Zen Mind

This talk was given in January 2021 to kick off an 8-week practice course called "Transformative Practice". It reflects on the nature of transformation and shows how it is grounded in what Zen calls the inmost request. The inmost request is what we truly want in life. It's not our calling, not our purpose; it's not about WHAT we are doing in our life but HOW we are doing it moment by moment. What we truly want is not exactly happiness, but to feel fully alive. While happiness is about feeling BETTER, aliveness is about FEELING better. Practicing meditation can strengthen this ability to be unconditionally open to our experience as it is at this very moment--whether we like it or not. It can help us access the joy of being alive for no other reason than being alive.Welcome to Zen Mind!Click here for information on the Foundational Zen Teachings course series.Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk continues the inquiry into wisdom. It introduces the Five Dharmas (an ancient teaching from the Lankavatara Sutra) and makes it available as a practice for our everyday lives. In a first step, we need to understand how the human mind produces delusion through ordinary mental activities like sense perception, naming, discrimination, and story-telling. In other words, the mind creates a sensorial and conceptual map that it then mistakes for reality. Based on that understanding, we can then interrupt this process with "right knowledge" and develop a feeling for suchness, the ungraspable mystery of reality, in which each of us is an active participant.Welcome to Zen Mind!Click here for information on the Foundational Zen Teachings course series.Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was given as the opening talk to the third course in the Foundational Zen Teachings series. It presents wisdom as the ability to respond appropriately to the ever-changing circumstances of our lived situations. This orientation toward appropriateness requires us to shift from knowing (our accumulated concepts and habits) to not-knowing (a non-conceptual, non-habitual openness to how things present themselves in this very moment).Welcome to Zen Mind!There's still time to join the Oct 21–23 Weekend Seminar "Navigating Self and Non-Self".Click here for information on the Foundational Zen Teachings course series.THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk explores the importance of the body in mindfulness practice—not just as a target of attention but as a way to be attentive. Practicing mindfulness as bodyfulness means to shift from attending TO the body to attending WITH the body. By first joining breath and attention into breath-attention and then bringing breath-attention to the parts of the body, we discover our bodymind as a “sphere of attention” that is in resonance—a constant felt dialogue—with objects and other people. This resonance is our original connection with the world and the source of compassion.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk addresses the craft of mindfulness practice. Even though the Zen tradition doesn't explicitly teach stages of mindfulness meditation, it is useful to describe the cultivation of attention as a passage through specific gates—an unfolding of mental spaces that transform how we relate to ourselves, others, and the phenomenal world.This talk addresses the craft of mindfulness practice. Even though the Zen tradition doesn't explicitly teach stages of mindfulness meditation, it is useful to describe the cultivation of attention as a passage through specific gates—an unfolding of mental spaces that transform how we relate to ourselves, others, and the phenomenal world.Welcome to Zen Mind!Find out more about the upcoming practice course "Wisdom Mind", taking place both in-person and online Sept 24 – Nov 12.THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

In our meditation, as we drop out of discursive mentalness and into bodyfulness, what do we find? A kind of existential darkness. This darkness is simultaneously our basic aliveness and our core vulnerability. In this darkness, we encounter the groundless joy of being alive as well as our mortality, existential aloneness, and fundamental insecurity regarding our safety, livability, and worthiness. In it, we also come face to face with ungraspability and meaninglessness. This talk presents and considers five basic patterns with which we try to not feel the disturbing and threatening feelings we are inevitably feeling as long as we are alive. These common but ultimately ineffective patterns are: blaming others, blaming oneself, expectations of others, misplaced loyalty, and age regression. Noticing these patterns is a way to practice in our everyday life.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk was part of a Weekend Sitting at the Boulder Zen Center and addresses how to approach zazen practice. It explores Dogen's famous statements about his realization that "the nose is vertical and the eyes are horizontal" and about zazen being "the dharma gate of ease and joy." The purpose of zazen is neither to torture us nor to make us feel good. Zazen is about becoming aware of the truth of our experience at this very moment.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk explores the relationship between sitting meditation (zazen) and attentiveness in everyday life. It's starts with Joko Beck's definition of enlightenment as the "ending in yourself of that hope for something other than life being as it is" and unfolds practice as the effortless effort to allow one's experience to be exactly what it is at this time—that is, to fully commit to the present moment. Feeling unconditionally alive instead of chasing happy feelings is the fruit of this practice.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk explores the freedom that opens up when we put ourselves at a distance from the structures within which we live on a daily basis. Freedom has two directions: (1) freedom FROM structures and (2) freedom TO deliberately live within specific structures. To be free from constraints can be liberating and feel exciting, but often it's also anxiety-provoking because we enter into a space of infinite possibilities, uncertainty, and fundamental groundlessness. Our attachments to structures and concepts serve a purpose: they help to avoid and mask the existential anxiety that comes with freedom. Zazen is a practice of taking our seat in emptiness (infinity, groundlessness) and developing confidence in the face of uncertainty.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk was given in the context of a "rakusu" sewing seminar. Rakusu is the name for the small robe given to a Zen practitioner in a lay ordination ceremony. Part of the ceremony is the giving and receiving of the Bodhisattva precepts. This talk presents the precepts as both common sense ethical guidelines and an expression of Buddha mind.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale!Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk explores practice along the lines of Big Mind and small mind and how Big Mind has to include small mind to be truly Big Mind. It also touches on Suzuki Roshi's remark that "the real purpose of Buddhism is to bring about the right human life where there is no Buddhism, but if you think that without any training you can have that kind of life, … you are either a great fool or a very selfish person.Welcome to Zen Mind!THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now on sale! Use the code TPOA30 for 30% off until May 31.Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

In Zen practice, we are instructed to view each activity as an expression of our true nature or buddha mind. We cannot find buddha mind in the past or in the future—only in the present. Master Mazu famously answered the question ‘What is buddha?' with the iconic phrase ‘This mind here now is buddha.” This talk considers two common misinterpretations of this statement—naturalness and essentialism—and suggests practices for establishing here-now-presence. Welcome to Zen Mind! Become a Boulder Zen Center Member! It is the best way to support Zenki Roshi and the continuation of this podcast. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

When it comes to big issues like the war in Ukraine or the climate crisis, we can feel unnervingly powerless. This talk presents a simple practice of listing all of our concerns, everything that is on

This bonus episode presents the introductory talk to a recent Weekend Sitting retreat. It offers detailed instructions for how to hold the body-mind in sitting meditation (zazen) with an emphasis on e

What exactly are we doing in zazen meditation? What kind of effort is necessary? This talk addresses the shift we are inviting when we sit still, and it explores three zazen instructions and how they

Being excited or disillusioned about the promise of meditation are both signs that we expect meditation to fix our problems. But while meditation doesn't necessarily solve our problems, it can help us change the relationship we have with our problems. Through meditation, we can learn to be willing to have problems and live them. Suzuki Roshi said, "Just to be alive is to have problems." And he said, "When you are you, zazen becomes true zazen. So when you practice zazen, your problem will practice zazen, and everything else will practice zazen too."

It's a new year and many people make New Year's Resolutions to make changes in their lives? Why do these resolutions often not work? This talk explores a Buddhist way to think about intention. Instead

This is the last talk of this podcast season! Thank you so much for listening. We would be so appreciative if you took a moment to leave a rating or short review! This talk continues the exploration of studying the Buddha Way by studying the self and forgetting the self. Dogen says one's body and mind and the body and mind of the external world fall away when we allow ourselves to be actualized by the 10,000 things. To practice this means to take on the view and to form the intention that our own bodymind is not separate from the space of the world. Then we can grow into the perception that this body is how the whole world manifests in this particular location.Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly throughout the summer. Registration is now open for our fall practice course, "Liberation from Suffering", led by Zenki Roshi. The course will begin on October 1st with a 3-day weekend seminar on "Working with Reactivity", which can also be attend on it's own. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

The goal of Zen practice is not to become a better, enhanced person; the goal is an open, flexible mind. Openness may sound attractive, but it actually means we allow the teaching to undermine our habit and personality structures. This can be a bit scary. To study "the Way" is to study ourselves not as a fixed thing that needs improvement here and there but as an open-ended process of unfolding. This talk investigates five interrelated dimensions of how to study this unfolding: (1) psychological, (2) behavioral, (3) energetic, (4) attentional, and (5) conceptual. It shows how we need to navigate within and between these dimansions to make our study work. Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly throughout the summer. Registration is now open for our fall practice course, "Liberation from Suffering", led by Zenki Roshi. The course will begin on October 1st with a 3-day weekend seminar on "Working with Reactivity", which can also be attend on it's own. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

Studying the Buddha Way depends on studying the felt body. When we study the felt body by bringing attention to sensations of breathing and the body, our sense of space can change. We can realize that what we feel in the region of the physical body is an open, connective space that includes the sense perception that we typically interpret as the outside world. This talk brings this experience, which we can practice in meditation, in relationship to Dogen's famous statement from the Genjo Koan: "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to be actualized by the 10,000 things." Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. Registration is now open for our fall practice course, "Liberation from Suffering", led by Zenki Roshi. Head to our website to find out more: www.boulderzen.org. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This is a short talk given by Zenki Roshi prior to a recent Weekend Sitting retreat. He gives instructions for zazen, which is Zen meditatiton. I hope that you find these instructions helpful in your own meditation practice. Boulder Zen Center is hosting four Weekend Sitting throughout the year. They are silent, 1.5 day retreats with a lot of meditation, a shared meal practice, and dharma talks. It's a great introduction to Zen practice and anyone can join. Follow this link to find out about the next Weekend Sitting. I hope you'll join! —Bryant Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk is the first in a series of talks on study. How do we study the Buddha Way? Often we bring ideas about study that are rooted in our experience with being in high school or college. But to study Buddhism isn't just a conceptual endeavor; we need to start with our own inmost request. Are the tenets of Buddhism—transformation, liberation from suffering, wisdom, and compassion— truly expressions of what it means for us to be fully alive or fully ourselves? Zen writings supply us with images and views. One aspect of study is to bring these images and views in touch with our inmost request. There is no fixed curriculum; you are the curriculum. Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

It's worth building a regular and diligent practice of disentangling sensation from interpretation/thinking. This is true for the sense perceptions of the phenomenal world and for the proprioceptive intensities that arise within us as we live our life. When thinking is disentangled from sensation with some stability, the structures of the discursive and narrative self collapse. We can begin to discover the field of awareness as the ultimate fact of our aliveness and a source of intimacy and joy. Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

In the first half, this talk continues the exploration of the "Modalities of Mind" from last week. The mind (our sentient presence) is like an orchestra with different instruments. We can learn to listen to and conduct these instruments in the service of our deepest intentions. In the second half, the talk presents examples and practices for distinguishing the modalities of “sensation” and “interpretation.” Making a commitment to our sensations (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral) decreases our investment in interpretations as real and increases our freedom for alternative interpretations. Welcome to a NEW SEASON of Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk describes five modalities of mind that we can learn to distinguish when we commit to a path of meditation and mindfulness: (1) discursive thinking (2) applied thinking (3) attentional consciousness (4) felt sense (5) awareness We encounter the modality of discursive thinking when we first sit down in meditation. We begin to see that it obscures, blocks, obstructs the other modalities. By learning to be less invested in discursiveness, over time, we can become more and more familiar with each of the other modalities and see their value, interrelatedness, and limitations. This increasing granularity allows us to employ our minds more and more skillfully on our path of transformation, liberation, wisdom, and compassion. Welcome to a NEW SEASON of Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk is about how to put a regular zazen practice together in one's daily life. It starts out with a look at the two sicknesses of meditation: Treating meditation as a means to an end. Using meditation as a way to escape difficulty. The antidote to the two sicknesses is seeing zazen as the repeated gesture of "opening up around" our experience as it is from moment to moment. By committing to this gesture as the essential enactment of zazen, we can discover zazen as an expression of buddha mind. The talk concludes with some very basic and practical ideas for how to set up a daily meditation practice. Welcome to a NEW SEASON of Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

Discipline is not a popular word. To most people, it feels like something imposed from the outside, an expectation others have of us or one we have internalized. This talk is about reframing the concept of "discipline" as the ability to hold an intention over time. Intention is most deeply rooted in satisfaction—not in willpower.

A short message from Zenki Roshi. The Winter Practice Course begins this Saturday. Sign up at boulderzen.org!

This talk looks at "nourishment" as the other side of suffering. When is an experience nourishing-independent of whether it is pleasant or unpleasant? The answer lies In the practice or completing that which appears: allowing our experience to be exactly what It Is at this time and also allowing it to become what it wants to become.

What is enlightenment? And what is the relationship to habits and karma? This talk examines what the words "enlightenment," "awakening," and "realization" point to. It presents a "practice of enlightenment" based on Dogen's instruction "to be steadily intimate with the field of mind." The practice of enlightenment is not a self-improvement or self-actualization project. However, improvement is a valid interest; so how do we approach it in the context of enlightenment?

Using the koan of "Baizhang's Fox" (Case 8 in the Book Serenity), this talk asks about the Middle Way of being simultaneously free from and entangled in the world of karmic patterns. We are free from karma by savoring nirvanic moments and establishing ourselves more and more in the field of mind that non-reactively allows everything to be the way it is. When we relax and stop seeing ourselves as a problematic person, we can engage with our habits in a practical way, engaging the 10,000 things from moment to moment and inviting their feedback about which of our habits need to change to better benefit all beings.

Transformation through Buddhist practice includes changing our habits/karma. Karma refers to the patterns in our life that emerge from repeated intentional action that, through the repetition, gets automated and subconsciously habituated. This talk examines the structure of habits and how they can be deconstructed. It suggests bringing the practice of Zazen into our daily lives by deliberately being present for the disturbing feelings we tend to "medicate" with our dysfunctional habits and, as a first step, allowing those feelings to be there without doing anything about them.

Transformation through Buddhist practice includes changing our habits/karma. Karma refers to the patterns in our life that emerge from repeated intentional action that, through the repetition, gets automated and subconsciously habituated. This talk examines the structure of habits and how they can be deconstructed. It suggests bringing the practice of Zazen into our daily lives by deliberately being present for the disturbing feelings we tend to "medicate" with our dysfunctional habits and, as a first step, allowing those feelings to be there without doing anything about them.

This talk takes up a question many people ask these days in the face of political polarization and climate change denial. How can we have compassion with those we disagree with? Usually, we try to establish community on the conceptual level—through an agreement about ideas, opinions, and values. A more fundamental connectedness occurs through "resonance," the bodymind's capacity to "feel with" everything that happens around it. This is the root of com-passion. A deliberate practice of resonance allows us to stay open-hearted in the midst of disagreement.