Zen and Ecodharma Talks by Kritee Kanko

Why did the 17th century Zen practitioner Ryonen Genso burn her face to enter a Zen temple? What is this path worth? In this talk, Sensei Kanko challenges us to think what is possible when we move past healing alone and ask the most fundamental spiritual question: who am I? Naming the shadow of patriarchy in Buddhism but refusing to let Ryonen's story end there, she asks what burning question...

How can you become fully enlightened like a Buddha? If you were a Buffalo, how can you be enlightened from head to tail? Or is that a delusional goal? In this talk, Sensei Kanko (Dr. Kritee) explores the koan of a buffalo passing through the window ( or a in Chinese architecture). In the koan, Buffalo’s head, horns, and four legs all make it through the window, but the tail cannot. What is this st...

Why might cuddling, hugging and belonging be important in our spiritual paths? In this talk, Sensei Kanko explores the tension between the koan's spiritual teaching on an “absolute” or “ultimate” plane, i.e., nothing in life is out of place, and what she sees as a deeper historical truth: that loneliness is out of place. We are mammals. Mammals experience safety, learning, and healing through...

Sensei Kanko ventured into Indian forests frequently visited by predators such as leopards, tigers, sloth bears, venomous snakes, and wild elephants. Why did she do this? What does fear held in trust look like? And why does she feel more hopeful and alive now than she has ever felt in her life?  In this talk, Sensei Kanko shares what motivated her to make this trip to India and reconnect with her...

How does spiritual communication with plants and microbes happen? Are nature kinning practices essential in a spiritual path? Should you treat plants and microbes as equal or more intelligent than you? In this talk, Sensei Kanko explores a rare koan that directly addresses our relationship with the natural world, in order to inspire and give a rationale for nature kinning practices. Drawing on the...

.Why are both hardship and gentleness invaluable in the spiritual path? Why is it sometimes helpful to be slapped and pushed away by the circumstances and the world around us? And how can it be also pivotal to treat ourselves gently like our best buddy or kind deity like Gyanyin would treat us? In this tender and powerful talk given on the first day of the Fall 2025 Zen retreat, Sensei Kanko addre...

Is it possible that no one, including our loved human or non-human friends to beings in the warzones, dies at a wrong moment for a wrong reason? Also, how are “We the middle of forever”, with no birth and no death?  Important note: Engaged Buddhist or Ecodharma teachers, including Dr. Kritee, emphasize the importance of compassionate “Bodhisattva” actions for social and environmental change withou...

Can we transcend suffering by letting go of notions of good and bad? When does medicine become a sickness?  In this profound talk, Sensei Kritee Kanko explores one of Zen's most challenging teaching: everything on earth—including our most painful experiences—is medicine. Drawing from her 25 years of practice, she reveals how our desperate attempts to escape suffering through meditation and spiritu...

Should a slave meditate to wake up? How can we access a larger trauma-informed view in Zen? In this talk, Sensei Kanko discusses a very emotionally triggering koan with the greatest gentleness. How can we hold our bodies and emotions with gentleness to not fall into the shadows of Zen? How can we remain firm in our need to make changes in the society around us? And at the same time how to make sur...

What is the relationship between the big “eternal” spiritual mind and our small lonely or calculative mind? How to live our daily lives in these times of polycrisis and systemic oppression? This talk by Sensei Kanko (Dr. Kritee) flows like a compassionate boat running down a wild river and embodies a deep spontaneity. Here, she guides listeners through Zuigan's paradoxical koan—calling his own sel...

How is an enlightened compassion the essence of our “impossible" suffering? In this profound talk, Dr. Kritee explores case 21 of the Mumonkan, where a student asks Zen Master Yunmen "What is the essence of Buddhism?" and the master answers: "Kanshiketsu"—toilet stick. Through personal stories about extremely hard (impossible) life situations and sitting with a friend faci...

How do we cultivate deeper trust in life when everything seems to be falling apart? What does it mean to "proceed on from the top of a hundred-foot pole" - to let go just when we think we've learned to control some aspects of life.   In this powerful talk on the last day of silent May 2025 Zen retreat, Sensei Kanko explores the profound teaching of trusting the universe and releasing...

Using the example of the Babemba tribe’s harm resolution ceremony, Sensei Kritee explores “What if a wise response to our current times is to expand our vision and perception beyond the limits of a single human lifetime?” Babemba tribe has unlimited belief in the fundamental goodness of all human beings. Where does such deep belief come from? They don’t start lashing out in fear and anger at peopl...

How can we make wholesome decisions in the face of impossible dilemmas that life throws at us? How do we face impossible choices when hanging between life and death? In this talk, Dr. Kritee Kanko reflects on a strange Zen story where someone finds themselves in an impossible situation: hanging by their mouth from a tree branch over a cliff, he must either answer a spiritual question and fall to h...

How can we cultivate fearlessness in these turbulent times? Can developing our ability to grieve, trust, and surrender help us access our inner vastness and fearlessness? Is our practice supporting communion between analytical and intuitive aspects of our mind? In this talk, Sensei Kritee Kanko explores an incident from 20th century India about Dipa Ma, who held a frightened student's hand dur...

How can we respond with loving clarity and topple brothers like Trump or Musk who are stuck in toxic patterns of power and control? In this profound Dharma talk, Sensei Kritee Kanko explores a koan about an eighth-century Chinese Zen master who stubbornly dies standing on his head—only to have his sister, a bearer of gentle, loving wisdom, topple his final display of ego. Through personal stories...

How can a soiled toilet paper which you have used to wipe your ass be Buddha? How can the things we “hate” about life be “sacred”? How can the worst kinds of physical and emotional pain experienced during meditation be a pathway to a deeper realization, equanimity and courage? In this talk, Zen teacher Kanko talks about a classic Koan and discusses how we can best relate to pain during a meditatio...

What is the mental state from which we can take action during these times of uncertainty, fear and grief? How can we access such a “prized” mental state? In this talk Sensei Kritee Kanko (Ph. D.) shares, with examples and stories, a modern trauma-informed way to access equanimity and courage to take action for the benefit of all beings. In these times of polycrisis, it is ordinary to feel busy, di...

Get drunk on Mu and strategize. This talk addresses how  “masculine” Rinzai Zen and feminine ancient Indian path of bhakti can come together. And what we can do after we have drunk the finest wine called Mu.  Mu is a Buddhist word for fundamental zeroness and absolute mind. Can the importance of societal change, divine feminine, and respect for multicultural spiritual traditions find a place even...

What is inner spiritual liberation? What happens when outer social-political liberation is not possible in these times of polycrisis? In this talk, Dr. Kritee explores the path of inner liberation in the midst of overwhelming planetary grief and oppression. It is important that we keep going with our actions for peace at political level, climate sanity, and social justice. But is it wise to cling...

Can the deepest personal, societal and ecological challenges we face lead our way to the "great bliss"?  If the most vulnerable species and innocent children are being killed every hour, is it okay for us to sit in this great bliss?  In this teisho (Zen talk), Dr. Kritee explores the deep challenge of staying sane in the difficult times using personal anecdotes and stories and myths from...

Is a widespread climate chaos or collapse inevitable? Can we face this impending chaos through the frameworks promoted by late stage capitalism: the ones driven by quarterly or annual financial returns? Is it time to stop accepting that we are lonely, sinful, inadequate and isolated from our more-than-human kins? How can we create a “Beloved community” and move away from a sense of shame and inade...

Can there be grievous suffering even in the midst of an expansive, vast and clear “blue sky” mind? In Buddhism, the practice of meditation helps us access what some teachers call “the blue sky mind”, a state that relieves a sense of insufficiency in our lives and brings clarity, spaciousness and joy. But is this the deepest level of intimacy with “reality-as-it-is” we can reach in our spiritual pr...

Is Mu enough? In this talk, Sensei Kanko dives into some details of the Rinzai Zen path, discussing the all-encompassing nature of the Mu Koan and its relationship to breathing from the hara (lower belly) and accessing concentrated awareness. She invites listeners to balance the masculine Zen approach with emotional healing. Acknowledging Zen's limitations with respect to dealing with societal...

Kisagotami's Mustard Seed - Hidden Lamp 49 Will Western Buddhism lead us to selfish acts and an egoistic pursuit of enlightenment if we do not reintroduce the original communal aspects of Buddhism as they were present at the time of the Buddha? In this Zen Talk, Sensei Kanko delves into the profound intersection of Buddhism and the universal experience of grief. She shares her journey from Ind...