Angel City Zen Center - Beginners Only Podcast

Emma Roy - The Good Sit

Emily Eslami - The Practice of Realization

Dave Cuomo - The Five Skandas

Erik Andersen - Zen Bacchanal

Emma Roy - What Did You Think This Was?

Emma takes a deep look at the necessity of goallessness in practice. Reading from a piece about gaining ideas from Suzuki’s “Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind,” she asks the biggest conundrum in Zen. If there’s no goal, why are we doing this? It’s an encouraging talk of discouragement, a reclamation of the value of reality as its own reward, an exhortation towards an attitude of pure practice. “Do you think the purpose of practice is to become a better person?” she asks. And yet as Suzuki remind us, “When everyone understand the value of pure practice, we will have peace in the world.”

Nina Snow - Weeping Zen

In a heartfelt and emotional discussion, Nina Snow explores Zen’s favorite topic to overlook - emotions. With readings from “The Hidden Lamp” and Charlotte Joko Beck, Nina explores the difference between unnecessary ego drama and real emotion. How much crying is too much? How much should we believe what we’re feeling? What’s the bridge between letting go of ego and knowing when to act? Nina takes us through all this in intimate and personal terms with an eye toward guiding us into a practice more about open exploration than answers and prescriptions.

Emily Eslami - The Passion of Dispassion

Emily Eslami on Craving. It's a talk about happiness, the limitations of happiness, passion, and the joy of dispassion. It's a talk about ironic contentment and what exactly were we looking for in the first place anyway? But there is always hope, and as Emily puts it, "Maybe what we deem as happiness is inadequate, maybe there’s a happiness that goes beyond happiness." Can I tell you what she means exactly? I wish. But I can tell you it's something worth exploring, listening for, and sitting with.

Nina Snow - Happy

Nina tackles the ever tricky subject of happiness with a reading from “The Zen Teachings of Homeless Kodo” - “What is Happiness?” Is happiness the point? Can we transcend the duality of emotion? And what would we call THAT emotional state if not happiness??

Orlando K. - Rogue Idealism

Bringing back the “What Am I Doing Here??” series, our own Orlando K. regales us with the story of how he got here and what he’s doing to possibly help us answer the question of what any of us are doing here. Orlando goes all in and talks about experiences of death and impermanence, aesthetic and philosophy, debate and silence, and tackles the great questions of “what is a hero, what is justice, what is right and wrong whats the difference between actions and intention?”

Brad Warner - Matter and the Immaterial

In a loose and wide ranging Q&A style discussion, Brad takes on some big questions and gets deep with the sangha. With topics ranging from how to deal with anger, to what the heck does “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” mean, to practical tips on zazen posture. we delve into the heart of what zazen and being human are all about. Is finding our Buddha nature as simple as feeling the sensation in our joints? And speaking of joints and sensation, what do we do if zazen won’t stop hurting? It’s a talk about what’s so damn special about being human, what happens when you sit yourself into stillness, and practical tips on how to let your body take you there. Plus a reading from Kobun Chino on koans at the end just for good measure!