Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

Using the Jungian archetypes of the eternal child and the wise elder, this talk maps the tension between following inspiration wherever it leads and committing deeply enough to actually cook — arguing that neither without the other is anything but a different kind of neurosis, and that real spiritual commitment somehow needs both. ★ Support this podcast ★

Jogen offers five categories for living a mystical life right in the middle of it — microdosing stillness, staying connected to the tender fleetingness of existence, liquefying your fixity through play, following whatever opens your heart, and finding the skeletal principles that guide you without making your life tight. ★ Support this podcast ★

Drawing on the Mangala Sutta's teaching on gratefulness and a recent pilgrimage to 400-year-old Soto Zen monasteries in Japan, this talk by Hogen Roshi traces how the abiding belief that "the world should work according to me" cuts us off from the very life we're trying to improve.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk addresses people who know or have known a natural sense of the sacred — and who may have set it aside when they entered a formal tradition — arguing that what you already know is not less valid than what any lama, priest, or roshi says, and that the meeting of inborn spirituality with a tradition can be the most potent combination of all. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this talk onn self-sufficiency, impossible decisions, and turning failure into wisdom, Hogen Roshi argues that true liberation isn't a state we achieve and protect but a responsive openness that meets whatever comes with curiosity rather than fear. ★ Support this podcast ★

Sparked by a Fourth of July celebration, this talk cuts through the cultural fantasy that freedom means getting what you want — and points instead toward the Buddhist understanding of freedom as release from greed, anger, and delusion, discoverable not by chasing carrots but by simply stopping, sitting, and breathing. ★ Support this podcast ★

Contrasting a book of philosophy where every page offers a new way to think about reality with the Buddha Dharma's insistence on direct verification, Hogen argues that contentment and gratitude aren't ideas to adopt but discoveries that arise naturally when we stop managing our experience and simply look closely. ★ Support this podcast ★

Rather than talking about awareness, this talk by Jogem invites listeners to taste it directly — through guided exhalations, the image of a hollow vessel lit from within, and the Dzogchen teaching of the Nine Amazing Things — pointing to the primordial light that exists in everyone. ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk from Jogen offers a multilayered Zen framework for not wasting time — from daily contemplation of death to touching the bedrock desires beneath our surface wants — and ends by questioning whether time can even be wasted at all. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this talk Jomon asks what it really means to belong to a spiritual tradition — and finds that the answer has less to do with personal achievement than with gratitude, flow, and showing up to pass something precious forward. ★ Support this podcast ★

Using the Heart Sutra's teaching on the emptiness of the five aggregates as a guide, Jomin weaves together a daughter's struggle to let her mother make her own choices, a charged encounter at a farmers market, and the liberating practice of simply saying "I don't know." ★ Support this podcast ★

Using the koan of Bodhidharma's transmission and the Pang family's teachings on difficulty and ease, Kisei closes sesshin by pointing practitioners toward the vows and confidence that have sustained them through every hard sitting — and toward the Buddha that their teachers have been holding up a mirror to all along. ★ Support this podcast ★

Weaving together the koan anecdotes, the awakening poems of early Buddhist women, and the living support of sangha, in this talk Kisei invites practitioners who feel stuck or afraid to ask for help — from the ancestors, from each other, and from the mystery itself. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this talk, Bansho explores two traps that derail even experienced sitters — premature conclusions and comfortable coasting — and points toward the three essentials of trust, persistence, and great question as the way to move forward. ★ Support this podcast ★

Drawing on Dogen's meditation manual, Rumi's "Guest House," and the playful wisdom of Zen ancestor Joshu, Bansho explores how zazen is an embodied practice of patient absorption — not a mental project — where welcoming whatever arises with steadiness and lightheartedness reveals that the ordinary mind itself is the way. ★ Support this podcast ★

How is it a Buddha weighs less than a feather?  In this talk, Bansho shares about the generosity, mystery and richness of his time training in Japan. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this talk, Kisei explores the Buddha's teaching on how we should practice if we truly seek liberation, as offered in the Diamond Sutra. ★ Support this podcast ★

Poetry has a way of cutting to the heart of our lives, and expressing the inexpressible. In this talk Kisei explores the styles of poetry used in the Zen tradition, from poems of enlightenment, to death poems, to capping phrases and poems of deep intimacy--poetry invites us into this living moment, and graces our lives with the mystery. ★ Support this podcast ★

During this talk Kisei explores the line from the Mountains and Rivers sutra, "a stone woman gives birth to a child at night", and entertain our own encounters with the stone woman, and what she may have to teach us. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this talk, Jogen frames the entire practice — regardless of specific method — as the conscious, intentional use of attention. The core of the talk breaks meditation down into two complementary skills: staying, which is the ability to keep attention where you want it and non-clinging, which is recognizing that body, mind, and experience are largely just happening on their own without needing to...

In this talk, Jogen Sensei makes a distinction between detachment (checking out), non-attachment (neither clinging nor pulling away), and fearless intimacy (meeting experience without any strategy at all), arguing that the ideal of the serene, unruffled practitioner can seduce people into using practice to avoid their emotions rather than meet them. The talk closes by noting that psychological inq...

This talk on the Mangala Sutta includes the importance of responding to life's circumstances with a calm, clear mind; the idea that each person has a unique set of skills and talents worth developing with intention and integrity; and the value of staying open to learning rather than assuming you already know. It closes with a distinction between speech that flatters people's existing beliefs (what...

Jomon contemplates the teachings of Dogen Zenji's Eight Realizations Of a Great Being. She touches on how our minds give us a surprisingly inaccurate picture of reality and how paying honest attention — rather than chasing, clinging, or arguing — is the actual practice. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this informal talk, Jogen Sensei explores the Buddhist “perfection of effort” (virya) as a subtle, deeply personal process of aligning one’s life with what the heart genuinely longs for, rather than forcing oneself through rigid discipline or external standards. He argues that all effort is already “perfect” because effort learns from itself over time, and that true practice is less about becom...

In this informal talk,. Hogen Roshi explores the the Mangala Sutta, tracing its origins in the Pali Canon and reflecting on how its wisdom remains deeply relevant today. Roshi invites listeners to consider the blessings already present in their lives — from love, community, and curiosity to inner peace and spiritual practice — and how gratitude can transform suffering and fear into clarity and com...