork for transformation through seeing ourselves clearly, without judgement. In contrast to...

Another expression for Zazen might be, being presence, but when we first sit down we may experience a strong pull away from being presence, almost like being caught in a rip current. Sometimes, it is best not to resist resistance and allow ourselves to be carried away by the rip in the faith that it will naturally come to an end and we will wake up again, in the light of a deep sense of being pres...