Published by Becoming Ordinary
Dharma talks exploring Zen practice, awakening, and how to bring clarity and compassion into daily life.
Listen on Apple PodcastsFrom the March 2025 7-Day Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center
From the October 2022 Long Beach Meditation “Mountain Refuge Retreat”
The Blue Cliff Record, Case 40, from Insight Community of the Desert’s Tuesday Meditation As Refuge class.
Case 1 of the Gateless Gate: “Ordinary Mind is the Way” from Insight Community of the Desert’s Tuesday Meditation As Refuge class.
Case 1 from the Book of Equanimity “The World Honored One Ascends the Platform” from the May 2025 sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center
From the September 2024 7-Day Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center
Return to What is Most Vital
From the Summer 2023 Beginner’s Mind Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center
From Beginner’s Mind Sesshin, January 2023
You have to break through to this.
Great faith, great doubt, and great determination are considered to be three essentials for Zen practice. If any of these essentials are absent, we may not accomplish our aim.
Yes!
How can it be understood?
Doing nothing can be surprisingly difficult.
The Practice of Active Acceptance.
Exploring the island.
Leaping Clear of the Many and the One.
Are we really who we think we are?
What is the Essential meaning?
Who is taking care of who?
Keep the useful structure, then change the audience, point of view, and voice until the idea is unmistakably yours.