The OzZen Podcast

In our discussion last fortnight, we talked about making friends with death, and finding our home (nirvana) in this world rather than seeking some kind of transcendence of our ordinary self in an afterlife or in a “true” self that is behind, above or higher than our ordinary self, as if there is always something missing in our experience of ordinary self. In today’s talk I will explore some possib...

This guided meditation is inspired by a reading that can be found on the OzZen website by my teacher Barry Magid. I read the pargraphs from the reading and then the meditation flows with the encouragement to allow and accept all aspects of our experience and needs.

The topic for this guided meditation is let it be. Whatever we may be experiencing right now just let it be, no need to change or fix anything. Allowing everything to be just as it is. If you get caught up in the contents of a thought that’s fine, just gently return to just sitting.

In this talk I want to say something about the importance of accepting our finitude and making friends with death, as if it was our most intimate companion. I contrast the acceptance of finitude with the flight from finitude - towards a quest for permanence or transcendence found in many religious and spiritual teachings including nondual teachings such as Zen, Advaita and Dzogchen.

May we exist like a Lotus At home in the muddy water Thus, we bow to life as it is. This is one of our meal chants. I like the metaphor of finding our home in the muddy water. This meditation explores this metaphor as a guide for our Zazen practice.

Zen is a communal practice; it is also a commitment. Zen, ultimately, is a path of service to all beings and to each other, this commitment or vow is expressed in the Four Bodhisattva Vows. Showing up to practice together is an expression of that commitment. In some ways, commitment in Zen is like the Metta or Loving Kindness practice. We start with making a commitment to ourselves then extend tha...

Most of you are familiar with the basic teachings of Buddhism - which you can basically group into two: the wisdom teachings and practices and the compassion teachings and practices. The wisdom teachings and practices are sometimes called the prajna teachings or the “emptiness” teachings and practices such as the Heart Sutra which teaches form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Those wisdom teaching...

So, to begin our meditation – let’s start by letting go of our social identity. We do that by focusing on sensations, feelings. We can’t really feel age, or gender. They are just concepts. However, because we identify with concepts, we can feel hurt if someone insults aspects of our social identity. However, for the purpose of this meditation let’s leave these identities behind us. Let us de-ident...

This talk was inspired by a recent conversation with an OzZen member. In this conversation the person was concerned with their inability to forgive someone who had hurt them it was a kind of betrayal. Now, my Buddhist friend felt that this was inadequate from a Buddhist perspective, that is, from a Buddhist perspective one should not feel hurt and one should be able to forgive. It is these assumpt...

Bring awareness to our intention and settle into our posture. We don’t sit to become Buddhas, we sit because we are already Buddha. When resistance arises we sit with he resistance. Allow the self to settle into the self. Trust in your Zazen, allow zazen to do zazen.

In this talk I am going to continue the exploration of the psychological and interpersonal-neurobiological aspects of Zen practice. Given the limitation of time, this will of necessity be a simplified account. In a way, I am basically providing a sketch of how I see our relationship to Zazen playing a similar function to our experience of an intimate relationship to potentiate our experience self.

In this talk I begin exploring the psychological and neurobiological aspects of Zen practice. This talk focuses on understanding the relationship between the personal self and the universal self and concludes that they meet through the experience of intimacy.

The 13th century Zen Master Dogen grew up with the teaching of original enlightenment – enlightenment is inherent in all beings from the beginning – not something that is achieved through effort. We might say it is a Holy world. Original dwelling place is another metaphor that has been used to point towards this ultimate reality that is always going to be impossible to pin down in words. The dilem...

This talk explores the existential and communal aspects of Zen practice. In particular, it focuses on interpersonal isolation, intrapersonal isolation and existential isolation. Zazen can be understood as a practice that builds our capacity to experience the intimacy of self, others, and the world by sitting alone together.

Caught in a self-centred dream, only suffering Holding to self-centred thoughts, exactly the dream. Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher Being just this moment, compassion’s way. The practice principles are regularly recited in Ordinary Mind Zen Centres around the world. They are a re-working of the classic statements of The Four Noble Truths. In this talk I interpret the principles as enc...

“Come in”, she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”. In this talk I explore the meaning of salvation in Zen, in the context of a world stunned by the effects of disease and death. It begins with an overview of how both religions and relationships have been the main “shelters” of salvation for human beings since the dawn of time. So, what does Zen offer? I conclude that Zen does not promise...

This talk explores the relationship between growing up and waking up. It commences with a reading of the first five verses of the poem Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth. I then discuss the distinction made by my teacher Barry Magid between a “top-down practice” and a “bottom-up practice” and outline some of the pitfalls of a top-down practice. It was Jack Engler who coined the phras...

In this talk I discuss the relationship between student and teacher which is at the core of our tradition and practice. This talk answers the question what is involved in becoming a student? What is a zen student? How do I become a zen student? What does it mean to practice in a non-monastic setting? The talk also discusses my experience of the student – teacher relationship and explores the quest...

I have sometimes heard people say “I have wasted my life” and are full of regrets for the life they did not lead.  This is a common form of suffering. A critical part disparages the life we have led as not being "good enough" or "successful" enough because we did not follow our authentic calling and opted for a safer option.  For example, a character in the Netflix comedy The Kominsky Method, feel...

In this talk Andrew gives his interpretation of the traditional “four seals” as discussed in the classic book by Uchiyama on Soto Zen: Opening the Hand of Thought. The four seals are: 1. Life is suffering. 2. Impermanence. 3. No substantial self (interdependence). 4. Nirvana (the end of suffering). The four seals are the essentials for a teaching to be Buddhism. They are what differentiates Buddhi...

This is a classic enlightenment poem, attributed to the third ancestor of Chan, Seng Ts’an. The title is sometimes translated as Faith in Mind, but I prefer realising mind because the poem is a guide for practice and teaches us how to align ourselves with our Buddha mind. “True faith in mind is the belief grounded in realisation that we have (are) a fundamental, unmoving, unchanging mind” (Sheng Y...

What are the barriers that prevent us from awakening? From appreciating this presence that we are and always have been. Usually our preoccupation with “me”. Also, important to focus on post-enlightenment practice. Awakening doesn’t mean we are not going to have ups and downs. This path doesn’t offer a pot of gold. But it offers eternity – which is always now. And now could be a pain in the neck or...

Vimalakirti, was a very wise lay practitioner who lived at the time of the Buddha. In reply to the question: “What is the Bodhisattva’s Gate to the One and Only?” his response was silence. Silence is synonymous with nonduality. This is a guided meditation commenting on a short text on “Silence”, by a twentieth century nondual teacher called Jean Klein. Jean Klein was not in the Buddhist tradition....

Our original enlightenment or inherent completeness is obscured by our self-centred dream, trauma and conditioning. Awakening to presence, although necessary, is often not enough to heal our addiction to the self-centre, and our traumatic deficiency stories (beliefs) and body memories. We need to ensure that presence can meet the conditioning that has been compartmentalised away. We must bring con...

This was a talk given by a student, Phil Pisanu, at the recent retreat. "My Zen journey has 3 entangled threads – the idea of Zen, my interest in the natural world, and my lifelong pastime of surfing... Mind, body and spirit. All good journeys have a beginning, a middle and end..."