Jared Wynn - War & Peace

“it’s always first and foremost internal.” - Nina Snow

In a wide ranging discussion Jared shares his own missteps and anecdotes while looking for guidance everywhere from the Pali Canon to see how Buddha dealt with his conflicts (dark twist spoiler - he kills someone!), to our old friend Sunryu Suzuki and his recommendations toward skillful means, to Musashi - Japan's greatest sword fighter and warrior poet, who has a list of recommendations that the sangha decides are... let's just say challenging.

Dave Cuomo - Seeing the World From a Casket

“To let go while digging is is the trick.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave leads the sangha in a special memorial day discussion on Kodo Sawaki’s “Seeing the World from a Casket.” It’s an exploration of who we are when our defining struggles are no longer struggles and the clarity of viewing life from the other side.

Emily Eslami - How to Ride an Ox

“When you realize the meaning of life of shitting and eating, you will realize the deep meaning of raising an ox.” - Dogen

Emily Eslami on Kakuan Shien's Ten Bulls, or the Ox Herding pictures you may have heard them called. It's a path of no path, the great Zen rodeo, the straight road to enlightenment that turns out to be a spiral, or a circle, or a flat infinite plain? It's hard to say, but Emily leads the group in a great talk on a beautiful illustration of practice. The Ten Bulls are borrowed from our Rinzai siblings, which means there's a refreshing focus on practice with some hint of a progression, deepening, and maturing as we go on. But Emily warns us not to be fooled because that progress and maturing is as like to be happening now in the space of a moment as it is over the course of a lifetime. It's story of learning to ride the great ox, finding your way home, and finding out everywhere you go is home. 

Nina Snow - Happy

"As long as we view happiness within the duality of fortune and misfortune, and in terms of our ever changing emotions, we’ll be divided within ourselves." - Kosho Uchiyama

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

Orlando K. - Rogue Idealism

“Its the empty space of meditation that’s beneficial - the silence, the stillness… It’s the stuff that it doesn’t give you, the stuff that it takes away, that makes it meaningful“ - Orlando K.

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

Emma Roy - Lay Practice

“The role of a lay practitioner is to not have a lot of answers but to be very serious about your questions.” - Emma Roy

Emma Roy celebrates the lay community. While so much has been written about the wise monks and teachers who have defined Buddhism, Emma points out that this is not the vast majority of practitioners, and takes a moment to reflect on the path of being a student as its own ambition. It’s a talk about hierarchy, asking questions, not knowing, and an exploration of practice as an achievement in and of itself.

Emily Eslami - “The Practice of Impossible Things”

“I sit and I sit and I sit, and the effects of it are in my life but I’m not quite sure what the aim is… I might be doing nothing at all and I might be doing everything.” - Emily Eslami

Emily takes on the impossible in her “Intro to Zen” talk. How exactly is anyone supposed to introduce this wild, inexpressible, unattainable practice we do day after day, moment by moment? Reading from Dogen’s Zazen Shin, she takes a deep dive into the classic koan about trying to sit to become a Buddha, described as just as simple as trying to polish a tile to make a mirror. But here we will let Emily speak for herself in a demonstrative moment where she manages to express the inexpressible totality of what exactly Zen practice is:
“There are so many things in our life that are impossible to achieve; being the perfect Buddhist, being the perfect partner, being a well rounded human who cooks and cleans, has a productive work life, an amazing social life, and exercises four times a week. All that stuff we put pressure on ourselves to do, its impossible! So I think its really nice that this is a practice of sitting and doing an impossible thing, and letting go of the need to achieve anything. Maybe that’s the point of letting go, that we do achieve something. Maybe we do get what we want. But we can’t trick it! We can’t pretend we don’t have a goal to get what we want. We just have to accept that what we’re doing is impossible and we don’t have a goal and yet maybe by doing that, maybe the tile is already a mirror”

Dave Cuomo - Wait, what exactly is Mahayana Buddhism? (History of Zen pt 5)

“Rule of life: Never believe in anything because someone will just come along and prove you wrong.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave continues his series on the history of Zen with pt 5 - Mahayana Buddhism. He wades into the murky history to try to find the historical roots of the Mahayana, and what if anything, set it and its followers apart from early Buddhism. Dave and the sangha also reflect on the ways the arguments and differences that caused this split in the first place are still very much alive and relevant today in the different approaches of modern Buddhist schools.

Nina Snow - Greed & Generosity

“If I am willing to sow my seeds anywhere without worrying about the outcome, I might be gratified by unexpected beneficial results.” - Misha Shungen Merrill

Nina Snow leads the sangha in a roundtable discussion on the nature of greed, exploring it’s roots in fear and attachment, and the generosity inherent in letting go.

Emma Roy - The Big Bummers of Buddhism

“Giving up hope in changing the three characteristics is getting on the side of reality.” - Emma Roy

Emma Roy discusses “The Three Characteristics,” the three hallmarks of Buddhism that everyone wishes were not true - suffering, impermanence, and no self. Why do these have to be true and why do we have such a hard time accepting that they are?