The Zen Studies Podcast

To keep your Dharma practice lively, it's important to regularly identify the "edge" of your practice. This is your growth point – the current limit of your understanding and your capacity to embody it. Of course, you...

This is second episode of two on this topic. In the first episode (334), I identified existing episodes of the Zen Studies Podcast on - or related to - rebirth that you might want to listen to for context and...

Zen practice is not dependent on rebirth being true or untrue, and I suspect most Dharma teachers would say the same of their lineage traditions. As long as you practice, it doesn't matter whether you believe in...

Sometimes it's difficult to relate to the goal of "awakening" or "enlightenment." Especially if we've gained a hard-won sense of peace with ourselves and our lives, it can seem counterproductive to dwell on some...

<p>For many years now, people have been asking me how to deepen their Zen practice. They wonder, "What's next?" Some lay people are perfectly content guiding their own practice, but others long for more structure – some...

<p >How can we practice without ignoring the world, but also without being overwhelmed by it? We can learn something from a koan involving the 9th century Chan master Zhaozhou (Joshu): A monk asked, "When a great...

<p>This is a teisho – like a cross between a Dharma Talk and guided meditation. Teisho are sometimes called "encouragement talks," and they are meant to help listeners connect with the Dharma in the spaciousness and...

<p>In Part 2 of this episode, I continue giving my "2,500 years' worth of Buddhist texts in a nutshell," an overview of texts in my Zen lineage. In Part 1 I explained what makes a Buddhist text considered legitimate...

<p>In Buddhism, we have three treasures: Buddha, teachers or our own awakened nature; Dharma, the teachings or the truth itself, and Sangha, the community of people who practice and maintain the tradition together. From...

<p > In Buddhism, we have three treasures: Buddha, teachers or our own awakened nature; Dharma, the teachings or the truth itself, and Sangha, the community of people who practice and maintain the tradition together...

<p >You may have discovered there are lots of Buddhist teachings and texts. Jews have their Torah, Christians their Bible, Muslims their Quran, and Hindus their Vedas, but Buddhists have no divinely-inspired central...

<p>In Buddhism, we are guided by the ideal of a Buddha, or awakened being. One of the characteristics of a Buddha is unconditional and selfless generosity, and when your generosity is blocked, you can be sure that some...

<p>In koan #6 from the Blue Cliff Record, Yunmen says, "Every day is a good day." I explore this koan, including the way we sometimes imagine our real life is going to happen after something, and the various ways we can...

<p>Since the term arose in 1950's, "self-care" has referred to a number of different things. If we consider self-care to be things you do to remain physically and mentally healthy, then Zazen – simple, goalless, Zen...

<p>This a Q&A episode based on questions I've received from listeners: Does Zen have anything to say about human relationships? Can we learn anything from the cultural popularization of the term "Zen"? If we have no...