Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism, Dreams and the Soul of the World

Opening The Skies: Love + Spaciousness

Spaciousness/emptiness is considered the Ground of Being or the Mind-ground—the heart of who we are.
Here spaciousness is love. But maybe not love in the traditional way that we think of love, which is often conditional. 
Often our loving has to do with–if you really loved me you would do…or say…or show it in some specific way that we feel like we need, or want, or must have in order to really feel or know love.
Spaciousness is love unbounded, completely unconditional–a pure kind of love that is almost impossible to imagine, because we are so conditioned to think of love in a particular way. To think of love the way that we think of human love, which again is conditioned–because often we bring our fears, attachments, longings, desires + hidden agendas to our loving.
Spaciousness-love is the love that accepts, knows, embraces whatever it is that is arising in the moment–simply because it is, simply because it is what’s happening.
What’s amazing and inconceivable and miraculous is that spaciousness-love is our most intimate experience. It’s functioning within each of us, all of the time. Deep fundamental acceptance is the heart of who we are.

Unpacking Emptiness: The Paths of Healing and Liberation

Emptiness is an often misunderstood concept in modern Buddhist practice, partially because it is not really a concept so much as a realization. Yet, without the concept we can’t really prepare for what opens up in this path of practice or we may miss the freedom that is part of this path. To talk about emptiness is of course, not the same as realizing emptiness.
In this talk I unpack emptiness as well as exploring how it fits on the paths of practice--exploring the Buddhist path as a path of healing and liberation.

The Heat of Spiritual Longing

Exploring the Great Element Fire we are invited into the heat within our bodies. Fire illuminates the heat of our living and connects us to our passions. In this talk we are invited to feel the heat of life within and also to reflect on spiritual longing.

Waters of Compassion

In the Mountains and Waters Sutra, we are invited to study water--to take it up as our body and mind? This level of intimacy is characteristic of the Zen school. Water is alive and life-giving. In Mahayana Buddhism the archetype of Compassion is depicted as the Goddess Kannon, transmuting her tears of grief for the suffering in the world, into Compassion.
This Dharma Talk explores the teachings of the waters of compassion. Compassion can meet us in the places that feel unbearable. Compassion can help us open our hearts to our emotional challenges, vulnerabilities and pain. And also give us the strength to show up for others and our world.

The River of Experience and Ocean of Awareness

The Water Element makes up around 65% of the human body. To attend to the element water we are invited to feel the gravity and flow of embodied experience. Contemplative practitioners throughout time use the images of bodies of water: ocean, lake, river -- to point to aspects of our nature. Flowing yet still, wavey and deep -- the invitation is one of all inclusive awareness, where wave and ocean, drop and lake are of one substance.
Discover the playful joy and freedom of opening to the dimensions of your being.

The Wisdom of the Earth Element

The first of a five series exploration into the teachings of the Five Great Elements. In this episode we explore the Great Element Earth through embodiment, presence, contemplations on interconnection and the practice of generosity.
If we lose connection to the Earth, our lives are chaotic.—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
How do you stay embodied? How do you practice presence?

Practicing the Profound: Waking up to this Sacred Life

What we believe shapes how we perceive. If we think that we are separate from all the rest of life, we live an isolated life--ignoring the everyday magic of the earth, relationships and our human hearts and minds. In this episode we explore how view shapes our life, and what it's like to try on different views. Such as seeing our life as sacred. We also explore the practice of presence as a celebration of our unique beingness, and the freedom and creativity offered in the profound practice of presence.

Count the Stars in the Night Sky: Zen Koans and the Imagination

The miscellaneous koans of the Zen lineage are image rich, as is much of the teachings on awakening found in the Zen literature. In this talk we will open to the image of the koan Count the Stars in the Night Sky and discover within our own soma the wisdom and power of such a simple phrase.
This is an invitation to enter both body and image as a way of utilizing the imagination as part of the awakening process. 

Approaching Emptiness through Koan Practice

One of the great gifts of the Zen tradition is it's teachings on emptiness. Far from being nihilistic, the teachings and practices of emptiness remind us of the inherent spontaneity and creativity of the universe. This talk explores koan as a technology of awakening, and invites us into koan practice in an engaging way. Time is spent exploring the koan, Everyone Has Their Own Light by Zen Teacher Yunman, from the Blue Cliff Record.

Emptiness, Unknowing and the Dark

In this dharma talk Kisei explore's the phrase from Hongzhi in Silent Illumination:
If serenity neglects illumination; murkiness leads to wasted dharma.
This life is a play of emptiness and illumination, yin & yang. When the emptiness side (which also can be defined as silence, serenity, darkness, unknowing) gets off balance--what happens to our lives? our practice? our awakening?
This talk is a deep exploration of the ins and outs of emptiness.