Appamada is a contemporary center for Zen practice, inquiry, and community, located in Austin, Texas. If you appreciate these offerings, please consider making a contribution to support Appamada with the link below.
Mercy has no hands, yet carries the whole mountain down to the quiet. All are welcome to the river's edge. Spelling note: Jessica cites from several sources, including by Cynthia Bourgeault.
W.H. Auden clip https://youtu.be/oWtVYYoJFl4?si=MkPur0C6uJFKddz0
2025-10-20 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story | Peg Syverson by Appamada
2025-10-19 | Dharma Talk | Grace | Nate Smalley by Appamada
Songs arrive even in the mail box Songs keep coming even happy to be sad Josephine Foster
2025-10-13 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story | Peg Syverson by Appamada
Recording of Calling Out to Hungry Hearts by Krishna Das courtesy of Upaya Zen Center: https://youtu.be/2wI5zlF2eeQ?si=uK1PoeKDSyJMO_bw
Fred LaMotte 'My Ancestry DNA results came in. Just as I suspected, my great great grandfather was a monarch butterfly. Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone. I am part larva, but part hummingbird too. There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow. My golden hair sprang out of a meadow in Palestine. Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin, but I didn't get his dimples. My loins are loaded with banyan seeds from Sri Lanka, but I descended from Ravanna, not Ram. My uncle is a mastodon. There are traces of white people in my saliva. 3.7 billion years ago I swirled in golden dust, dreaming of a planet overgrown with lingams and yonis. More recently, say 60,000 B.C. I walked on hairy paws across a land bridge joining Sweden to Botswana. I am the bastard of the sun and moon. I can no longer hide my heritage of raindrops and cougar scat. I am made of your grandmother's tears. You conquered rival tribesmen of your own color, chained them together, marched them naked to the coast, and sold them to colonials from Savannah. I was that brother you sold, I was the slave trader, I was the chain. Admit it, you have wings, vast and golden, like mine, like mine. You have sweat, black and salty, like mine, like mine. You have secrets silently singing in your blood, like mine, like mine. Don't pretend that earth is not one family. Don't pretend we never hung from the same branch. Don't pretend we don't ripen on each other's breath. Don't pretend we didn't come here to forgive.'
2025-05-12| Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-10-06 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-10-05 | Dharma Talk | Sin and Repentance | Nate Smalley by Appamada
2025-09-30 I Inquiry I Joel Barna by Appamada
2025-09-29 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-09-28 | Dharma Talk | Bodhisattva Check-In | Joel Barna by Appamada
2025-09-23 I Inquiry I Being ourselves at Gate A-4 I Suzanne Kilkus by Appamada
2025-09-22 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-09-15 | Fall '25 Intensive | Shikantaza | Peg Syverson by Appamada
2025-09-16 | Fall '25 Intensive | Nate Smalley by Appamada
2025-09-17 | Fall '25 Integrated Intensive | Peg Syverson by Appamada
2025-09-18 | Fall '25 Integrated Intensive | Nate Smalley by Appamada
2025-09-19 | Fall '25 Integrated Intensive | Peg Syverson by Appamada
2025-09-20 | Fall '25 Integrated Intensive | Nate Smalley by Appamada
2025-09-20 | Fall '25 Intensive | Peg Syverson by Appamada
Kim's drawings available at https://blog.kimmosley.com.
Thanks to Pádraig Ó Tuama, August 24, 2025 on Substack.
2025-09-14 | Dharma Talk | Who Are the Earth Store Bodhisattvas? | Peg Syverson by Appamada
2025-05-12 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-09-09 I Inquiry I Take Care How You Place Your Feet in the Zendo I Josh Gifford by Appamada
2025-09-08 | Depth In Practice | Virmalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-09-07 | Dharma Talk | Worship & Transmission | Nate Smalley by Appamada
2025-09-02 I Inquiry I Compassion has no enemies I Trudy Johnston by Appamada
2025-09-01 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
Koan was from The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans by Koun Yamada. Case 7: Joshu's Washing the Bowls. Reflection questions: 1) What were you looking for when you first entered the monastery/practice/zen center? 2) How would you have reacted to this teaching back then? 3) Do you notice any resistance from you or a part of you to this? 4) How do you respond to this teaching now? What's alive in you? 5) Utilizing this koan, what could this teaching mean for your practice?
2025-08-26 I Inquiry I suffering and love I Suzanne Kilkus by Appamada
2025-08-25 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
Some readings referenced in this talk can be found in the Appamada chant book: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c03ced75ffd204418037b7a/t/5c523209898583e0ceeb37bd/1548890634577/Appamada+Chant+Book.pdf
three poems referenced : You Reading This be ready ~ William Stafford Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts? When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you found; carry into evening all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life – What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this room, when you turn around? Shoulders ~ Naomi Shihab Nye A man crosses the street in rain, stepping gently, looking two times north and south, because his son is asleep on his shoulder. No car must splash him. No car drive too near to his shadow. This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo but he's not marked. Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE. His ear fills up with breathing. He hears the hum of a boy's dream deep inside him. We're not going to be able to live in this world if we're not willing to do what he's doing with one another. The road will only be wide. The rain will never stop falling. Praying ~Mary Oliver It doesn't have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don't try to make them elaborate, this isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
2025-08-18 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-08-17 | Dharma Talk | The Sutra that Explains the Profound Secret: The Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma | Ellen Hippard by Appamada
“The Maples” ~ Marie Howe I asked the stand of maples behind the house, How should I live my life? They said, shhh shhh shhh . . . How should I live, I asked, and the leaves seemed to ripple and gleam. A bird called from a branch in its own tongue, And from a branch, across the yard, another bird answered. A squirrel scrambled up a trunk then along the length of a branch. Stand still, I thought, See how long you can bear that. Try to stand still, if only for a few moments, drinking light breathing Tricycle, July 23, 2025 Atlantis: 3. Michael's Dream Dreamed c. 1993 by Michael; written by Mark Doty Michael writes to tell me his dream: I was helping Randy out of bed, supporting him on one side with another friend on the other, and as we stood him up, he stepped out of the body I was holding and became a shining body, brilliant light held in the form I first knew him in. This is what I imagine will happen, the spirit's release. Michael, when we support our friends, one of us on either side, our arms under the man or woman's arms, what is it we're holding? Vessel , shadow, hurrying light? All those years I made love to a man without thinking how little his body had to do with me; now, diminished, he's never been so plainly himself—remote and unguarded, an otherness I can't know the first thing about. I said, You need to drink more water or you're going to turn into an old dry leaf. And he said, Maybe I want to be an old leaf In the dream Randy's leaping into the future, and still here; Michael's holding him and releasing at once. Just as Steve's holding Jerry, though he's already gone, Marie holding John, gone, Maggie holding her John, gone, Carlos and Darren holding another Michael, gone, and I'm holding Wally, who's going. Where isn't the question, though we think it is; we don't even know where the living are, in this raddled and unraveling "here." What is the body? Rain on a window, a clear movement over whose gaze? Husk, leaf, little boat of paper and wood to mark the speed of the stream? Randy and Jerry, Michael and Wally and John: lucky we don't have to know what something is in order to hold it.
2025-08-11 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
2025-08-10 | Dharma talk | This Is The Way—Everyday Life | Sandra Medina Bocangel by Appamada
Dharma talk and activity sharing
"A Ceremony for the Encouragement of Zazen" talk and discussion
Sunday Morning Dharma Talk | Somatic Mindfulness | Jess by Appamada
Breathing activity and discussion
Closing circle discussion, group photos, endless bow, refuges
Orientation, Introductions, Kinhin explanation, begin Zazen
Could It Happen Anywhere? Listen to the rhythm of things that never die. —Mark Nepo, “For a Long Time” Worried about what was to come, I went to the river and listened to the constant song as water met stone, met log, met wall. The endless white hush of it. Song of building up banks. Song of tearing them down. Song of surrender to invisible force. Song of change that is ever the same and not the same. And in the listening, I found refuge—not in the longing to hide, not in the sound— I found refuge in the listening. Refuge in the opening of the senses. In attuning to what is here. Wave and current and eddy and flow and the attentiveness that lives through this woman. And I listened and listened, listened to it all, and was opened by listening. At some point the listener disappeared. What was left was listening itself. For a time, peace found me there. Intention To wonder. To wonder with no plan for where it might lead. No strategy for arrival. No finish line. No pot of gold. No perfect score. No striving for. To wonder. To wonder the way a small child might wonder when seeing a roly poly for the first time— oh, look at all those legs. Look at how it curls! Look how it moves again. Feel how light it is in the palm. Feel how it tickles as it moves. Imagine an awareness that new meeting a life form that old. Can I be that new as I meet this infinite world? To wonder not just with my mind but with my belly. To let every neuron spark. To notice where there is a channel and imagine the great wing of life is scraping it clean so the stream might flow in new ways. To wonder beyond the edge of the known, and in that spaciousness, play. —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer The listing of Chat GPT response to brutal truths: Here are five core truths about your own psychology that everyone must understand—or risk sabotaging their success, happiness, or relationships: ⸻ 1. You are not your thoughts. Your mind generates a constant stream of thoughts—some true, some false, some helpful, many harmful. If you believe every thought, especially negative self-talk, you'll: • sabotage goals, • erode self-esteem, • and avoid taking necessary risks. ✅ Learn to observe thoughts without obeying them. This is the root of emotional resilience. ⸻ 2. Your emotions are messengers, not dictators. Feelings like anger, fear, jealousy, or sadness carry signals—but they don't always point to truth or demand action. Avoiding or overreacting to emotions leads to: • impulsive decisions, • emotional burnout, • or constant anxiety. ✅ Name your emotions, listen to them, and respond—don't react blindly. ⸻ 3. You have unconscious patterns driving your behavior. Much of your personality and decision-making is shaped by: • childhood experiences, • unresolved trauma, • or defense mechanisms. Ignoring these patterns means you repeat them—even when they hurt you or others. ✅ Self-awareness requires digging into your past, habits, and triggers with honesty. ⸻ 4. Your brain is wired for comfort, not growth. Your mind naturally resists discomfort, uncertainty, or change—even when it's what you need. This resistance: • kills dreams, • prevents growth, • and reinforces stagnation. ✅ Discomfort is a sign you're on the edge of transformation. Don't run from it. ⸻ 5. You are responsible for your reactions—even when others hurt you. Blaming others or circumstances for how you feel or behave keeps you powerless. Psychological maturity means: • owning your choices, • setting boundaries, • and healing, not blaming. ✅ Victimhood might be justified, but it won't help you thrive. ⸻ Bottom Line: Mastering your psychology is not optional—it's the difference between drifting through life and designing it. If you don't do the work, your patterns will run you, and you'll wonder why life keeps turning out the same.
2025-08-04 | Depth In Practice | Vimalakirti Sutra by Appamada
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