Appamada

2026-01-13 I Inquiry I Actualization of love Part 2 I Suzanne Kilkus by Appamada

2026-01-12 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamda Story by Appamada

Selected Gathas from Zen Vows for Daily Life, by Robert Aitken Roshi Watching the sky before dawn I vow with all beings to open those flawless eyes that welcomed the Morning Star. __________ Waking up in the morning I vow with all beings to listen to those whom I love, especially to things they don't say. __________ Preparing to enter the shower I vow with all beings to wash off the last residue of thoughts about being pure. __________ Preparing to enter the shower I vow with all beings to cleanse this body of Buddha and go naked into the world. __________ Turning to use the toilet I vow with all beings to honor my body's knowledge of what to retain and discard. __________ Lighting a candle for Buddha, I vow with all beings to honor your clear affirmation: “Forget yourself and you're free.” __________ With the sound of the temple bell I vow with all beings to offer my skull as a bell in the echoing chiliocosms. * __________ When thoughts form an endless procession, I vow with all beings to notice the spaces between them and give the thrushes a chance. __________ Taking my seat in the Zendo I vow with all beings to acknowledge that here is the sacred: this bottom, this body, this breath. __________ When people show anger and malice I vow with all beings to listen for truth in the message, ignoring the way it is said. __________ When I'm worried about my attachments I vow with all beings to remember interdependence: if I weren't attached I'd be dead. __________ In dealing with questions of sex I vow with all beings to recall the perennial precepts: “Don't harm, don't steal, don't exploit.” __________ Kicking a chair in the dark I vow with all beings to let the pain and surprise slow me down to this step, this step. __________ When everything loses its meaning I vow with all beings to honor this intimate teaching that clears my dependence away. __________ When a car goes by late at night I vow with all beings to remember the lonely bakers who secretly nurture us all. __________ Whenever I'm tempted to judge I vow with all beings to remember we both have two nostrils and the same implacable fate. __________ Watching the stars after midnight I vow with all beings to remember the point of existence has no dimension at all. __________ When roosters crow before dawn I vow with all beings to acknowledge each voice in the chorus, there you are, there you are, friend. * In Buddhist cosmology, a chiliocosm is a “thousandfold world system,” a unit in a hierarchical structure of multiple universes.

2026-01-06 I Inquiry I Actualization of love I Joel Barna by Appamada

2026-01-05 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story by Appamada

2026-01-04 | Dharma Talk | Vow | Sandra Medina Bocangel by Appamada

2025-12-25 | Way-Seeking Mind Talk | C. Seren8y by Appamada

Annunciation ~Marie Howe Even if I don't see it again - nor ever feel it I know it is and that if once it hailed me it ever does - And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction not as towards a place, but it was a tilting within myself, as one turns a mirror to flash the light where it isn't - I was blinded like that - and swam in what shone at me only able to endure it by being no one and so specifically myself I thought I'd die from being loved like that. Gabriel's Annunciation ~ Jan Richardson For a moment I hesitated on the threshold. For the space of a breath I paused, unwilling to disturb her last ordinary moment, knowing that the next step would cleave her life: that this day would slice her story in two, dividing all the days before from all the ones to come. The artists would later depict the scene: Mary dazzled by the archangel, her head bowed in humble assent, awed by the messenger who condescended to leave paradise to bestow such an honor upon a woman, and mortal. Yet I tell you it was I who was dazzled, I who found myself agape when I came upon her— reading, at the loom, in the kitchen, I cannot now recall; only that the woman before me— blessed and full of grace long before I called her so— shimmered with how completely she inhabited herself, inhabited the space around her, inhabited the moment that hung between us. I wanted to save her from what I had been sent to say. Yet when the time came, when I had stammered the invitation (history would not record the sweat on my brow, the pounding of my heart; would not note that I said Do not be afraid to myself as much as to her) it was she who saved me— her first deliverance— her Let it be not just declaration to the Divine but a word of solace, of soothing, of benediction for the angel in the doorway who would hesitate one last time— just for the space of a breath torn from his chest— before wrenching himself away from her radiant consent, her beautiful and awful yes.

2025-12-15 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story by Appamada

2025.12.14 | Dharma Talk | Forgiveness | Nate Smalley by Appamada

link to poem : https://www.poetryverse.com/emily-dickinson-poems/you-cannot-put-a-fire-out

2025-12-08 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story by Appamada

2025.12.07 | Rohatsu Ceremony | Nishijima Roshi on the Buddha's Enlightenment | Nate Smalley by Appamada

2025-12-02 I Inquiry I Go to the Limits of your Longing I Trudy Johnston by Appamada

2025-12-01 | Depth In Practice| Not Two: The Appamada Story by Appamada

2025-11-30 | Dharma Talk | Shuzen is Not Zazen | Ellen Hippard by Appamada

2025-11-24 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story by Appamada

2025-11-25 I Inquiry I Bodhichitta Blessings I Suzanne Kilkus by Appamada

2025-11-23 | Dharma Talk | Black Holes, Basic Goodness, and the Perfection of Wisdom | Jon-Eric Steinbomer by Appamada

2025-11-18 I Inquiry I It is our shared pain that is the cord of our belonging I Trudy Johnston by Appamada

2025-11-16 | Dharma Transmission Talk | Nathan Hōshin Kōnen Smalley by Appamada

2025-11-04 I Inquiry I Meeting what is needed I Joel Barna by Appamada

2025-11-03 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story | Peg Syverson by Appamada

2025-11-02 | Dharma Talk | Living in a Polarized World: Cultivation of the Delusion of Separation | Rosemarie Gardella Gates by Appamada

2025-10-27 | Depth In Practice | Not Two: The Appamada Story | Peg Syverson by Appamada

2025-10-28 I Inquiry I Zazen and Precepts I Flint Sparks by Appamada

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.