Episodes
Friday Jul 22, 2022
Dave Cuomo - A Quiet Resistance (Political Engagement in Buddhism)
Friday Jul 22, 2022
Friday Jul 22, 2022
"Whatever the ineffable is, it doesn't seem too concerned with our politics. But then we're also always told that the ineffable is nothing but what happening right now... So it gets left up to you to figure out what's truly important.
My actual hot take on everyone's politics is, if you've already sat down and shut up for a half hour today, whatever else you want to say is fine. And then I might even want to listen to you." - Dave Cuomo
Dave regales us with the story of that time Buddha juggled betrayal, assassination attempts, war, and intrigues of all kinds (nbd) in a look at how Buddhism does (and does not) deal with political engagement. Does ultimate reality care about the mundane affairs of our dusty little world? Do we have an obligation to take a stand on things that matter, or is sitting all that really matters?? Which speaks louder, the bellows of the Buddha or the thunderous roar of stillness?? Find out here!
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Dave Cuomo - Flowers Abound! (Vimalakirti ch7 - The Goddess)
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Friday Jul 15, 2022
“The nice thing about a Zen Center is they make it really easy to be a good person. Just follow the script - bowing, sitting, chanting enlightened things, sending all your cosmic merit to all living beings… you’re already being an enlightened buddha just by following the playbook. Everyone seems so nice, wholesome, and down to earth around here. I guess I don't really know what you're like on the outside. Maybe I don't wanna find out. But I like what this place does to us.” - Dave Cuomo
Dave regales us with the famously wise and whimsical Goddess chapter of the Vimalakirti Sutra. A sneaky snarky goddess has been hiding out listening in on our heroes, and now she’s ready to reveal herself and indulge in some no holds barred dharma combat. Can this proto feminist icon show our heroes the way? What do identity politics mean to a being born of no self? Can hatred be a tool of liberation?? Is it always attachment to want nice things? Or is the real attachment to push them away?? Find out here!
Friday Jul 08, 2022
Erik Andersen - City of Illusion
Friday Jul 08, 2022
Friday Jul 08, 2022
“If the pure land isn’t real, maybe we can make this a pure land. Even if it doesn't add up to anything, maybe our own brains can be a Buddha land - a sphere of influence positively affected by an outside Buddha. Maybe the pure land isn’t so far away after all.” - Erik Andersen
“Not knowing is nearest!” Erik takes us on a personal pilgrimage to the pure land as it exists right hear and now, with a survey of the practices, historicity, personal experience, and entangling relationship Pure Land Buddhism has to the Zen we all know and love. Do we need to believe in a practice for it to work? Is it Zen to do practices that make us feel better? Would it matter if it wasn’t?? Is it possible that the “place of precious things” is far closer than we ever could have imagined?? Find out here!
Friday Jul 01, 2022
Gyokei Yokoyama - The Great Experiment
Friday Jul 01, 2022
Friday Jul 01, 2022
“Part of us dies in this process. It’s like a beautiful salad that starts to whither and you feel like something was lost… It’s like finding trust in the most unpromising place with no ground for solid footing. It's allowing the whole situation to penetrate through you and allowing yourselves to penetrate right through the situation…
But I'm still pondering. I don’t hundred percent agree with this dying process I experienced, although it’s always been a part of Soto Shu practice. So it remains not as an answer, but as a question.” - Gyokei Yokoyama
Gyokei discusses the pickles and salads of practice, the bright vibrant greens and the withered wisdoms that develop over a lifetime of letting go. How do we maintain constancy in our practice and what happens if we do? What is the aspiration that drives us to dive head first into the murky waters of a realized life, sink or swim? What is left of our selves when our self lets go of us?? Find out here!
Friday Jun 24, 2022
Dave Cuomo - A Confident Confusion
Friday Jun 24, 2022
Friday Jun 24, 2022
“Enlightenment might be inherent, but it’s not natural to humans for some reason. In some places they will literally beat it into or out of you. So my question is, what are we doing here? What do you want to get out of this?” - Dave Cuomo
Dave takes a look at a modern Zen conundrum: is a Zen center a place of equal practice and training for all, or is it a service job with necessary hierarchies and distinctions? Is our current model of importing traditional monastic practice really applicable to the busy lay practitioner of today? Is it possible to share the dharma to everyone without watering it down?? Find out here!
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Mota Mynttinen - Bottoms Up! (What Am I Doing Here??)
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Friday Jun 17, 2022
“It was always about what am I contributing? What am I doing out in the world? But yeah, I’m not shooting so high anymore. It’s true, there are important things to be done out there. And the reality is this practice is going to be really important to the future. So yeah, sitting is my contribution.” - Mota Mynttinen
Mota open up and regales us with the story of what he’s doing and why he’s here in a raw and revealing account of the traumatic injury that threatened to derail the life he thought he was living. Can sitting up help bring some balance to the world when it goes bottoms up? Is it possible to overcome our addiction to ambition as the meaning of our lives? Can sitting help bridge the gap between being and doing? Find out here!
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Dave Cuomo - Beyond Comprehension (Vimalakirti Sutra ch 6)
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Friday Jun 10, 2022
“If you train yourself to always be confident, competent, and charismatic, you're going to walk into a room and either alienate or inspire everybody, and connect with nobody.
If you’re able to walk into a room with a tickle of anxiety and self doubt, next to some hope and aspiration, all cradled in the big old thromb of emptiness that animates everything, then you can actually connect with people. Maybe.” - Dave Cuomo
Dave regales us with the wild and wacky wizardly hijinks of Chapter 6 of the Vimalakirti Sutra. This week the assembly needs to find itself some chairs, so Vimalakrit busts out his portal gun to go looking for the Greatest Chairs in the Universe, which turn out to be 84,000 feet tall! Can the lesser monks among us measure up to the seats of the great bodhisattvas (metaphor alert…)? And how are we to understand the bodhisattva’s great magic known as “Beyond Comprehension” (irony alert…)? And if, as the sutra says, every jerk in the universe is actually just a bodhisattva in disguise trying to test and train us, what is the actual answer to the test?? Find out here!
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Gyokei Yokoyama - Moment of Truth (Retreat Talk pt 2)
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Friday Jun 03, 2022
“…when you’re totally beaten up and you don’t know what to do, that’s the moment of truth - when suddenly all those Buddhist teachings you’ve read about are no longer just something you read in a book….” - Gyokei Yokoyama
On day two of our Mt Baldy retreat, Gyokei opens himself up for Daisan - a revelatory round of public practice discussion where he fields all of the sangha’s burning questions such as: How do we find meaning in our worldly work? How is North American Zen developing differently from its Japanese roots? How do we raise kids as Zennies without them growing up to hate us and Zen in the process? And can we get Gyokei to spill the beans on his own spiritual awakening? Find out here!
Friday May 27, 2022
Gyokei Yokoyama - Let’s Be Friends (Retreat Talk 1)
Friday May 27, 2022
Friday May 27, 2022
“Bodhisattva’s determination is not something that makes you feel leashed or confined. This kind of determination frees you…. It's not self-sacrifice. It's the feeling that I cannot help but do this.” - Gyokei Yokoyama
Gyokei returns from a nationwide tour of the post-pandemic Zen Center scene with an impassioned (and important) message of unity and diversity for all the far flung sanghas of right here and now - from the pure diligent practice of Dogen, to the welcoming warmth of Keizan, and all the many myths, characters, and bodhisattva spirits in between. What do old world and new world Zen have to learn from each other (literally everything...)? What is the hairsbreadth of difference between free giving and self sacrifice (universes!)?? And are we really just here to make friends (absolutely!!)??? Find out here!
Friday May 13, 2022
Dave Cuomo - Ballad of a Blue House (Shitou’s Straw Hut Song)
Friday May 13, 2022
Friday May 13, 2022
“There’s a thousand ways of speaking, infinite understandings, all just inviting you to befriend your unknowing.” - Shitou Xiqian
Dave brings us a fresh original translation of Shitou’s timeless, “Straw Hut Song” - a beautiful and deceptively simple piece that moves from a humble nap in the hay to the boundless fringes of everywhere and nowhere at the drop of a line. Why can’t Shitou just live and love like normal people, and for better or for worse, why is it so easy for us to relate? Is his ancient wisdom something he can teach us, or something we already know? As translators, can we be faithful to our forbears as we dust off their lines, and still make their songs sing?? Find out here.