Podcasts about great beings

Welcome to episode 83 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. This installment sees Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino joined by Zen Buddhist nun Sister True Dedication to discuss the Eight Realizations of Great Beings. This ancient Buddhist sutra provides guidance on overcoming suffering, putting an end to misunderstandings and difficulties, and making progress towards or even attaining enlightenment: “leaving behind the world of birth and death, [and] dwelling forever in peace”.In this, the second of two parts, the three contributors explore the last four realizations, which provide a manual for seeing the world with the wisdom needed to deal with suffering and act with clarity. The realizations covered include the awareness that ignorance is the cause of the endless cycle of birth and death, and how bodhisattvas develop their understanding and skillful means; the awareness that poverty (but not only poverty!) can create hatred and anger, and how to practice generosity equally towards friends and enemies; living simply to ‘practice the way', and the great vow to help all beings and guide them to joy; and more. The discussion emphasizes the importance of grounding Buddhist teachings in real-world realities, cultivating compassion and understanding even for those causing harm, simplifying one’s life, and committing to the bodhisattva path of alleviating the suffering of all beings. Co-produced by the Plum Village App:https://plumvillage.app/ And Global Optimism:https://globaloptimism.com/ With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ List of resourcesInterbeinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing Sister Hien Nghiem (Sister True Dedication)https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/sister-hien-nghiem Sutrashttps://plumvillage.org/genre/sutras The Eight Realizations of Great Beings https://www.parallax.org/product/the-eight-realizations-of-great-beings Dharma Talks: ‘Manas Consciousness, Teachings on Buddhist Psychology Retreat, 1997'https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/manas-consciousness-thich-nhat-hanh-teachings-on-buddhist-psychology-retreat-1997 Mahayanahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana Bodhisattvahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva Sister Chan Khonghttps://plumvillage.org/about/sister-chan-khong Martin Luther King Jr.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr. Pema Chödrönhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pema_Ch%C3%B6dr%C3%B6n ‘Recommendation'https://plumvillage.org/articles/recommendation Viktor Franklhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl The Eight Realizations of Great Beings: Essential Buddhist Wisdom for Realizing Your Full Potentialhttps://plumvillage.shop/products/highlighted/new-books/the-eight-realizations-of-great-beings/ Being with Busyness: Zen Ways to Transform Overwhelm and Burnout https://www.parallax.org/product/being-with-busyness Quotes “If love is limitless and love and understanding go together, then understanding must also be limitless.” “Lower your ego, be open, change your attitude in order to receive.” “Where there is life, there is death. Where there is death, there is life.” “A very deep teaching from Thay and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about the idea of the beloved community, which, in their few brief meetings, they discussed at length: in the ideal beloved community of Dr. King, your enemies are included. Your enemies are included. The ones currently persecuting you are included. This was an important spiritual faith and practice at the time of the Civil Rights Movement. This is the 1960s, our spiritual love should have that capacity to embrace everyone. And that is a spiritual challenge. It starts closer to home, but it really opens up. And that’s a great vision. I find it really spiritually inspiring and challenging. [it] calls me forward.” “My practice is to see everyone as human beings.” “One of the vows of a bodhisattva, of a great being, is to always shine the light of openness, the light that everyone has inside of them: a seed of love and a seed of compassion.” “There are going to be times when we recognize that, ‘Right now, my heart is not the size of the great ocean. It’s literally a puddle.' If I allow many people to walk around that puddle, it will be stirred up and become very muddy and I can’t be of service. So we have to be able to know our capacity, our limits, and to not feel that this is something to be attained in one day, in one month, in one year, but that it requires a lifetime of cultivation.” “When we are angry, we’re not clear, we’re not compassionate, and we don’t carry out our profession well.” “The past was wrong, we know that. But what can we do now? Starting today, how can we reset this?” “When there’s not enough love around, there’s not enough understanding, everybody feels unsafe; everybody is always on guard. And when we’re on guard, we stop looking at each other as an opportunity for connecting as humanity. It’s just fear.” “One can only overcome anger with kindness. One can only conquer evil with good. One can only win over the miser with generosity. One can only convince the liar with truth.” “True, full, deep Buddhism is grounded in a real awareness of economic realities and economic systems. So, when someone has hatred and anger, there may be many causes and conditions, including poverty. But we don’t blame or punish or condemn people for struggling with that; we bring great compassion and understanding.” “Although you are in the world, try not to be caught up in worldly matters. A monastic, for example, has in their possession only three robes and one bowl. They live simply in order to practice the way. Their precepts keep them free from attachment to worldly things, and they treat everyone equally and with compassion.” “Each day is a chance to contribute good thinking, speech, and action into the world, whether we’re monastic or not.” “The more we consume and the more we think that we can find our happiness in consuming, the more we are destroying the Earth. The more we are climbing over each other for status and fame and power and influence and all these other things, the more, ultimately, we’re creating suffering and exploitation around us. And it's endless. The consequences of human cravings are that the more we lose ourselves in these sense-pleasures, the less we’re really awake to and aware of the actual, very real, tangible suffering that we are perpetuating upon each other and upon the planet.” “Maybe the most important thing we can do in our life is cultivate the energy of mindfulness, compassion, understanding, and harmony in our lives and relationships.” “We’re all living in this crazy world. And how can we live in the world and not be too shaped and imprinted by it, but instead find our freedom within it and really live in line with our values? I want to put out a rallying call: don’t settle for anything less. Life is so short. Life is so precious. How can we make these choices really intentionally? How do we want to live in a way that’s in line with these values, and what radical choices can we make to put what’s most meaningful and important first?” “Simplicity is a keyword for living simply, leanly, and lightly – not living simply, leanly, and lightly, and then taking loads of photos and posting them on social media and being like, ‘Look at my highly curated simple life.' That’s not what we’re talking about. It’s how to simplify what we’re doing, what we need, and what we’re in pursuit of in order to show up fully in the moments of our life; to be able to slow down and live this precious life deeply. And that is already an act of resistance.” “The simple moments of life are enough. And I feel that this word ‘simplicity' is the real takeaway from this realization of how we can bring this quote-unquote monastic awakening into our daily life. And it takes courage because everyone is trying to make it complicated for us, including our loved ones. So it takes real courage to keep it simple.”

Welcome to episode 82 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. This installment sees Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino joined by Zen Buddhist nun Sister True Dedication to discuss the Eight Realizations of Great Beings. This ancient Buddhist sutra provides guidance on overcoming suffering, putting an end to misunderstandings and difficulties, and making progress towards or even attaining enlightenment: “leaving behind the world of birth and death, [and] dwelling forever in peace”.In this, the first of two parts, the three contributors explore the first four realizations, which cover the impermanence of all things, the suffering caused by desire, the tendency of the mind to seek fulfillment outside of itself, and the importance of diligent practice to transform unwholesome mental states. Their conversation also touches upon the relevance of these teachings for modern life and the need for a balanced approach that combines inner work and outward service; the value of community; and a non-judgmental approach to one’s own mind and body as key to the Buddhist path of understanding and love. Co-produced by the Plum Village App:https://plumvillage.app/   And Global Optimism:https://globaloptimism.com/ With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ List of resources Interbeinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing Sister Hien Nghiem (Sister True Dedication)https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/sister-hien-nghiem Sutrashttps://plumvillage.org/genre/sutras The Eight Realizations of Great Beings https://www.parallax.org/product/the-eight-realizations-of-great-beings Dharmakayahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmak%C4%81ya Pali Canonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali_Canon Parthian Empirehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire Sister Jinahttps://plumvillage.shop/authors/sister-jina-van-hengel/ ‘The Three Dharma Seals'https://www.parallax.org/mindfulnessbell/article/the-three-dharma-seals/ Dharma Talks: ‘The Five Remembrances' https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-five-remembrances-sr-thuan-nghiem-spring-retreat-2018-05-17 Brother Phap Linh (Brother Spirit)https://www.instagram.com/brotherspirit Mahayanahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana ‘Three Resources Explaining the Plum Village Tradition of Lazy Days'https://plumvillage.app/three-resources-explaining-the-plum-village-tradition-of-lazy-days/Dharma Talks: ‘The Noble Eightfold Path'https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-noble-eightfold-path Pema Chödrönhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pema_Ch%C3%B6dr%C3%B6n Bodhisattvahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva Quotes “When we talk about non-self in Buddhism, it is to understand that we cannot exist by ourselves. That is non-self in a nutshell.” “Those things we might hold on to as important are also impermanent. In this realization we’re touching both the good news and the challenge: the good news of impermanence and the challenge of impermanence. So those things that are causing great injustice, hardship, suffering, fear, and despair: they are impermanent. That can give us some relief when we really look into the broad scale of things and the broad scale of time. But, also, things we cherish are impermanent. The house that we saved up to build, to renovate, to take care of – where will that house be in two thousand years' time? In twenty thousand years' time? We can pour our whole heart into a project – but where will that project be in ten thousand years? And this is an important contemplation, because it’s one of the unlocking keys in Buddhism. Everything is a formation, made of other parts, but we grasp on to and we hold on to these things and we sacrifice our life and our happiness, our present moment, and our relationships chasing after those things, investing in those things – and we lose the wonders of the present moment.” “If you look at the global situation, it can be quite easy to despair. But if you look at your local community and what you can do, that can be very empowering.” “What gets me up and what continues to motivate me is that we are developing and nurturing the continued spiritual tradition that we have received.” “In Buddhism we have this line, ‘The mind is a field to be cultivated.' There are seeds and we have to take care of the ones that come up as weeds and the ones that will come up as good things that can nourish us.” “You are the guardian of this body; you better be careful how you handle all those impulses, because, left unhandled, they lead to this impulsive, short-sighted behavior which is the root of suffering and injustice in the world. So both our body and mind are something for us to take care of.” “The mind is an organ. It’s an uncultivated organ until we become really familiar with it and learn how to take care of it with a lot of compassion and understanding.” “All hardships in daily life arise from greed and desire. Those with little desire and ambition are able to relax their body and mind, free from entanglement.” “You can lose your practice in your monastic life very easily if there is no deeper desire to have the impact of change, of compassion, of love, and of transformation.” “We’re always picking up what’s going on outside, but often not actually listening at all to what’s going on inside.” “If we generate joy inside of ourselves it naturally flows into the world.” “The fourth realization is the awareness that indolence is an obstacle to practice.” “What I love about Buddhism is that Buddhism loves lists. We often say this. And we also love repetition.” “There are things that we think are important but actually aren't, and they’re taking our time and energy from a deep pursuit of something inside that can really unlock understanding of suffering, can really unlock insight and help us live a deeper, more meaningful, healing, and loving life.” “The main point here is: guard your mind and feed your mind good things, and apply effort every day, every week.” “The fire of birth and death is raging; this is something we are bearing witness to as humans on this planet. And simply how I consume and take that in is a cultivation of the mind – so I don’t want to have a lazy mind, an indolent mind, when I’m reading the news. It’s not that the news is happening to me.” “When we say that we observe what is happening in the mind, this mere recognition is already a power, because we’re saying, ‘I am more than this thing'.”

This Dharma talk was given by Hogen, Roshi at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple on December, 2024. In this talk Hogen gives a summary of The 8 Realizations of Great Beings and how to implement and enact them in our life. There is also a Q&A at the end of the talk. ★ Support this podcast ★

This Dharma talk was given by Hogen, Roshi at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple on November 24th, 2024. In this talk Hogen gives a summary of The 8 Realizations of Great Beings and how to implement and enact them in our life. There is also a Q&A at the end of the talk. ★ Support this podcast ★

As the calendar year comes to an end, I offer this poem as a re-write of a text that one of my Sanghas has been studying. The text is called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, one story says it was one of the last teachings given by the Buddha before passing into PariNirvana.I re-wrote the teaching as a way of distilling and remembering the practices we did together during our Autumn Ango. The teaching is about liberation and the profound realization of our interconnected life. I offer it as a capping phrase to this Autumn of our practice life, and as something we can turn over in our hearts throughout the winter and coming year. For the dharma teachings always get better with age.The Eight Realizations: Pith Instructions for Living a Joyful LifeI—ImpermanenceAll the world is impermanent. Change is our nature.Our bodies, minds, the body of the great earth and everyone we loveThe universe with its stars and solar systemsWill change, are changing, will decay and give way toSomething newRealize the truth of impermanenceAnd wisdom will be your guideII—Clinging/SatisfactionWhen we try to hold on to something that is changingWe sufferGreed, hoarding, taking more than one's shareThis is clingingThis is sufferingPractice satisfaction, know how much is enoughLive in reciprocity with the earth and all beingsIII—SimplicityThe mind is insatiable, always wanting moreand more, and moreFollow the path of liberationLive simplyMake wisdom + compassion your sole vocationIV—Joyful EffortTo follow the WayIs like trying to swim upstreamIt takes enthusiastic perseveranceAnd great carePractice with others andYou are buoyed by their generous currentsV—MindfulnessMindfulness is a great friendAttention is healingTruly an act of loveListen to the wisdom of yourBody, feelings, mind and awarenessPractice discernmentAnd you won't be misledVI—GenerosityGenerosity is a pathA generous heart is always fullTake joy in givingAnd receivingAnd you will realizeThe gift of this lifeVII—InterconnectionVast is the Buddha's robe of liberationA formless field of interconnectionAnd kindnessTransmute unskillful desiresInto the heart of bodhicittaFill your bowl with compassionAnd offer it to allVIII—VowIn this world of suffering and loveRemember that you are not separateFrom anyone or anythingVow to walk this pathFor the benefit of all beingsThroughout time and spaceThese are the 8 realizations, the practices of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Ancestors and other great beings. Practice them, develop wisdom and compassion, and live in reciprocity with all beings. This is the way to living a joyful life.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Thanks for reading friends! The recording is from a dharma talk that was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below. Also, I would love to hear from you, please feel free to like or comment on this post—and share it!Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readings* Natal Chart Readings* Astro Counseling Package* Transit Readings* Great Work of Your Life Reading* Astrology Gift Card — give the gift of an astrology readingArt Shop — I sell my original paintings and printsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: An Emergent Online Contemplative Community Braiding Spirit and SoulSunday Jan 510:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsThrough rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

This talk was given at Sunday program at Great Vow Zen Monastery on November, 17th 2024. In this talk Hogen Roshi talks about the 5th Realization of Great Beings ignorance, birth and death. ★ Support this podcast ★

While sitting under the bodhi tree through the night, Shakyamuni Buddha saw the morning star, was enlightened and said:I, together with the great earth and all sentient beings, simultaneously attain the way.In the Zen tradition today is Bodhi day. The day that we commemorate the Buddha's awakening and celebrate our buddha nature. Last night, locally, people from the Zen Columbus Sangha, Mud Lotus Sangha and Grove City Zen held a meditation vigil and sat into the dark of the night at the Pragmatic Buddhist Center. It was moving to join together across local sanghas here in Columbus, and sit with so many other practitioners across the globe.I've been reflecting on the Buddha's life this week, the story I keep coming back to is when in the midst of exhaustion he has this memory from childhood arise of sitting in contentment and ease under the shade of a rose apple tree watching the plowing of the golden grain.Here's an excerpt from the Pali Cannon.I thought: 'I recall once, when my father the Sakyan was working, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, then — quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities — I entered & remained in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation. Could that be the path to Awakening?' Then, following on that memory, came the realization: 'That is the path to Awakening.' I thought: 'So why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities?' I thought: 'I am no longer afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities, but it is not easy to achieve that pleasure with a body so extremely emaciated. Suppose I were to take some solid food: some rice & porridge.' So I took some solid food: some rice & porridge. Now five monks had been attending on me, thinking, 'If Gotama, our contemplative, achieves some higher state, he will tell us.' But when they saw me taking some solid food — some rice & porridge — they were disgusted and left me, thinking, 'Gotama the contemplative is living luxuriously. He has abandoned his exertion and is backsliding into abundance.'I love the reflection, could this be the path to awakening, this is the path to awakening.My teacher used to quote the bible saying, that to enter the kingdom of heaven, one must become like a child.Is it possible, that recovering something basic that we all knew as children is the path to awakening?To reclaim wonderment, to reconnect with innocence, to allow that innate curiosity and joy of just being you, alive together with the world.Today, on Bodhi Day, I wish that for us.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Thanks for reading friends! The recording is from a dharma talk that was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below. Also, I would love to hear from you, please feel free to like or comment on this post—and share it! Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingAstrology Gift Card — give the gift of an astrology readingArt Shop — I sell my original paintings and printsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: An Emergent Online Contemplative Community Braiding Spirit and SoulSunday Jan 510:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsThrough rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

What do you want?What do you really want?The cyber Monday sales have been flashing items, workshops, experiences that we could possibly want, that we should want, that we somehow need.In one of my Sanghas we are exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings. This past week we have been exploring the nature of desire.The invitation to explore is part of what I love about the Zen Buddhist tradition. What is it like to bring a non-judgmental attention to the ordinary and natural experience of desire? To your relationship to desire?Sometimes desire carries a lot of shame, I want things that aren't good for me or that I was told I shouldn't want.Or confusion, I was told that my wanting was wrong, selfish, sinful.Some of us may have distanced ourselves from desire. Others may feel that our desires drive our lives in unhelpful ways.If we look closely we see that desire animates us. Desire fuels our life, seeds our dreams, feeds us, motivates many actions and can open the gate to actual pleasure, satisfaction, gratitude, compassion and connection.This podcast is a meditation on desire. It's an invitation to reflect on your relationship to desire and to explore how the energy of desire is linked to compassion and interconnection.As I was reflecting on desire I listened to an interview with Bayo Akomolafe called From the Skin of Things to the Bone of Things, the interview was moving and spanned many topics at some point he posited.I wonder what a sensuous solidarity looks like, maybe it lives somewhere between the cracks of problems and solutions. I wonder what a sensuous becoming monstrous looks like—I wonder what it means to shape-shift. I wonder what the humpless camel said as it approached the desert. It wasn't how do I solve this desert, maybe the solution for the desert is to shape-shift, to grow humps—to become the desert.I heard him say that and I felt a yes well up inside me. This is how desire becomes compassion, this is how longing opens to non-separation, this is how our vows intertwine with the vows of each other and the great earth. A sensuous solidarity is another name for bodhicitta.Deep love for all beings and this world.To close, I'd like to share a poem by Mary Oliver. I consider this a capping phrase to this meditation on desire. An offering and a gift to a heart that is learning to love one's self and this beautiful, heart-breaking world.To Begin With, the Sweet Grassby Mary OliverI.Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eatof the sweet grass?Will the owl bite off its own wings?Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air orforget to sing?Will the rivers run upstream?Behold, I say—beholdthe reliability and the finery and the teachingsof this gritty earth gift.II.Eat bread and understand comfort.Drink water, and understand delight.Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpetsare opening their bodies for the hummingbirdswho are drinking the sweetness, who arethrillingly gluttonous.For one thing leads to another.Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a starboth intimate and ultimate,and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the twobeautiful bodies of your lungs.III.The witchery of livingis my whole conversationwith you, my darlings.All I can tell you is what I know.Look, and look again.This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.It's more than bones.It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.It's more than the beating of the single heart.It's praising.It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.You have a life—just imagine that!You have this day, and maybe another, and maybestill another.IV.Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,the dancer, the potter,to make me a begging bowlwhich I believemy soul needs.And if I come to you,to the door of your comfortable housewith unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,will you put something into it?I would like to take this chance.I would like to give you this chance.V.We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or wechange.Congratulations, ifyou have changed.VI.Let me ask you this.Do you also think that beauty exists for somefabulous reason?And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure—your life—what would do for you?VII.What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.That was many years ago.Since then I have gone out from my confinements,though with difficulty.I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishmentsomehow or another).And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.…Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingAstrology Gift Card — give the gift of an astrology readingArt Shop — I sell my original paintings and printsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: An Emergent Online Contemplative Community Braiding Spirit and SoulSunday Jan 510:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elementsThrough rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings Friends! In these last few weeks I have been reflecting a lot on the story of Matchig Labdron and the roots of a practice known as Chod, a practice that works directly with fear through generosity. I want to share some of these reflections about fear, generosity and the awakened feminine. I also want to share that Jogen and I are facilitating our next session of Sky+Rose on Sunday Dec. 1. Sky+Rose is an emergent practice community blending soul + spirit work. More information is at the bottom of this post.What Haunts You?What are you so afraid of? Ask this question and perhaps a lot comes up, given our political climate right now, there is, perhaps, a lot to fear.Yet, what is fear?Fear has an elusive quality. Because we don't want to feel it— it quickly morphs into some other feeling, emotion or behavior. Fear's presence turns into internet scrolling, online shopping, a bag of chips, worry, etc.In this way other emotions layer on top of our fears. And fear remains hidden, we start to fear it.Facing FearIn dharma practice, we are invited to turn towards fear. Which often starts as turning towards our fear of fear.The dharma teachings remind us that all experience is ungraspable, interdependent, changing. When we actually try to stake out any experience, it starts to transform into something else. Our minds have trouble with this teaching. It is difficult to comprehend the instability of a single moment of experience. The radical empty-yet-apparent nature of feelings, sensations and emotions.When we give our attention to the direct experience of fear, fear is allowed to transform—our relationship to it changes.The Awakened FeminineThe 11th Century Tibetan Teacher and Yogini Matchig Labdron explores the relationship between fear and generosity in the practice of Chod. A practice that is rooted in the insight of the Prajna Paramita Sutras and expressed through the forms of a indigenous Tibetan healing ritual.Matchig was born with the Tibetan seed syllable AH, on her third eye—which is considered the mark of a dakini. As a young child she memorized the Prajna Paramita sutras, and was invited to recite them in gatherings throughout her village. At some point she met her teacher, who helped her awaken to the insight contained within the Prajna Paramita Sutras, the insight into emptiness and interconnection.The Prajna Paramita Sutras emerged during what is called the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. A revolution within the Buddhist community that overturned monastic authority. This revolution is known as Mahayana Buddhism and with it came the understanding that all beings are inherently buddha—one did not need to become a monastic, nor did one's gender determine one's capacity for awakening.Prajna Paramita in her embodied form is the Mother of all Buddhas, Great Mother Spaciousness, Wisdom beyond Wisdom—she came to symbolize emptiness as pure potential energy—pregnant darkness—the wisdom that is beyond intellectual understanding.Around the time that Prajna Paramita emerged in Buddhism, the gnostic tradition was arising in Christianity, and with it, the image of the Divine Sophia—the feminine expression of God.The emergence of these feminine embodiments of the divine came with a set of teachings in both traditions that focused on the immanence of god/awakened nature. That right here where we stand, we are on sacred ground— this is the land of awakening. This very body, our very life— the body of buddha, the body of divine nature.These teachings also pointed to knowledge beyond the intellect. For gnosis or knowing itself need not be mediated by rational thought, a religious authority figure or dualistic mind play. Our awakened nature is immediate, here, all-inclusive and all-encompassing. We can know this for ourselves.The Places that Scare YouWhen Matchig was taking leave of her teacher she asked: How can I benefit all beings? Her teacher replied with a set of pith instructions or slogans, which became Matchig's path and practice. They are:Confess all your hidden faults Approach that which you find repulsive Whoever you think you can not help, help them Anything you are attached to, let go of it Go to the places that scare you, like cemeteries Sentient beings are limitless, like the skyBe aware! Find the Buddha inside yourself!Here are a set of instructions for turning towards our fears, with curiosity—a generosity of heart.When fear arises our normal reaction is to push it away, to get small, hide, distract, isolate…What happens when we turn towards fear, when we invite fear from a place of mindfulness, clarity and compassion?The Prajna Paramita sutras remind us that fear is elusive, that if we look for it, we won't be able to grab a hold of it, that it is empty of an independent nature.Often, we are afraid of fear. So we avoid doing things, going places, talking to people and letting go of unhelpful attachments. We really don't want to feel the sensations of fear.Generosity and FearMatchig discovered the practice that became the roots of Chod, when she had an extraordinary experience while meditating during an empowerment ceremony. Suddenly she found herself in a tree, in deep meditation being harassed by a Naga protector of the lake under the tree where she sat. Fear arose in her, but instead of giving into the fear—she offered the Naga-spirit the only thing she had—her body. The Naga spirit was so impressed with her selfless generosity and dharma practice, that he transformed himself into her dharma protector.While this story sounds grandiose or mythic in its telling. There are some very ordinary and practical teachings contained within it. This is actually something we can practice in meditation in relation to our own fears. We can summon a small fear or allow fear to arise in meditation. When it arises, instead of pushing it away, making ourselves small, distracting or fighting. We can practice meeting it with generosity. Offering our presence and our body (ie feeling the sensations of fear in our body as it arises). When we do this—when we feel the fear directly.Something is allowed to shift.I find that there is something about this kind of generosity, this kind of giving that confronts, even indirectly, our core fears. For many of us fear rests in the body, as a fear of death & bodily harm, that gives us a pervasive feeling of not being safe or an existential anxiety. When we imagine giving at the level of our bodies, when we invite the feeling of fear from the place of generosity, when we meet fear with a willingness to feel and experience fear in our body—we open ourselves up to the insight of emptiness, all inclusive awareness, interdependence.Our bodies are not our own, all is borrowed, all is shared. Fear arises from separation. Generosity is a practice of connection.The one who gives, the one who receives, the gift itself—are all one, one complete life. To practice generosity we open to the gift of this life, fear and all. And in this gift, fear transforms into the energy of life itself. Our bodies do have the capacity to feel fear, and when we do this— fear no longer has power over us. We learn on an embodied level that we don't need to be afraid of feeling fear.…Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: The Ritual of Strange FlowersSunday Dec 110:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETHow do we know that anything is only one thing? Strange flowers bloom within and without.  What is not a flower?  What is not strange when held in a steady gaze? Each of us are strange flowers. How familiar are our own beauties?  What of the self could be revisioned ?We will actuate our own blemished bodies as intimate beauty. We may take grotesque shapes and discover them differently.  We'll look underneath and behind and move wierdly to enter new worlds. We will play in ways the authorities that haunt our minds may not give their seal of approval, releasing energy, shedding man and mind-made shackles.Sample ScheduleRitual of UnknowingSeated Meditation (bring a strange flower to meditate on)Somatic/Parts Work ExplorationsGroup Check-inClosingPlease rsvp and we will send the zoom link + additional information to prepare for the session.Spiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life Reading This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

This talk was given by Dharma holder Shonin at Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple on November, 3rd 2024. In this talk Shonin talks about the sutra of the 8 realizations of Great beings and how it becomes incorporated into our lived experience.  ★ Support this podcast ★

It's beautiful to be taking refuge together in all the various places we find ourselves.Ah. Here we are. Survivors of the election. Spiritual warriors attempting to live a vow-fueled life. Hearts turned towards love larger then fear. Even if fear is rattling in your gut, or anger is raging strong in your body or numbness has you hiding out.Whatever you are feeling is welcome.Whatever you are feeling is wisdom.Its your body telling you something—That something might be: This isn't ok. NO! I don't feel safe. I am afraid. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I have the energy to fight. This matters. This is what i love. This is what i care about.Or something else. Listen. What is your body trying to say to you? This may change moment to moment.In the Zen Community of Oregon, we are currently studying a text called The Eight Realizations of a Great Being. A set of pith instructions given by the Buddha shortly before they died.This week we explored the Fifth RealizationIgnorance leads to birth and death. Bodhisattvas are always mindfulTo study and learn extensively, to increase their wisdomAnd perfect their eloquence, so they can teach and enlighten all beings,And impart great joy to all.Dogen Zenji calls it Always Maintaining Mindfulness and comments:Mindfulness helps you to guard the dharma, so you never lose it. If you practice this the robbers of fear and desire cannot enter you. Therefore you should always maintain mindfulness. It is like wearing armor going into a battlefield, so there is nothing to be afraid of.When we have mindfulness, or heartfulness—we know who we are, and where we stand. We are aligned with vow, the great vow—to awaken for the sake of all beings!Mindfulness has its popular dimensions in our culture. Its found its way into businesses, schools, the military—its featured in taglines like Mindful Car Washing, Mindful Jogging, Mindful Eating, Mindful Sleep Therapy. Its said to help workers stay focused, increase productivity, basically make everything better…Yet, mindfulness is also subversive. A mindfulness instructor, Zen practitioner and friend said to to me in a conversation once, mindfulness is shadow work. He has taught mindfulness in business settings, and when he said this, I felt the truth in his words. Mindfulness is empowering and it also brings us into direct relationship with the wisdom of our bodies, the feelings perhaps we have been trying to run from, the fixed beliefs that drive our life.Through mindfulness we aren't lost in the wimbs or conditioning of our thinking / reactivity. We can live more authentically, we can ask questions, make space for our anger and feel the wisdom of our fears.Mindfulness is our best english translation of the word sati, which means more “to recollect” or “to remember.” What are we remembering? Our practice, the dharma, heart, we are reconnecting with what really matters.If you are feeling a lot right now, its your body saying yes, this matters, our interconnected life matters. The earth, immigrants in our country, trans + non-binary people, queer folks, women, people of color, the more than human world—matter.Love matters. Wisdom matters. Seeing through the forces of ignorance matter. Awakening from our collective delusion matters.Mindfulness also means being present with, allowing what's here to be here—in the different dimensions of our being:My teacher Chozen Roshi would often teach the four foundations of mindfulness during morning meditation at the monastery. This teaching offers a ground up approach to experiencing this precious interconnected life. Here we start with our body.Body—bringing awareness to the felt sense of our bodies, part by part feeling our bodies from within the somatic experience of the body allows us to awaken to the wisdom of our embodied experience.Feelings—next we include feelings, allowing awareness to make space for the flow of life energy that we call emotion or feeling. To feel feelings without needed to make a story about them, without needing to name them. Just to feel the energy itself. This is our energy. This is our life.Thought—So often we just take our thoughts to be true, or we get in a fight with them. To bring mindfulness to the thought stream empowers us to see/hear what we are telling ourselves. It is possible to experience thought as pure sensation, another sense in the field of awareness. To do this, gives us freedom from the tyranny of our conditioned thoughts. Mind is freed up.Awareness itself—after opening to and including body, feelings and thought, next we open to awareness itself. Resting in pure awareness, senses open, one single unified life. This is our shared being, all is included, all is allowed.Thoughts and emotions often want to take us out of our experience, into story, worry, blaming others, searching for information—we can learn to follow them back home, to the liberated self.I have been reflecting on the teaching of the Five Wisdom Dakinis that comes from the Tibetan tradition, Lama Tsultrim Allione writes about them in her book Wisdom Rising.Dakini is one depiction of the awakened feminine, known also as a “sky-dancer” or “sky-goer”, the dakini principle is here to wake us up from our habits of ego-identification. Dakinis are often portrayed in motion, dancing on delusion and decorated in bone ornaments. The five wisdom dakinis are portrayed as fierce and passionate beings who transmute/use the energy of the emotions as the liberated energy of awakening. I feel like this time is inviting us to feel and use the energy of the emotions to meet the challenges we face as a country and a global community. We need the awakened feminine with her fierce hope and embodied wisdom. The five wisdom dakinis are connected to colors, the great elements and a buddha family. Earth—Yellow — Ratna — transmutes the desire for sensual pleasure and security into the Wisdom of Sameness, Abundance and GenerosityWater—Blue — Vajra — transmutes anger into Mirror Like Wisdom and ClarityFire—Red — Padma — transmutes passionate desire for connection and sexual energy into Discerning Wisdom and CompassionSpace—White — Buddha — transmutes fear/ignorance into All Inclusive WisdomAir—Green — Karma — transmutes jealousy/comparison/insecurity into All Accomplishing Wisdom or Great ActivityThe stories and koans of the women ancestors show us how real women have embodied these energies in their life of practice-realization. Stories help us see beyond ourselves and our limiting beliefs and also remind us that others have faced challenges and difficulties on the path. They also help us connect to practitioners beyond our current teachers or community. Here are some stories I'd like to share:The Old Woman burns down the Hermitage An old woman built a hermitage for a monk and supported him for twenty years. One day, to test the extent of the monk's enlightenment and understanding, she sent a young, beautiful, girl to the hut with orders to embrace him. When the girl embraced the monk and asked, “How is this?” He replied stiffly, “A withered tree among frozen rocks; not a trace of warmth for three winters.” Hearing of the monk's response, the old woman grabbed a stick, went to the hermitage, beat him and chased him out of the hut. She then put the hermitage to the torch and burned it to the ground.Ryonen Scars her FaceLingzhao's I'm helpingSatsujo WeepsTo close, I offer some questions for reflection as we land in this moment and also look to the future.What is this moment awakening in me? (Stay with yourself, listen to your body, feelings, thoughts, vow—we gather wisdom by listening to our whole being, and then use discernment, what is coming from conditioning and reactivity, and what is wise—if you don't know, keep listening)How do I want to show up for myself / my community?What supports / teachings / practices might I need to do this?What nourishes me?Thanks for reading friends! This dharma talk was given during Monday Night Meditation. You can find out more below.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well.Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — IFS informed, mindful somatic therapyAstrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + Rose: The Ritual of Strange FlowersSunday Dec 1 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETHow do we know that anything is only one thing? Strange flowers bloom within and without.  What is not a flower?  What is not strange when held in a steady gaze? Each of us are strange flowers. How familiar are our own beauties?  What of the self could be revisioned ?We will actuate our own blemished bodies as intimate beauty. We may take grotesque shapes and discover them differently.  We'll look underneath and behind and move wierdly to enter new worlds. We will play in ways the authorities that haunt our minds may not give their seal of approval, releasing energy, shedding man and mind-made shackles.Sample ScheduleRitual of UnknowingSeated Meditation (bring a strange flower to meditate on)Somatic/Parts Work ExplorationsGroup Check-inClosingPlease rsvp and we will send the zoom link + additional information to prepare for the session. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

A couple weeks ago I heard a sound near our back screendoor, as if an animal were wrestling with a large bag of cat food. I assumed my cat Sasha was trying to break into her bag of treats, and noted the sound but didn't respond right away.A few minutes later, the sound long faded, I went to check on Sasha to see how far she got with trying to claw her way into her treat bag. As I approached the backdoor I did not find Sasha, nor a clawed open bag of treats. Our screen door was open to the size of Sasha, outside her large bag of cat food lay open on the porch stairs. As I stood, stunned at the sight of a catless night—Sasha whipped around the backyard chasing something that remained in the shadows, her tail puffed out to the size of a racoon's tail.I have been thinking about wanting. Hunger. The pull of a certain kind of desire to grasp for, reach out for…something else. This energy often creeps up the stairs of my body from somewhere in the dark and before I even realize it my hand is holding my phone, or reading news headlines, or I'm fixing myself a snack or another cup of coffee.This time of year wanting seems heightened.Something about the seasons turning deeper into autumn. Trees shedding leaves as the sun looms lower in the fading day-lit sky.The animal in us is preparing to hibernate. The hungry heart is trying to find nourishment. The pull to nourish, to find safety— in the midst of an uncertain world heightened by a polarizing election, on-going war and climate instability—is completely natural. Our bodies and nervous systems seek balance.Yet what is nourishing? What is safety when the ground appears to be constantly moving? Who is the one whose hand slips up from the shadows, then vanishes back into hiding, as spirals of shame circle?You just wasted an hour scrolling. I can't believe you ate that. Wow, you pressed snooze again?  You're worthless. Unloveable. Unfit for human consumption. The shame says…When I lived at Great Vow Zen Monastery we had a practice of singing to the hungry heart. Calling to this part of us, this part of others and our world. And instead of shunning it or throwing shade on it or blaming and shaming it—we would invite a spirit of welcome, acceptance, love and understanding.The chant is called the Kanromon and was written together with Krishna Das and Bernie Glassman. Here are the words, if you would like to sing it too.Calling all you hungry hearts. Everywhere through endless time. You who wander, you who thirst.I offer you this bodhi mind. Calling all you hungry spirits. All the lost and the left behind. Calling all you hungry hearts. Everywhere through endless time. Gather round and share this meal.Your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine.It is part of a ceremony for the hungry heart, called the gate of sweet nectar. A version of this ceremony is part of the daily liturgy at Soto Zen Monasteries in Japan.It is one of the songs from our liturgy that I brought into my practice outside of the monastery walls. I sing it on walks through town, sometimes before I eat a meal, to my cat and before my altar with a stick of incense as my heart opens to the size of the world. It is a song of offering. It is a song of deep love. It's a song that lets me be lost—a song that speaks to those in the shadows. It has the power to save a ghost. To make the lonely, smile. It empowers us to hug our demons, and face the unpredictability of life in human flesh.This week I had the opportunity to facilitate and participate in three practice communities where we gathered together to welcome the hungry heart. The gatherings were simple. We sat in loving awareness and invited our hungry hearts to the table of our lives. And, through our collective attention, love and understanding the hungry part was given space to tell + show what it wants and needs, and then experience a deeper form of nourishment. The nourishment of compassionate attention and collective witnessing is powerful. When parts of us are hidden in shame, they often feel like they are the only ones who feel this way. Or that they are fundamentally wrong, or unloveable, or unworthy.To integrate the hungry heart into our lives, to invite them into the light of awareness— is healing. It's like reclaiming a piece of our nature. For in that invitation, transformation starts to happen, true nourishment becomes possible.As we head into election week, I feel it's important to remember my vows to myself and this world.I vow to create sacred spaces in this violent and beautiful world where we:* Center healing* Remember our true nature* Challenge our assumptions* Turn towards the shadow* And live as if love were the pointWhat are your vows? How do you intend to show up in this unpredictable, precarious, ever-changing experience we call human life, or the world, or america?Current OfferingsSpiritual Counseling — I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. Spiritual Counseling can help you:* Companion Grief + Loss* Clarify Life Purpose* Heal Relational Conflict + Inner Conflict* Work with Shadow Material* Heal your relationship with Eating, Food or Body Image* Spiritual Emergence* Integrate Psychedelic or Mystical Experiences* Move Through Creative Blocks, Career Impasses and BurnoutIn addition to my Zen training, I am trained in Buddhist Psychology, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy), Process Art and Mindful Eating. My approach also has a deep Jungian influence.Astrology— I am starting to offer astrology readings. I have found astrology to be a helpful map for connecting to the more mythic unfolding of life. It can help us honor our gifts, navigate challenges, get perspective and connect with planetary allies. It can also offer guidance on the questions that arise in our lives and aid us in stepping more fully into our wholeness. I am currently offering the following types of readingsNatal Chart ReadingsAstro Counseling PackageTransit ReadingsGreat Work of Your Life ReadingMonday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETNext Session is on Dec 1I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

As part of Autumn Ango with the Zen Community of Oregon, we are contemplating a text called the Eight Realizations of a Great Being. A text that some sources say is the last teaching that the Buddha gave. We are working with an interpretation by Thich Nhat Hanh edited by Hogen Bays, Roshi.I want to start this reflection with a poem that was read to me by another Zen Teacher, Daniel Terrango during a sesshin he led here in Ohio a couple of weeks ago. I felt fortunate to get to sit sesshin with him, and to receive this poem. It's one of those poems, at least for me, that I want to pass along.I Was Reading A Poem By David RutschmanI was reading a poem by Ryōkan about a leaf, and how it showed the front and the back as it fell, and I wanted to call someone — my wife, my brother — to tell about the poem.And I thought that maybe my telling about the poem was the front of the leaf and my silence about the poem was the back.And then I thought that maybe my telling and my silence together were honestly just the front of the leaf, and that the back was something else, something I didn't understand.And then I thought that maybe everything I understood and everything I didn't were both actually just the front of the leaf — so that the totality of my life was actually just the front of the leaf, just the one side — which would make the other side my death. . . .Unless my life and death together were really still only the front of the leaf?I had left the branch. I was falling.I was loose now in the bright autumn air.Now the first realization.All the world is impermanent. The earth is fragile and perilous.The four great elements are both suffering and emptiness.In the five skandhas there is no self.Everything that arises, changes, and perishes, is illusive, unreal,and without a master.Thought is the root of suffering, The body a reservoir of desire.Thus, observing and contemplating, one gradually breaks free frombirth and death.Here in both the poem and realization—we are invited to really take up impermanence as a contemplation. In Buddhism impermanence is considered one of the marks of existence. My teacher Hogen Roshi would often say that these marks are part of what make a teaching, a dharma teaching, so he would encourage us to consider them whenever we gave a dharma talk.The marks are:* Impermanence—insight into change, on the minute moment to moment level as well as on the level of our own lifespan, the lifespans of institutions, societies, world systems, the earth itself. This insight is to really see directly that all things are of the nature of change.* No-fixed-self—nothing is fixed, everything is in relationship, not a single thing or being exists independent of others. We interare, our nature is shared.* Dukkah/Nirvana—we suffer when we want things to be different then they are, whether that is trying to get rid of an experience we don't want or trying to get more or hold onto to something that we do want, recognizing this we can discover through practice how to attune to the true nature of things as they are, which is interconnected, not-separate and flowingThe Buddha said: All the world is changing. We can not hold on to a single thing. Even the earth itself, our home is fragile and perilous. The four great elements (water, fire, earth, air/wind) can cause suffering, but are empty in their nature (composed of other parts, interdependent, spacious).How is this true in our experience? All the world is changing. Such a beautiful mantra. The poem I read in the beginning captures the beauty and mystery of a single leaf falling, and how in very real ways this is like our life, we are floating, tumbling, dancing, falling through space. We are really bearing witness to the unreliable nature of the earth itself, how the lives humans built isn't sustainable with the earth's natural balance. And we are seeing the loss and destruction from these great hurricanes. I happen to have many acquaintances, friends and teachers who live in the Asheville area. There has been so much destruction, devastation and loss from the hurricane. Same too in Florida, in Nepal, in parts of Africa and Europe this year. All over the world beings are experiencing devastation, loss, pain and hardship due to Climate Instability—wildfires, smoke, floods, damaged water supplies, loss of housing and infrastructure—this is the world we live in now.And, the Buddha gave this teaching before cars and planes and the industrial revolution. The earth has always been fragile and perilous, there have always been storms, volcanoes, fires, floods. Great forces of destruction rising up from the earth, from the great elements. This contemplation of impermanence is an invitation to really look deeply into the nature of our experience. What happens when we allow the truth of impermanence to be here. What do we notice? How does attuning to impermanence, contemplating impermanence help us face the climate crisis? Does it?I was listening to a podcast interview with Susan Murphy who is a Zen Koan Teacher from Australia. She writes on Zen practice and the Earth. One of her first books is called Minding the Earth, Mending the World and her most recent book is called A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis.I want to share an excerpt from her book, for I feel it is a powerful meditation on how we contemplate impermanence and turn towards the climate crisis as part of our spiritual practice. She says:The times are always uncertain until we cease longing for certainty, and only then do they become truly interesting. The planetary crisis we're in together is now simply the given the strange, inarguable gift of what is. The fervent half-prayer of “Precarious!” overhears the realization that any escape is futile. Who now in good faith can dispute planetary heating and its appalling consequences and our drift toward civilizational suicide, ruined lands, biodiversity collapse, record-breaking megafires and megafloods, and new pandemics. And then there's our shadow pandemic, too: panic, confusion, and conspiratorial rage, shadowed by dread, anxiety, and depression.The planetary dangers that haunt us make our time an exquisite moment, piercing and inescapable. Also baffling to the point of provoking fresh realizations, hence the description of this time as a “gift” brimming with untested possibilities right along with potentially dire consequences. Dare we celebrate the way it stretches us, this strange privilege of being alive right now? Can we embrace the sheer lunacy of our moment, in which the biggest human “ask” in history up to now has chosen us?A koan scandalizes all suppositions (literal, rational, empirical, neurotic) that hold up the shaky sky of human knowing and fearing, until the leaves blowing in the street, the wave welling over a rock, the eyelashes of the cow all share the same realm as this mind. The shock of this can stoke new depths of fiery, fiercely protective love for the Earth. With luck, this love is fierce enough to protect our home from the worst impulses in ourselves and turn them to good.The ecocrisis of our time raises the question of the true nature of our human presence on the Earth as a koan that rightly exerts an almost overwhelming pressure on our hearts. It cannot be resolved, and the suffering it causes cannot be relieved without breaking through the paradigm that is so relentlessly causing it. Zen koans help us grow skilled in tolerating a precarious state of mind, and not turning away but growing curious instead. That we can't go forward in the usual way becomes the strangely valuable offer of the moment. Not-knowing, in the spirit of improvisation, accepts all offers! And the Zen koan turns every obstacle into the way.Take a despairing reaction like “There is nothing I can do to stop this disaster!” Looking beyond the ideas of “I,” and “stop,” and even the activity of “doing,” can we even dare to look deeply into the crisis and not-know what it is, or that it is so? Perhaps even disaster loses its power of impasse when scrutinized by a trusting form of productive doubt. Can something be done with less doing, using the calm inside the moments that can be created within an emergency when what is happening is met with not-knowing?The way we have framed reality is plainly out of kilter and out of date. Koan mind breaks the rigid frame and makes an ally out of uncertainty, asking it to be our guide in the darkness.Every koan has a bit of the apocalyptic about it, lifting the veil that this dream of a separate self throws over the wholeness of reality. Apocalypse implies destruction of a world, but hiding in that word is the older meaning, that of a necessary revelation, a veil torn away, leaving no choice but to see what is hidden from us in plain sight.Crises shape and transform us all our lives. The limitations that grow apparent to a crawling infant become the seeming unlikelihood of learning to walk. Impasse is the unavoidable opportunity to see beyond expectations, suppositions, and impossibilities as they crumble before our eyes. Crisis, whether at the vast or intimately personal level, is what reveals that there is no “normal,” despite all strenuous efforts to coax one into being. Not-knowing is relaxing into trusting this.…To truly contemplate impermanence invites us into this kind of not-knowing and opens the creative potential of any given moment. Because this is not fixed in place, we are not fixed in place. The world, our minds, our hearts are malleable–are flowing. And these words are just dead words until we really allow ourselves into the inquiry. The living contemplation—what am I? What if anything stays the same? What is my actual experience of change?Zen celebrates responsiveness, a responsiveness that comes from un-fixing ourselves from our fixed beliefs about how things should be, which actually allows us to respond to what is.We suffer impermanence because we expect it to be otherwise. We try to create structures, systems that will be reliable, predictable, and unchanging. We have cultural values that try to hide aging, death, disability, trauma—anything that pokes a hole in the narrative of stability and progress. So much of our systems, and therefore our thought processes, are not built on basic principles of how the world actually is, how life actually is. What would it look like if we lived rooted in this first realization: everything is changing, life is uncertain?What systems or structures or basic principles would we instill in our society if we really embraced the truth of change, transformation, death/rebirth, impermanence? As well as an understanding that we are interdependent, there is no I separate from you, this great earth, the creatures who live here, the plants, animals, rivers and each human being.So how do we practice impermanence? In meditation or in our direct experience outside of meditation we can tune into the constancy of change. Notice, really notice how the sensations in your hand change, if you really look, is there a single sensation that stays the same moment to moment? We can explore the direct experience of what I like to call radical impermanence—by exploring the changing nature of our sensory environment, the components of experience that make up our sense of self. Notice, how long does a single thought last? Can you grab hold of a thought? Do thoughts have a beginning, middle and end? What about emotions or feelings? Sounds?As we explore our experiential experience in this way, a real question can arise—what if anything remains? What continues? This kind of inquiry isn't meant to be done once, but is an on-going practice. How quickly do assumptions and predictions take over and have us believing again that we are permanent, solitary, independent and alone—and that our beliefs are unquestionably true?As I practice with impermanence, I have come to appreciate that change is beautiful, its necessary, the constancy of change allows each moment to arise fresh—never before seen or experienced. When the mind isn't dragging the previous moment onto the present, or reaching out for some future experience where we are redeemed or destroyed—what is this?It is also quite rich and worthwhile to take this contemplation of impermanence into our interpersonal relationships and our connection to life on earth or in this world.Grief, anger, rage, disappointment, sadness, numbness, confusion, despair are all companions of loss. If we learn to sit with and accompany these emotional responses with compassion and curiosity—they become part of the inner/shared journey on the realization of impermanence. They teach us what it is like to sit at the threshold of not-knowing, to find acceptance in the midst of whatever is happening, to find our way back to a love that is greater than fear. Some people are elders in impermanence, for they possess a wisdom that is gained through weathering loss. These people aren't necessarily old in years, but often the wisdom of loss does come with age—as we keep meeting the various uncertainties of life, the crisis points as Susan Murphy calls it, the moments of loss or change, be it the death of a loved one, a natural disaster in our town, war, loss of work, illness, accidents, injury, or living in a body that is aging—as we encounter impermanence with a learning attitude, insight deepens, gratitude grows, the waves of grief become waters we are more familiar navigating and perhaps we deeper our capacity to help others through them.Impermanence presents us with the koan that rests at the center of our lives as mortal beings—what are we? What is this life? What is death? Koans as Susan Murphy says, make us uncomfortable. If reading this first realization makes you uncomfortable, there is something here for you to deepen into, to stay with…We have two prayers in Zen that are prayers of impermanence, reciting them helps us turn towards and embrace the uncertainty of this life—to gain traction or companionship as we move through this changing world.The Five RemembrancesI am of the nature to die, I can not escape deathI am of the nature to have ill health, I can not escape having ill healthI am of the nature to age, I can not escapeAll that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change, I can not escape being separated from themMy deeds are my closest companions, I am the beneficiary of my deeds, my deeds are the ground on which I stand.Verse of the Diamond SutraA star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in the summer sky,A flickering lamp, a phantom and a dreamSo is this fleeting world…This writing is a draft of the dharma talk podcast you can listen to. At the end of the talk a sangha member offered a stanza from Mary Oliver's In Blackwater Woods as a capping phrase.To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating. Below are some of my current offerings.I currently accepting a couple of new clients if you or anyone you know is interested in Spiritual Counseling.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our Opening Ritual + Practice exploringThe Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings and monthly Saturday offerings as well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Since leaving the monastery a few years ago, I have become interested in how the ancient Zen teachers talked about the spiritual path. Language about the realizations that compose awakening are nested in the Zen chants that I would chant daily as a monastic, but we were so immersed in the continuous-ness of practice, that rarely would we stop and try to map out the territory. We were living it, who needed the borrowed words of those long dead to put a conceptual overlay onto something so fleeting as experience?My teacher Chozen was fond of saying that Zen was a practice without guardrails or measuring sticks—we stumble around in the dark. And somehow in this stumbling, in the dark terrain of life before concepts— our faith deepens and our sense of self loses its limiting bearings in exchange for an indescribable vastness that belongs to no-one. Zen teachers over the years have said of Zen that, “it is good for nothing”, or “a practice of non-attainment.”Others, including the early founders of the Soto school, described or attempted to show through poetry and image, some of the dynamics at play in this “good for nothing” journey of “non-attainment” and spiritual maturation.Two such teachers are Zen Masters Shitou and Dongshan Liangjie. Shitou's famous work The Sandokai or The Identity of Relative and Absolute is still chanted at Soto Zen Monasteries and Temples all over the world. And Dongshan's Precious Mirror Samadhi, which contains his teaching of the Five Ranks is similarly revered.There is a magic to language. A symbol is passed down for centuries, from spoken word, to ideogram, to letters and words in our own tongue, which become images again appearing in our imagination, references to a memory that we can almost taste.Words are sensual. We taste our words as we speak them. We feel their images and are invited into their song. Sentences are like spells. They captivate the heart. They have the power to render us transformed in this midst of their utterances. When used mindlessly words can kill the thing they are attempting to name. They can create landscapes of lies, delusive dreams that collectively capture our imaginations and send us spiraling further away from ourselves.Yet, words are also alive. Language lets us re-cast the spell on itself. A single word can be a deep medicine for the exiled heart. A point of connection—a way in.The theme of the absolute and the relative is a timeless dance of wholeness. What happens when we really venture to peer into Mind, inquire into the inner workings of our hearts, this experience we call my life?— well it's empty yet appearing, spacious yet seemingly tangible, here yet unfindable. What we call one, is also many—a relationship so intimately entwined, it can feel like a great wrong has been committed to even speak as if they were two separate and distinct experiences. And yet, we long to make meaning. To communicate the inner landscapes of the heart-mind. To celebrate the journey. We are map-makers of consciousness, knowing that as we chart the choppy, ever-changing waters of the heart, it's already shifting—there is nowhere where we truly stand besides the momentariness of standing right where we are.As I study the Sandokai and Dongshan's Five Ranks, I have come to appreciate the play of light and shadow or relative and absolute as a generous reminder once spoken by Master Ma, and later by my own teacher Hogen Roshi—”we can't fall out of the deep samadhi of the universe.” We are always on the path, and the path is always revealing a new face of this mystery.So let's explore one map of the great ocean of awareness and perhaps through these words and images we will recognize some of our own footsteps.The Light within the Dark (the Relative with the Absolute)Dongshan: The third watch of the night, before moonrise—don't be surprised if there's a meeting without recognition. One still harbors the elegance of former years.My meditation is so spacious, it reminds me of that time when…Dogen Zenji says, when the truth fills our body and mind, we realize that something is missing. As someone who spent a lot of days, months and years in zazen and retreat, a taste of spaciousness can trigger a longing for my time as a total beginner to practice, who just stumbled into this dark mystery of being and had no skin in the game, no vow, just a heart turned towards spaciousness.The Dao De Jing says, In the Dark, darken further…Have you ever meditated in the dark before moonrise? Have you ever let yourself let-go for a moment the ordinary distinctions of seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking? What kind of place is this? Does anyone remain?The Dark within the Light (The Absolute in the Relative)Dongshan: Having overslept, the elder woman encounters the ancient mirror. This is clearly meeting face-to-face, only then is it genuine. Don't lose your head by validating shadows.I love this concept called non-linear emergence. A recognition that being human is non-linear. Healing in non-linear. Awakening surely is non-linear. Because we are never outside of the mysterious grace of our awakened nature, sometimes a moment of clarity rises up in the midst of a seemingly ordinary moment or even what we might consider a moment so outside of our concept of practice. Like those days when we sleep in, or are hungover, or ate too much cake, or feel distracted, busy, on autopilot, lost, alone in our suffering, or pain.Then suddenly, there is an encounter—a stranger smiles, we notice the yellow of a sunflower, a piece of music grabs our attention, we look up at the sky—and something happens. We find ourselves gazing into the ancient mirror. A true encounter. Face-to-face—we glimpse, we remember our shared nature, we feel an enduring love and acceptance, we taste the light of being.Yes right here in the midst of the ordinary, in the midst of the colossal ways we harm each other, in the midst of all the injustices in our crazy-making world—there is love, there is peace. The sacred rises up and kisses us on the cheek. And we keep on living. We go to work, we meet with a friend, we use the toilet when we need to, we continue to heal, we face the innumerable challenges of living a human life.As one Zen master said, awakening is an accident, practice makes us accident prone.Just the Dark (Coming from within the Absolute)Dongshan: Within nothingness there is a road out of the dusts. Just avoid speaking the forbidden name of the emperor and you will surpass the worthies of ancient times, who cut off tongues.Rinzai says: sometimes I take away the person and the environmentAll reference points lostJust don't try to speak of itThough many people practice ZenFew have lost their MindCutting off tongues aside, let me ask— when your mind isn't reifying anything—where do you abide?Enter the dark cave of meditation, it's OK to not-know who you are.One Zen student said when asked, what happens when you think about the one who thinks—I find that there is nothing there at all.Just the Light (Mutual Integration / From within the Relative)Dongshan: No need to dodge when blades are crossed. The skillful one is like a lotus in the fire. Surely you possess the aspiration to soar to the heavens.In the midst of our work, our relationships, our confusion, our intellectual pursuits—the dharma is here. We don't need to look for peak experiences or make wonderment happen. Every meeting is genuine. The dharma is us. Our vow, our heart's aspiration, the bodhisattva dwells in this very ordinary, cryptic, heart-wrenching human realm.Let yourself be a lotus in the fire.Aspire to see your life as a lotus blooming in the midst of all these flames.Light and Dark Together (Arriving at Concurrence)Dongshan: Everyone longs to leave the mundane stream, still you return to sit in the charcoal heap. Zen celebrates such a complete shedding. Is such a place possible? To no longer long for some peak experience, some validation from the universe that you are OK, that all is sacred. Faith can permeate one's being so completely that the world of oneness and the world of diversity are so intertwined that it no longer makes sense to make distinctions. The tradition also celebrates responsiveness. Born from practice-realization we respond to the complexities of our lives. We walk freely through the other ranks, as we live our lives of practice. Most great Zen and Buddhist teachers continued to sit retreats and had a daily practice throughout their lives.Whether the charcoal heap is your zafu or this burning world of change and pain or the complete combustion of being so fully here for those you love + the work you do—you continue to sit in it, with it, with all beings.Thank you for your practice, thank you for living the life you have as genuinely as you do. As we walk the circle of the way, never falling out of the deep samadhi of the universe, we encounter these different expressions of the great heart of being. You might describe them differently, if you bother describing them at all. Perhaps you too are a mapmaker, a spell-caster, one haunted by a call to make meaning and embody love in our sometimes chilling yet beautiful world.In the dharma talk, I offer some other reflections on this topic—as it pertains to the practice of Ango. A time in the Zen Community of Oregon's annual practice cycle that we dedicate to intensifying practice with the support of Sangha.…I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my Spiritual Counseling Practice, I practice at the confluence of spirituality and psychology, integrating mind, body and spirit. I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Dream Work, Hakomi (Somatic Therapy) and Mindful Eating. Below are some of my current offerings.Monday Night Meditation + DharmaEvery Monday 6P PT / 9P ETJoin me on zoom for 40 minutes of meditation and a dharma talk. We are currently exploring a text called The Eight Realizations of Great Beings, which gives us an opportunity to practice inquiry and embodying love as we discover our Awakened Nature together.This event is hosted by the Zen Community of Oregon. All are welcome to join. Drop in any time.Zoom Link for Monday NightBeyond Mindfulness: Deepening Your Meditation Practice Class SeriesStarts today! This workshop style course is designed to provide a map of the meditation path as well as:* Introduce you to the five main styles of meditation (calm-abiding, concentration, heart-based practices, inquiry and open-awareness)* Help you understand the intention of each method and how to practice it* Help you understand how the various methods and techniques fit together and support each other* Provide a fun, non-judgmental learning environment where you can try things out, ask questions and explore* Give you the opportunity to work with a teacher with an extensive background in various meditation techniquesSky + RoseWhat is it? An experiment in the impossible task of excluding nothing and loving everything. An alchemy of play, presence and wandering into the shadows, you could say.Sky & Rose is a practice container that will:* Center group parts work practices to explore the fluidity, span and dream of who we are - somebody, nobody, everybody. You will be invited to express yourself vocally and physically, engage your imagination and play outside habituation.* Do interpersonal and group meditation practices of seeing, being and awakening.* Directly explore emotional embodiment & shadow work* Include Beauty, Art & Wonderment as core practice elements Through rituals of imagination, meditation technologies and co-created fields of intentional play, we can slip out, for a time, of confining identities defined by our histories, culture and comfort.Delivered by these practices, we can begin to inhabit perspectives and modes of being that stretch our sense of the possible and refresh our sense of the everyday. You might find yourself wearing Luminosities face or inhabiting Laughter's chest. Together we might try out Venus's view of the very life we live or we might make space to feel Chaos's dance and shake off some rigidity.All of these are just examples of where our wondering and feeling into places of vitality and expansion may take us.We will rebel against the quotidian and respect ourselves too much to only have crumbs of the sacred!It was also be a time to work together with the challenges to living heart forward with sanity and presence within this hyper-fractured funhouse/madhouse world.Sky and Rose is a place for Jogen and i to invite you into practices and explorations of 'soul work' that are not part of the Buddhist tradition but that have nonetheless been sources of growth and joy for us. Our influences in this include Paratheatre, IFS and Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, Process Work, Butoh, Jungian dream work and more.We initiate Sky & Rose as an experiment in embracing Spirit and Soul simultaneously, together imagining and practicing interpersonal liberation, playfulness and spaciousness in this time of deep adaptation.Meets monthly on Sundays from 10:30A PT - 12:30P PT / 1:30P ET - 3:30P ETJoin us for our Opening Ritual + Practice exploringThe Ritual of LiminalitySunday October 27I currently live in Columbus, Ohio with my partner Patrick Kennyo Dunn, we facilitate an in-person meditation gathering every Wednesday from 7P - 8:30P at ILLIO in Clintonville through Mud Lotus Sangha. If you happen to be in Columbus, feel free to stop by. We have weekly meditation gatherings, and are offering a day of meditation in October. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

In the Sutra on the Eight Realizations of Great Beings, we read “the mind is always looking outside of itself and never feels fulfilled”. How can we overcome this constant running and come back to our true home? The obstacle to our peace of mind is our inability to dwell in the present moment. In this Dharma Talk, Sister True Virtue shares how we can practice the 4 establishments of mindfulness as well as the 16 exercises of mindful breathing in order to get out of the state of dispersion of our mind. Rather than trying to attain something, we can experience each breathing exercise with ease. If we give ourselves a chance to recognise and accept a painful feeling, we can be at peace. We also have the example of Ancestral Teachers who practiced being fulfilled in the present moment. Master Tang Hoi, King Tran Thai Thong, King Tran Nhan Thong, and Master Nhat Dinh, are all real examples of applied and engaged Buddhism. In the midst of a busy life, they were able to be at peace and share the practice with countless people.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/16/2023 - What is it to be satisfied? How much is enough? Can we be satisfied with the way we are right here, right now? Gokan delves into these questions of desire and satisfaction, and brings it back to our zazen, asking: how does our zazen practice help us to understand knowing how to be satisfied? Gokan shares from "The Eight Awarenesses of the Bodhisattva", a succinct teaching the Buddha gave during the last days of his life. Master Dogen also taught the same in his last days in the Shobogenzo Fascicle "Eight Awakenings of Great Beings." And our more recent ancestor Maezumi Roshi made the same admonitions.

Rev. Jodo Cliff Clusin  gives a dharma talk on the Eight Awakenings of Great Beings.

WHAT A SACRED TRANSFORMATIONAL EVENT!! Feel yourself Anointed, Initiated & Gloriously Attuned as a Luminous StarLight Keyholder of a New Star of HUmanity by the Great Beings of Light & The Kalki Avatars!! We are moving into an unprecedented time of upliftment for the Collective Soul of Humanity. Just recently it was revealed to Beloved […]

"If I were you, I would be wholly indifferent as to anyone's belief or acceptance of these Great Beings of Life's Perfection. Live your own Life! Go your own way! Stay on the Pathway that leads to greater Happiness; and the Angelic Host will ever attend you until your happiness becomes Infinite, Invincible, and Eternal. And you then, in turn, will - looking back to mankind - seek also to awaken them until they too, enter the Realm of Eternal Perfection." Music: The Truth (Anno Domini Beats) To Pass Time (Godmode) This episode is also available as a blog post: http://winruffin.com/2022/09/28/blessed-night-loves-%f0%9f%98%8a-32/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/win-ruffin/message

Realization #8 captures the "how to" aspect of self-realization or enlightenment. It invokes a powerful tool that drastically shifts outcomes from potential to actual. According to Sensei, in our days and times, what is called "commitment" falls far short of what is emphasized by this Realization. If you are not 100% satisfied with your current spiritual journey or experience then you must listen to this episode to get you there... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

How many people are able to exercise self-control? Can you? Why is it that these days almost everyone seems out of control and in conflict with everyone else? Is this merely a case of needing more anger management courses? Realization 7 gives us a different insight into how to foster more self-control. Sensei focuses on 2 helpful techniques gleaned from this Realization that will prove helpful to you. If you, or someone you know, could benefit from better self-control of personal desires, emotions and thoughts press play now to learn how... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

Realization #6 challenges you to substantially shift your consciousnesses in a way that allows equal-mindedness to become lived experience. Transcending dualism is a part of this. Sensei goes into depth about how the mind can actually do this. He also offers a definition of "poverty" within the context of the dualism of wealth/poverty and friends/foes that will prove extremely useful for you. Are you ready to go to the another level? If so, press play now... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

In this episode, Sensei presents insightful commentary on Realization #5. This deep realization touches on ignorance and the ability to break the cycle of birth and death. The cycle of birth of death is not limited to what you may believe it to be. Sensei explains how this process is playing out in every phenomenal experience. Here you will see how the unconscious hidden conditioning of your mind causes deep ignorance to abide and therefore ensure perpetual darkness rather than joy. Showing the greatest joy results is possible by doing one thing. Listen now to find out...   --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

Why would great beings mention anything about "laziness" in the context of Realizations? Laziness is generally understood only as inactivity of the body or lack of "doing things." But, the root of laziness, it's psychological impact on your life and mental states is rarely explained. There is a cure for laziness and it may not be what you think. In the context of the previous 2 Realizations, this one goes to the heart of how to live in this world and "prosper" in a truly meaningful way... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

"Mankind have driven away the Great Beings who blessed them for centuries. Those beings had to recede because mankind deliberately said they didn't want Them. Now then, if conditions are to be permanently improved, then mankind must call and ask for Their return instead of denying Their very existence." Music: The Truth (Anno Domini Beats) No.4 Piano Journey (Esther Abrami) This episode is also available as a blog post: http://winruffin.com/2022/03/21/blessed-evening-loves-%f0%9f%98%8a-52/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/win-ruffin/message

Realizations number 3 deals with an issue that is universally of interest to people. It describes what real happiness is. As with the previous 2 Realizations, this one challenges more conventional notions to reveal a lasting and achievable happiness. Sensei offers supporting commentary and insight to help make this wisdom directly accessible. If you are interested in happiness and want to start experiencing it without effort then you should listen to this episode... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

Here Sensei continues with the exploration of the 8 Realizations. In this episode, Realization 2 is covered. The word "greedy" is not a word that one might want to describe himself/herself as. But, when we go deeper into the subtlety of what greed really is you may be surprised that some form of it is hiding inside of you. Realization 2 should provide the wisdom to remove any form of greed within you and thereby produce a life without suffering. Tune in now to learn more about this key to self-mastery. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

In this segment, Sensei introduces 2 more key components of the 1st Realization: Nature of the Mind & The Cycle of Birth & Death. The 1st Realization is meant to orient one to the true nature of this world while the other 7 Realizations teach us how to live in it. When you can truly understand both your mind and all phenomena (like the birth & death cycle) simultaneously it creates the opportunity for a major awakening and greater peace in your life. Listen now to see for yourself... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

This episode begins an ambitious effort by Sensei to explore a sutra ( The 8 Realizations of Great Beings) via his podcast. The intention here is to provide more tools, and how to use them, in order to declutter your life. This first episode covers the first half of Realization #1 which deals with the worldview of the Buddha. A detailed explanation of Impermanence and Emptiness is given along with insightful commentary, contemplations and ways to implement this deep wisdom. Press play now to get started... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

Therr were many Prophecies that spread across lands that the world would change. Burials and precious objects buried within tombs would one day be unearthed by invaders. Stories would be scattered across lands and many would never know of their connections to these ancestors. As time trickled on, the crusaders tore through sacred burial lands that belonged to ancient rulers. There were important messages hidden within the designs and structures of these objects. Sadly, stolen talismans are connected to the present day people of color and they are unaware. We are missing out on important answers to todays questions as it relates to building civilizations, self love, and culture. Today, many people have stolen relics from slavery and beyond inside of their homes. Many of the same people wonder why their homes are haunted. There are Great Beings of life that guard and protect various spaces of earth. We are never alone. We must tap in and remember our ancient ancestors of the past. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hair-and-skin-alchemy/message

8ቱ የጠቢባኖች ግንዛቤ The Eight Realizations of Great Beings --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wiseth/message

In this talk Zuisei dives into the center of the eighth realization—the awareness that the fire of birth and death is raging, causing endless suffering everywhere. Even in difficult moments there is a soft spaciousness, perfect and complete, where we are whole and things are as they are. How do we remember this in the very real and present stress of our day to day lives?

Michael Melancon points toward the deep realization possible when we transcend the ideas of birth and death. This talk covers the 8th Realization of the Great Beings.

The Seventh Realization of Great Beings teaches us to live simply, follow the precepts, and treat all beings equally and with compassion. Through the poetry of Hafiz and the stories of the Zen teacher and Sixth Ancestor Huineng, Zuisei cuts to the heart of living simply so that we might apply this sense of simplicity and openness to our lives outside of the monastery, in the reality of our everyday lives. Sangha member Norm Christian also offers a short talk on sincerity of intent.

In this mondo Zuisei introduces the Sixth Realization of Great Beings through the sangha's reflections on their lived experiences of the past year. This realization turns to equanimity and generosity in the midst of poverty—poverty of mind and spirit that creates our sense of lack During the pandemic, have you experienced a feeling of listlessness, Zuisei asks. Or something else? What have you turned to for comfort, stability, relief?

What happens when you deeply listen? The commentary to the fifth of the Eight Realizations of Great Beings says that bodhisattvas listen deeply to others in order to ease their suffering and bring them joy. Delving into the practice of listening and the parallel tracks of growing up and waking up, Zuisei inspires us to listen deeply so that we can become fully human buddhas.

Jonathan Prescott describes how indolence is failing to act on what we know. We can be indolent by doing too little, but also by doing too much. This is the 5th talk in the 8 Realizations of Great Beings practice period.

Michael Melancon offers a beautiful explanation of how the human mind is always searching outside itself and never feels fulfilled. This is the 4th talk in our 8 Realizations of the Great Beings practice period.

Bring back that lovin' feelin'Whoa that lovin feelin'When your enthusiasm for practice slows or seems to come to halt, does it “still count?” And anyways, how do you spark it up again? In this threaded talk, Zuisei introduces the fourth realization, indolence, aka find your enthusiasm. The sangha takes this up, each sharing their personal experiences of “failure” and “laziness,” and the awesome realization that in practice, nothing is left out.

Are you aware of a mind that searches outside of itself and never feels fulfilled? In this talk Zuisei and Brian each explore different aspects of this awareness—the Third Realization. Drawing on different sources from the experience of addiction to the Vimalakurti Sutra, this talk asks us to reflect on how this searching mind show up in our own lives and how might we might work with it.

In this talk, drawing from Dogen's teachings, the Lojong slogans and more, Zuisei dives into the very human experience of desire. How do the teachings on desire relate to satisfaction and sensuousness? How can we hold that desire is the root of suffering and still realize its affirming and joyful side?

“I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers but hold up a ship.” In this talk Zuisei returns to the reality of impermanence, from the Buddha's last talk just before his death—the Nirvana Sutra, to the wish above taken from an interview with Michelle Williams. How might impermanence inspire you?

Did you know that there are twelve vibrational trails of energy that have been uplifting and inspiring humanity from ancient times. These Streams of Consciousness form the fundamental structures of our society, culture and tribal instincts. They are clear, vibrational, spiritual trails of energy that were created for humanity by Great Beings to bring you continual, direct access to the Divine. Each of the twelve Streams of Consciousness has its own unique focus, energies, teachings and attunements. Their vibrational acceleration opens your personal connection with the Divine. Today's guest is award winning psychic consultant Lumari. In her book The Streams of Consciousness she talks about the twelve vibrational trails of energy that have been uplifting and inspiring humanity from ancient times. "These Streams of Consciousness form the fundamental structures of our society, culture and tribal instincts. They are clear, vibrational, spiritual trails of energy that were created for humanity by Great Beings to bring you continual, direct access to the Divine. Each of the twelve Streams of Consciousness has its own unique focus, energies, teachings and attunements. Their vibrational acceleration opens your personal connection with the Divine." Lumari is an internationally acclaimed intuitive life coach, transformational healer, visionary energy master and author who has shown thousands of people how to celebrate their soul purpose, connect to their highest destiny, generate personal success and Live Inspired. Her guidance and perspective is all about joy, fulfillment and inspiration on a beautiful soul level so that her clients and readers can live their dreams and Live Inspired. Lumari's consultations and coaching programs are designed to bring you into transformation quickly and joyfully.  

Chapter 2 - Gautam Sachdeva's Commentary Guru-Disciple Relationship The second chapter is the most important one, because it sets the tone for the Guru-disciple relationship and it also defines this relationship. You see Hemadpant has been most open and candid in admitting his resistance to the concept of having a Guru initially and in spite of that, he fell at Baba's feet. Now, there are various aspects here which are important. One is this resistance to the concept of a Guru. This should be explored a bit. We have no resistance when we are born; our parents are looking after us and the Indian scriptures say that your parents are your first gurus because they raised you and they guide you. There after you go to school; your teachers are your gurus in that sense, as they teach you. Now, if during your formative years you have these kinds of gurus, then what about facing life's challenges, life's ups and downs, life's mysteries. Isn't it natural to want a guide? Who has walked the path and who can help make your journey, maybe not easier, but simpler? That is the Guru. The Guru literally translates as the removal of ignorance. Another word for Guru is Light- the Light of Consciousness. It also translates as Spiritual Weight. There are various dimensions to this word 'Guru'. So, we are actually surrendering to all these dimensions of the word 'Guru'. The Guru is considered to be God in human form, but many of us are not willing to accept this, we still see a Guru as an individual. So, this chapter is very pertinent to people who have a Guru in their lives, Sadhguru being Sai Baba. This chapter is pertinent to people who look down upon the concept of a Guru as well as it is pertinent to people who are indifferent. You see, so, it is very important to understand that it is the disciple who sees himself or herself separate from the Guru. The Guru sees no separation. For the Guru, the Guru and disciple are one. So what Hemadpant has shown to us is that no matter how much pride got in the way, which was depicted by him saying that he didn't need a Guru and what use is a Guru if He cannot change someone's destiny, no matter the level of pride, he still landed at Baba's feet. And this happens because of the Grace of the Guru. In spite of this resistance, he found himself there. This is the compassion of the Guru. Now we all need to understand from this that the Guru is a guiding light. When we approach a Guru with suspicion, apprehension, we are actually doing injustice to ourselves because the element of trust is missing. So Hemadpant is laying bare all these aspects in the Guru-disciple relationship, but we have to pick these up. You see, Sai Baba himself said that in your life, it will be tremendously beneficial to have a Guru. He himself has said that. In our religious rituals, we have havan (sacred fire) and we offer coconut to the fire. That coconut represents the ego. When we bow down to a master, we are offering our ego at the feet of the Master. But some people resist bowing down, they feel 'Oh we should not give our power away to anyone. Who is this person? Why should we bow down before this person? We should only bow down before God or before Sai Baba for that matter.' All this is very arrogant thinking, where the understanding has not been perfected. Because if the Guru is God in human form, then you are bowing down to God. So, friends, this chapter specifically shows that the relationship has to be built on surrender and trust. And Baba himself has said that, I cannot change the Prarabdha (destiny) of somebody, but yet He provides the cushion. So, if one is going through challenges in life, it is the Guru who keeps your boat afloat, that is the difference. That is a huge difference. You are able to get the strength, thanks to the Guru, to see yourself through to the other shore. So this aspect I wanted to cover, and I hope I have done justice to it in this brief time. I would also like to add a couple of things here. In the story itself it is mentioned that Lord Ram had a Guru, Lord Krishna had a Guru. In fact even Gautam Buddha had two Gurus. So if such Great Beings had Gurus why must we ordinary people feel that 'Oh, we don't need a Guru.' So what Hemadpant has said is that everyone has to come under the Grace and umbrella of the Guru. And the beauty is that it is the Guru who is pulling us to Him, just as Sai Baba pulled Hemadpant in spite of all the resistance. So isn't it better if we are open from the start itself to receive the Grace? The other thing is when Baba gave Hemadpant, the name Hemadpant, He based it on someone else who was called Hemadpant, who was a writer. That vibration itself must have infused Hemadpant with those qualities which enabled him to bring out the book. This is the Master's Grace. So, that aspect has been, I feel a big reason for the Sai Satcharita to take shape thereafter because Hemadpant himself has now absorbed this new vibration, which ...

Krishna Das joins Dr. Robert Svoboda and Paula Crossfield to discuss chanting practice, the Guru's grace, and Hanuman. They share stories about their encounters with Great Beings, most notably Neem Karoli Baba, Vimalananda, and Anandamayi Ma. Weaving through this focused and delightful conversation, Krishna Das and Dr. Svoboda open up about their personal singing practices, their relationship to Hanuman, and offer guidance on how to tell if someone is a true saint or Guru.

Tony Woody is a US Navy Chief Petty Officer with 22 years of honorable service as an Instructor Flight Engineer on the P3 Orion aircraft. In 1982, he had an incredible Spiritually Transformative Experience over the course of a couple of days. It was initially triggered by an emergency landing that he miraculously survived. Today, Tony helps others who have had near-death experiences integrate the experience into their lives. Tony has since had two other Spiritually Transformative Experiences that we discuss in this interview. He is passionate about spreading the message that we are all infinitely loved, never alone, and destined to ultimately arrive back at Home.Tony discovered the St. Germain writings, which he is very passionate about.Here is the link to read the first three volumes of the Saint Germain Series online for free. There are no sign ups, and no obligation.The Saint Germain Foundation granted permission for those interested in the “I AM” Instruction to read them without charge. Volumes 1-3 are read only, PDF format, and are not downloadable. It was requested that Volumes 1-3 are read in order to lay the foundation for the remaining volumes. There are 20 in all.Link to read the first 3 Volumes: free online: https://www.saintgermainfoundation.org/unveiledmysteriesTap green book, “Unveiled Mysteries” to begin reading Volume 1.Note: If you need assistance using the link please contact Lilia via email a Longing4thelight@outlook.comDescription of the books:Vol. 1&2: Unveiled Mysteries, & The Magic Presence, by Guy W. Ballard, (pen name) Godfre’ Ray King. Factual events described by the author meeting Saint Germain followed by numerous detailed Transcendent Experiences with Him and other Great Beings of Light. Many fundamentals of the Cosmic Law are presented therein.Vol. 3: The "I AM" Discourses, by Ascended Master Saint Germain.Word for word “I AM” Instruction on the Cosmic Laws of Life dictated over a Light and Sound Ray by Saint Germain to Mr. and Mrs. Guy W. Ballard. This collection of Discourses describes the Ascended Masters’ use of the words “I AM”. Dr. Wayne Dyer often spoke about and read from the “I AM” Discourses to his audiences.In the event you wish to purchase the Saint Germain Series:Visit Amazon:Volume 1. Unveiled Mysteries, Godfre Ray LingVolume 2. The Magic Presence, Godfre Ray KingVolume 3. The “I AM” Discourses, As ended Master Saint Germainhttps://www.amazon.com/Germain-Unveiled-Mysteries-Presence-Discourses/dp/B004HPM84KOrEmail: order@SaintGermainPress.comOnline order: The Saint Germain PressVisit: https://saintgermainpress.com/books/saint-germain-series/Phone: 847-882-1911 US CSTSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/grief2growth)

In this episode, the Venerable addressed the following questions from the audience, In The Sutra of the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings, it is written that “We vow to bear the burden of countless sufferings on behalf of all sentient beings.” How do we do this? Some religions do not allow the dead to be cremated. They believe that the spirit gets burned up. Does it matter once the death has occurred if the body is cremated or buried? I'd like to volunteer as a tour guide next summer as the temple. Does the temple have training programs for volunteers?

In this episode, the Venerable addressed the following questions from the audience, In The Sutra of the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings, it is written that “We vow to bear the burden of countless sufferings on behalf of all sentient beings.” How do we do this? Some religions do not allow the dead to be cremated. They believe that the spirit gets burned up. Does it matter once the death has occurred if the body is cremated or buried? I'd like to volunteer as a tour guide next summer as the temple. Does the temple have training programs for volunteers?

In this episode, the Venerable addressed the following questions from the audience, Does Karma of our parents affect our own Karma? Or are we the only one that's responsible for our Karma? Has anyone got the Six Powers? Who are they? This was on the news. A mother in Hong Kong has two daughters, aged 18 and 22. She is a very protective mother and loves her daughters very much. One day, the 22 year-old didn't come home for a night, and they got into an argument the day later. The mother was so mad that she beat the 22 year-old with a pan. The 18 year-old saw this and called the police. The mother was imprisoned, and had to serve a sentence afterwards. What kind of Karma is this? The mother was a good mother and everything she did was for the benefit of her daughter. Why did she get sentenced? In The Sutra of the Eight Realization of Great Beings, it is said to overcome the four demons, and be free from the prison of the five aggregates, and the three realms. What are these four demons? In Zen Buddhism, when we do things in total awareness, it's considered as Dharma practice, while an action done distractedly with only half our attention is considered as just another worldly action. Can one be engaged in Dharma practice but multitasking at the same time?

In this episode, the Venerable addressed the following questions from the audience, Does Karma of our parents affect our own Karma? Or are we the only one that's responsible for our Karma? Has anyone got the Six Powers? Who are they? This was on the news. A mother in Hong Kong has two daughters, aged 18 and 22. She is a very protective mother and loves her daughters very much. One day, the 22 year-old didn't come home for a night, and they got into an argument the day later. The mother was so mad that she beat the 22 year-old with a pan. The 18 year-old saw this and called the police. The mother was imprisoned, and had to serve a sentence afterwards. What kind of Karma is this? The mother was a good mother and everything she did was for the benefit of her daughter. Why did she get sentenced? In The Sutra of the Eight Realization of Great Beings, it is said to overcome the four demons, and be free from the prison of the five aggregates, and the three realms. What are these four demons? In Zen Buddhism, when we do things in total awareness, it's considered as Dharma practice, while an action done distractedly with only half our attention is considered as just another worldly action. Can one be engaged in Dharma practice but multitasking at the same time?

Without knowing your true essence, you don't really know who you are.  You base your sense of self-worth on how well you do things, where you come from or where you go.  Learn how spending time with a great being will help you understand that you are Existence-Itself in a human form.

In today's show, Trenayce brings us a powerful message from Spirit about who we really are, and the time that we are living in.  You, are the Great Beings of Light, that were prophesied to come in the time of the Resurrection, the Revival, the Spiritual Renaissance, the Rebirthing of humanity. This is a call to action, to Rise and Shine! Tune in to hear this powerful, life changing message! #TheAwakening  #Transformation  #Awakenthehealing  #Resurrection  #SpiritualRenaissance  #TheRevival

In this weeks Satsang, Swami Shankarananda speaks about one of the Great Beings, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. He talks about Jnana Yoga, or the path of wisdom and the intellect. We hear discussions on different methods for Self-realisation, including awareness on the feeling of 'I am', witness consciousness, the clear space of good feeling and a clear, quiet mind, and finding reality within.  To learn more about Swami Shankarananda and his Ashram in Mount Eliza, Australia, click here. To like the Ashram on Facebook and stay up to date with recent events, click here.

Listen to this weeks Satsang with Swami Shankarananda from Saturday, 1st September 2018. In this live recorded talk, Guruji talked about Lord Krishna's birthday, and also spoke on the teachings of one of the Great Beings, Sri Aurobindo. He covered topics including the awakening of the psychic being, the meaning of yoga, and discussed the different ranges of consciousness and human awareness, and more.  Did you know you can register to watch Satsang with Swami Shankarananda live every Saturday night from 7pm AEST, for only $10? You are all welcome to join us for the Global Satsang each Saturday night. Click here for more information and to register. For more information about Swami Shankaranda and his Ashram in Mount Eliza, Victoria, click here.

In this Satsang talk Swami Shankarananda speaks about the great Indian sage and yogi, Bhagavan Nityananda. Guruji discusses some of Bhagavan's aphorisms or sayings that were recorded by his devotees when he was alive between 1885-1961. In Bhagavan's usual style we are forced to use a different part of our brain and listening to feel the esesence of his teachings and the great Shakti, or spiritual energy behind them.  Subscribe to Guruji's podcast channel to stay up to date with weekly Satsang talks on a variety of topics and Great Beings. To learn more about the Ashram and it's different courses and programs, visit www.theashram.com.au. To buy Guruji's books Self-Inquiry or Consciousness is Everything, visit our online bookstore here: www.ashrambookshop.com.au

Aired Thursday, 15 February 2018, 7:00 PM ETA Course In Mastering Alchemy - Tools To Shift, Transform and Ascend with Jim SelfFor the past 30 years, Jim Self and his partner, Roxane Burnett, have been leading seminars and teaching healing, clairvoyance, and personal energy management courses. Their program, “Mastering Alchemy,” was created in 2001. Since then, over 11,000 people have completed their three-­‐year course, while many thousands more have participated in and benefited from their free online webinars.Now, for the first time, they have condensed their hugely popular Mastering Alchemy Program into a book, which offers open access to the consciousness-altering, personal energy tools and lessons designed to help you change your attitude to your life and so transform it.This week, international spiritual teacher, speaker and author, Jim Self, joins Sandie to discuss:* What is “Alchemy” and how do we “Master” it to experience a new, higher level of consciousness? * Who are the Teachers of Light and why are they offering the strategies and activations that form part of Mastering Alchemy at this particular moment in humanity’s evolution? * What makes Mastering Alchemy different from previous programs and courses of wisdom teachings? * Why do we need to step out of the third dimensional world into a fifth-dimension experience, and what awaits us if we do so? * What is a Living Light Body and why would we want one?Plus, information about the Fall of Consciousness, the Rays of Creation, rewiring yourself, overcoming obstacles to your success, and more…About the Guest: Jim SelfJim Self is one of the few international teachers, authors and speakers actually working at the leading edge of the current planetary Shift in Consciousness. He provides solid, up-to-date information and practical energy tools to help us keep pace with the transition we are in.Jim lives in both the material third-dimensional world and within the higher realms of consciousness. As an entrepreneur he has successfully built and sold two corporations and is the founder and current board chairman of a third. Since childhood he has had the ability to recall his experiences within the sleep state. This awareness has expanded into relationships with the Archangels, Ascended Masters and Teachers of Light. The tools and information presented in his work are a co-creation with these Great Beings.Website: www.masteringalchemy.com

This Dharma Talk was given by Jay Rinsen Weik Sensei at the Buddhist Temple of Toledo. In this talk, Reverend Rinsen continues to explore the ango subject of simplicity and explores how Master Dogen talks about desire in his teachings and how that compares to the Eight Awakenings of Great Beings, said to be The Buddha's final teaching. To learn more about the Buddhist Temple of Toledo or to make a donation in support of this podcast, visit buddhisttempleoftoledo.org 

This Dharma Talk was given by Jay Rinsen Weik Sensei at the Buddhist Temple of Toledo. In this talk, Reverend Rinsen explores the second awakening of Master Dogen's The Eight Awakenings of Great Beings.  This awakening challenges us to be aware of how much we actually need in any given moment or situation.   To learn more about the Buddhist Temple of Toledo or to make a donation in support of this podcast, visit buddhisttempleoftoledo.org 

The eighth and concluding talk in our series on Dogen's "Eight Awakenings of Great Beings": on which conversations we can let go.

The sixth in the series on "8 Awakenings of Great Beings": on meditation and what it really means to find stability

The seventh in the series on "8 Awakenings of Great Beings": the way to wisdom is not aimed directly at wisdom.

The forth in the series on "8 Awakenings of Great Beings": also known as continuous practice.

The fifth in the series on "8 Awakenings of Great Beings": A talk on mindfulness, where we set our sights, and how easily we can slip up and become Darth Vader.

The second in the series on "8 Awakenings of Great Beings": knowing how much is enough (it's not easy).

The third in the series on "8 Awakenings of Great Beings": enjoying serenity in seclusion. It's about knowing where you are.

The first in a series on Dogen's "8 Awakenings of Great Beings." On the difference between attraction and attachment, and what it might mean to be an adult.

KD reminds us that true realization is proven possible by the amazing beings that have come before, and those who continue to leave foot prints on the path for us to follow. He also explains that our innate desires are not inherently bad, but become corrupted when suppressed through power and manipulation. We want to hide from the darker corners of our minds, but in discovering the truth that we can never fully obscure our own view, we begin to let go and accept ourselves as we are.

A Teisho from Saturday at the Ango Opening Sesshin. The Eight Awakenings of Great Beings PDF

The Eight Awakenings of Great Beings is from the Shobogenzo by Dogen. The version we are looking at is from the edition published by Shambhala and edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi. You can purchase a copy here. The Eight Awakenings of Great Beings PDF Ango is a time of increased focus on our vow to fully Awaken for the sake of all beings.  Intensification of our zazen, Buddhist practice and participation in the life of the sangha has its roots in the earliest gatherings of the Buddha's disciples. During the rainy seasons in India some 2,600 years ago, mendicant followers of the Buddha would seek shelter in caves for 90 days, and there they would practice and study together with their teacher.  Along with Zen communities across the world we continue a modern incarnation of this ancient tradition at the Great Heartland Buddhst Temple of Toledo.  

Once we come to terms with the fact that nothing lasts, even the idea of clinging begins to lose its gravitational pull. Cultivating this opening has been taught in several traditions, with Eihei Dogen's, "Eight Awakenings of Great Beings," offering Zen students an excellent guide for achieving this goal. Looking closely at the Eight Awakenings, we see how this process shows us how our desires don't need to overtake us. We also start to see that we can recognize how much is enough in any situation. We also begin to recognize and appreciate serenity and solitude. Seeing the importance of diligence as we cultivate depth also works in our favor. Mindfulness becomes a key in process as does the practice of meditation. The nourishment of wisdom as we live and refraining from engaging in hollow discussions round out Dogen's recommendations for how to live the very Freedom we most seek. Living as a conscious integration of these steps allows for us to embody peace and an awakened perspective.  

Once we come to terms with the fact that nothing lasts, even the idea of clinging begins to lose its gravitational pull. Cultivating this opening has been taught in several traditions, with Eihei Dogen's, "Eight Awakenings of Great Beings," offering Zen students an excellent guide for achieving this goal. Looking closely at the Eight Awakenings, we see how this process shows us how our desires don't need to overtake us. We also start to see that we can recognize how much is enough in any situation. We also begin to recognize and appreciate serenity and solitude. Seeing the importance of diligence as we cultivate depth also works in our favor. Mindfulness becomes a key in process as does the practice of meditation. The nourishment of wisdom as we live and refraining from engaging in hollow discussions round out Dogen's recommendations for how to live the very Freedom we most seek. Living as a conscious integration of these steps allows for us to embody peace and an awakened perspective.