Angel City Zen Center - Beginners Only Podcast

Open Secrets (How to teach Zen) w/ Dave Cuomo

Dave looks into Zen’s famous wariness towards teachers and teaching, while delving into his own hang ups around the role as he prepares to formally play it. Are we all doomed to unwittingly adopt our teachers hang ups and issues? Is obedience just a matter of finding someone to tell you to do what you want? Is liberation just telling ourselves that whatever we’re doing is what we really want?? Find out here!

Spiritual Anarchy w/ Dave Cuomo

Dave tries to find some harmony between the power of rigid forms and the chaos of personal liberation, with mixed results, and offers up a practical guide to finding fundamental self worth along the way. Is conforming to tradition a process of maturity, or a great way to stamp out the precious life and humanity from the things we love? Can Zen be an antidote to our corporate consumer culture? Can Dave properly use the word “noumenon” in a sentence without sounding pretentious? Find out here!

An Unsettled Life w/ Henry Zander

Henry eloquently confronts an all too relatable existential crisis of accomplishment as he graduates college and tries to figure out who he is when the stress he knew himself by suddenly falls away. Who are we when our burdens of purpose have run their course? Is setting aside 30 minutes a day to feel panicked the remedy we really need? Are a humble plate rice and beans the best recipe for a hot Buddha Body?? Find out here!

Epiphany! (What Am I Doing Here??) w/ Andy Thomas

Andy generously shares his personal practice story (don’t call it a spiritual journey…) from young Catholic doubts to a midlife crisis that sent him exploring the wilds of the mind in Tibetan Buddhism, and why he turned his back on it to face the wall with us. Can Tibetan Buddhism teach us a few things we lack? Can Zen find a way to help Vajrayana relax? Is anxiety and crisis the best thing that can happen to your meditation?? Find out here!

The Body Poetic w/ Henry Zander

Henry gets us out of our heads and into our bodies with encouragements for a more embodied understanding of what zazen is really doing with us. How can we convince our minds to let the body take the wheel for awhile? How do we translate a stillness that doesn’t speak in sense? Can Henry quote the late great Jacques Lecoq without giggling?? Find out here!!

The Raw Impulse of Inspiration (Body/Mind Practice) w/ Dave Cuomo

Dave brings us a clear and lucid roadmap to working through the mind and body in zazen, from distracted self to senseless samadhi through a recently unearthed recording of a foundational practice discussion with his old teacher, Michael Elliston. How can consciousness let go of its own consciousness? Is breath practice mortally dangerous actually? If the willful mind is an illusion, who put it up to that, who’s really calling the shots, and… can we have a word with them?

The Good Prison (Sh*t Talk & Criticism) w/ Jordan Mylet

“Would it necessarily be so bad to call out other people, to call out ourselves? What if the fact that we’re all sometimes petty, selfish, thoughtless, and cruel doesn't negate us from being people worth caring about?” - Jordan Mylet

 

Jordan bravely wades into the muddy waters of shi*t talk and judgements in Zen. Our vows tell us to not criticize, they also tell us to tell the truth…  Is liberation always polite? How much self-regulation is healthy in a relationship? Can denigration be a trust building exercise? Are the kids becoming unreasonably nice?? Find out here!

Embodied Economics w/ Dave Cuomo

“I don't want to fight things anymore. I’d rather just make them beautiful. If we have to do something, let's make it art.” - Dave Cuomo

 

Dave tries to find a harmony between practiced embodiment and practical economics while sinking into the ocean of sound, being, and time. Is there an honest living waiting for us on the other side of our pretensions? Can we be sincere while still being savvy? Was monastery life awesome actually despite everything we may have said previously?? Find out here!

Wonderfully Useless (Profitless Pursuit) w/ Patrick Carroll

“You say you'd like to try to do zazen in order to become a better person. How ridiculous. How could a person ever become something better?” - Kodo Sawaki

 

Patrick gives a passionate exhortation for Kodo Sawaki’s classic encouragement “Zazen is good for nothing.” What do we lose trying to shape our time to fit a purpose? What is the point of a profitless pursuit? Why don’t these zennies want to admit how good zazen really is for us?? Find out here!

Mystically Curious (Wellness?) w/ Dave Cuomo

“It's not that we’re trying to be better people by sticking around and helping others, it's that you’re kidding yourself if you think you can get off this wheel alone.” - Dave Cuomo

 

Dave tries to find out if Zen is a wellness practice or a sincere spiritual practice and what the difference might or might not be. Is wellness good for you? Is Zen supposed to be good for you? Can meditation make you too powerful?? FInd out here!