Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Young Urban Zen SF

This week's theme is "The heart of Zen teachings - Grandmotherly Mind". Zen practice isn't about becoming a better version of yourself—it's about learning a radically different way of relating to the person you already are. This talk explores the Zen teaching of Grandmotherly Mind: a compassionate, clear, and courageous way of meeting ourselves and others that transforms how we navigate work, relationships, and everyday life. Drawing on the teachings of the great Zen master Eihei Dōgen, we'll explore how this ancient practice speaks directly to the challenges of modern life.

Grandmotherly Mind Young Urban Zen

Tonight Tim Wicks will speak about accumulation. We collect lots and lots of stuff. For some of us shopping can be an addiction. A lot of it gets thrown away.

Greed is one of the three poisons that we work with in Zen, it is an obstacle to our awakening. Here we discuss…

Accumulation Young Urban Zen

In a culture that often measures human worth by productivity and output, this talk explores what is distinctly and irreducibly human—our capacity for empathy, our unique perspective, our ability to be present with difficulty, and our power to connect. Drawing on Zen practice, neuroscience, and contemplative wisdom, Sozan Michael McCord examines our relationships with technology, with each other, and with the processes that fill our days.

Being-Human-In-The-Age-Of-AI Young Urban Zen

Let's get real. Life can be messy. Relationships become complicated. Work is uncertain. We lose our way. Our bodies change. The people we love get older. We lose faith in everything. Sometimes everything seems to happen at once. Now what?

Buddhism and meditation practice doesn't promise that life will become easy or that somehow we'll rise above it all. It does offer practical ways to meet whatever arises with a little more awareness, honesty, kindness, and freedom.

It's-a-Mess-Now-What? Young Urban Zen

Heather Iarusso leads us through a talk on the "origin of conflict" and "mindfulness of mind." How does our thought-world affect how we think, act, and speak? How can we transform harmful "verbal action" into beneficial "internal speech"? The more we pay close attention to what arises in the mind, the more we can respond to what's happening in the moment with compassion and care. There is a slightly guided meditation at the end as well!

Origin of Conflict and Mindfulness of Mind Young Urban Zen

Kodo Conlin and Mei Elliott each reflect on the topic of romance, relationship, and sexuality. How can we be free in the midst of romance, dating, and attraction? What is the relationship between practice and sexuality? American culture has a notable lack of education about what authentic and awake relationships can look like. This session explores how self-study provides a gateway to greater freedom in romance.

Romance, Relationship, and Sexuality Young Urban Zen

Eli will conclude our exploration of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness with the Fourth Foundation: Mindfulness of Phenomena (dhammas).

This foundation invites us to look beyond individual experiences and begin noticing the patterns and conditions that shape them. Rather than asking, “What’s wrong with me?” we begin asking, “What conditions are present?” Together we’ll explore how the Buddha’s teachings including the Five Hindrances serve not as abstract concepts, but as practical maps that help us recognize the habits of mind that lead toward suffering and those that lead toward freedom.

2026-06-30-Eli-Mindfulness of Phenomena Young Urban Zen

Hiro Ikushima leads us through a talk about the 3rd foundation of Mindfulness: Mindfulness of Mind, or citta (Pāli).

This practice invites us to notice the changing states of mind, such as calm or restless, contracted or open, clear or confused, without judgment. How can we meet the mind just as it is? And how does this awareness help us see our patterns?

Four Foundations of Mindfulness: Mindfulness of Mind (citta) Young Urban Zen

This podcast will be the second part in our series on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: Feelings as told by Michael. By noticing how feelings arise and pass, practitioners learn that feelings themselves are not self and that attachment or aversion to them causes suffering. This awareness interrupts habitual reactions and fosters equanimity.  

2026-06-16-Michael-mindfulness Young Urban Zen

Kōgetsu Mok leads us through a very powerful breakdown of the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: the breath. How does breathing help us to come home to our bodies, our lives, and ourselves?

We can maybe see how something as ordinary as the breath can become a doorway to intimacy, humility, connection, and freedom.

Not for enlightenment.
Not to unravel emptiness.
Not to grok some complicated philosophy.

Just breathing.

The Breath Young Urban Zen

Tim Wicks concludes our series on the Noble Eight-Fold Path with Right Intention. How does our practice direct our intention on the spiritual path, and how does that intention direct the practice?

Right Intention Young Urban Zen

This week's theme is "Right View" of the Eightfold Path. How do our views shape the way we meet ourselves, each other, and the world? Right View invites us to see suffering, its causes, and the possibility of freedom more clearly. Join us with Hiro in exploring these themes.

Right View Young Urban Zen

This week’s Young Urban Zen broadcast is a little different than usual. Abbot David leads us through a meditation instruction, a short meditation, and finally a Dharma talk about Generosity (Dāna). “The path of true liberation begins with Generosity.”

Generosity / Dāna Young Urban Zen

In today’s talk Michael will be continuing our series on the 8 Fold Noble Path that we started a few weeks ago.  This week it will be on "Right Livelihood".  We spend much of our life working.  How do we determine if how we are spending our time is in alignment with our values in regards to how we support ourselves, pay our bills and save for the future?

Please come and turn this subject over in this podcast!

Right Livelihood Young Urban Zen

Kodo Conlin guides us through the topic of Right Samādhi: Sitting Buddha. We explore samādhi/concentration as part of Zen's rich heritage. This final factor of the Eightfold Path can be understood as the fruit of our wholehearted presence.

Right Samadhi Young Urban Zen

This week’s theme is Right Effort — Not Getting Anything, Not Causing Harm.

We’ll touch on the simple but challenging guidelines of do no harm, do all good, and how our actions through body, speech, and mind shape our experience and those around us.

Right Effort Young Urban Zen

Tonight Eli continues in the series on the 8 Fold Path. Tonight we will practice and talk about Right Mindfulness. 

Right Mindfulness Young Urban Zen

Tim Wicks leads this weekly YUZ talk with an overview of The Four Noble Truths and a further focus on 2 folds of The Eight Fold Path: Right Speech & Right Action.

Unfortunately, a fire occurred in late March which burned down the Zendo at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. No one was injured, but the damage is extensive. See below link for more details about donating and also another link about the latest info on the matter:

Tassajara Fire Donation
Tassajara Fire blog

Content Link Block Select a page and create a visual link to it. https://support.squarespace.com/hc/articles/206544037 Blog Four Noble Truths - Right Speech & Action Young Urban Zen

As many of you may have heard, we did have a fire at our Tassajara monastery, and the meditation hall burned down. I'll talk a little bit about what's going on there at the beginning of the meeting tonight. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the fire was contained and did not spread beyond the meditation hall.

Tonight's topic will be the second half of the Brahma Viharas: empathetic joy and equanimity.

Tassajara Zendo Fire Late at night on March 26, a fire broke out in the Tassajara zendo. While no one was hurt, the entire building burned to the ground. To help keep the community informed, a blog post was created as a central source for information on the fire and where we are going from here. It will be updated with new information as it becomes available, including the impact on the Summer Guest Season and Summer Student Program. Deep bows of appreciation to all who have sent in their heartfelt condolences, memories, and donations. Visit the Tassajara Zendo Fire Blog Updates.

Fire Donation

Bramaviharas - part 2 empathetic joy and equanimity Young Urban Zen

Michael McCord leads tonight’s talk about The Four Brahmavihārās. This is part 1 of a 2 part series which focuses on the Brahmavihārās “Loving Kindness” & “Compassion.” In a world that can be  aggressive, combative, competitive, how do these traits work not only with those we love and trust but towards the world in general?  And how do they manifest in us, through a decision? Cultivation? Simple awareness?

The Four Brahmavihārās - pt 1 (of 2) - Loving Kindness & Compassion Young Urban Zen

In Zen and traditional Buddhism there are a number of tools that can be cultivated to help us in these relationships and some of you may have wisdom to share in the practice of relationships and work.

Relationship With Work Young Urban Zen

Eli opens a conversation on how to be in relationship with “people we don’t like”. He discusses how sitting zazen might help us practice with unpleasant feelings that come up in conflict—anger, frustration, judgement, resentment, and so on. What if we looked at relationships with “people we don’t like” not as imperfections in practice but as the practice itself?

Relationships With "People We Don't Like" Young Urban Zen

Kōgetsu talks about Intimacy with the Self. We live in a world that constantly tells us we need to improve—to become better, more optimized versions of ourselves. Checklists, standards, performance reviews: we might even find ourselves trying to optimize our meditation practice.

What would it mean to be truly intimate with ourselves—especially with our fear, shame, envy, anger, and the parts we’d rather not highlight—without letting the parts define us or control how we act? Buddhist teaching offers a different view. What we call the self is not a fixed thing, but a changing process built moment-by-moment from sensation, story, and habit. Much of our suffering comes not from having thoughts and feelings, but from becoming fused with them. 

We discuss how a meditation practice helps us stay close to our experience without being overtaken by it. How we can meet life’s ups and downs with greater steadiness, vulnerability, and presence, without believing every story the mind tells?

Intimacy with Self Young Urban Zen

Hiro Ikushima gives a talk about Relationships. This is part 1 of a series. This talk focused on family. Ram Dass once said, “If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” Many of us recognize the truth in that. Family can be both our deepest source of love and our greatest challenge.

Hiro guides us on how explore remaining steady and compassionate in the midst of family dynamics, and how we might begin to see our family members as part of our spiritual path.

Relationships - Pt 1 - Family Young Urban Zen

In our final paramita talk, Kristen Diggs leads a talk regarding the Paramita of Wisdom. What is complete and perfect wisdom? How can we look to find it?

Six Paramitas Talk 6: Wisdom (Prajñā ) Young Urban Zen

Tim Wicks leads a talk regarding the Paramitas (aka crossing over) focusing on Concentration. Why do we meditate, and what is it that we are trying to do facing the wall? Working with the mind and our thoughts is central to Zen practice and, for many of us, the most difficult part. “We are trying to cross over away from the distractions and delusions that prevent us from full awareness.”

Six Paramitas Talk 5: Concentration (Samadhi) Young Urban Zen

How do we keep showing up in our work, relationships, and the world without exhausting ourselves or betraying what matters most to us?

Eli discusses joyful effort (virya): an approach to effort that isn’t about grinding harder, chasing outcomes, or measuring worth through productivity. Drawing on Zen practice and lived experience, we unpack questions many of us carry quietly: Am I doing enough? What does sustainable commitment look like? How do I stay engaged when trust is low and fatigue is high?

Virya - January 2026 Young Urban Zen

In this talk, Kōgetsu discusses generosity also known as Dana. Buddhist practice invites us to look more deeply at how we can meet the roots of suffering. We will explore how generosity includes how we relate to ourselves and others, how we listen, how we repair, how we set limits, and how wisdom guides what actually helps rather than what simply feels good in the moment. Zazen trains us to meet generosity with clarity rather than compulsion.

Six paramitas talk 3: Generosity (dana) Young Urban Zen

In this talk, Mei discusses the paramita of ethical conduct. Sīla (ethical conduct) is one of the six paramitas (perfections) that develops a practitioner on the path of freedom, while simultaneously manifesting awakened activity. Though most Westerners don't initially delight in the topic of ethical behavior, Mei explains that virtue is one of the most beautiful expressions of the awakened mind. 

six paramitas talk 2: Sila (ethical conduct) Young Urban Zen

This talk is the beginning of a series on the paramitas which are the fruits of living the precepts of Buddhism.

Michael will be discussing the paramita of patience in this talk. Paramitas are viewed as perfections to be addressed directly as a way of working with one's practice.  Please come and turn over not only this paramita but how it relates to our everyday life, no matter where we spend our day (in the monastery, out in the world, in the home...).

Six Paramitas: Patience Young Urban Zen

Tim Wicks closes out the year (2025) with a talk about Renunciation, letting go.

He speaks about the grasping at the root of our suffering, our conditioning as "graspers," and how we help each other in learning to let go. 

Renunciation Young Urban Zen

As the year comes to a close, Young Urban Zen invites you into The Gift of Nothing: a talk and experiential practice on generosity without striving. Eli Brown-Stevenson leads us together through an exploration on what it means to give, receive, and belong when we release the need to add, fix, or improve anything.

The Gift of Nothing Young Urban Zen

When practice starts to feel frustrating, like why am I not feeling a certain way by now, or when we wonder if we’re “doing it right”—it can quietly turn into a kind of transaction. We’ll explore this train of thought with some lightness and curiosity, and look at how practice can become less about getting somewhere and more about meeting ourselves where we are with compassion.

When I want something out of my practice Kogetsu

Many of you may be traveling this year or at least experiencing a different schedule (some may take time off; some may work more due to the rest of the team taking time off... etc.) than how things usually unfold for you.

How will you stay grounded in the midst of large meals, or extra time or family interactions, or increased solitude?

In this talk, Michael discusses what Zen principles apply to staying grounded in the midst of change. 

What Zen principles apply to staying grounded in the midst of change. Young Urban Zen

Tim Wicks leads a talk looking at the many obstacles that we face on our path to awakening. By focusing on the hindrances and how we work with them, we see that there is a way forward to address the feelings of separation and isolation by cultivating wisdom through intimate practice that leads us to the truth of interconnection.

Hindrances Young Urban Zen

Hiro Ikushima explores “Working with Subtle Frustrations”, the quiet sense that something is missing, and the low-level dissatisfaction that follows us through the day. In Zen, these small irritations become important teachers when we meet them directly rather than trying to fix or avoid them.

Working with Subtle Frustrations Young Urban Zen

In this talk, Kōgetsu Mok ponders the idea of “not believing all your thoughts”. How can our zazen practice help us to quiet unrest, dis-ease, stress, and pain? How can we cultivate discernment in practice? 

Not believing all your thoughts Young Urban Zen

Michael McCord prompts us with a few questions before diving into the concept of harboring ill will. What is forgiveness in the Buddhist practice? How do we work with long standing grievances and short term frustrations?

Not Harboring Ill Will Young Urban Zen

Rev. Kristin Diggs discusses how in the Soto Zen tradition we emphasize careful attention to the details immediately at hand, and doing one thing at a time, doing one thing completely. What does it mean, and how is it relevant in our fast-paced digital age? It couldn't be more relevant.

Being Complete in Each Moment Young Urban Zen

Ryushin Paul Haller, long-time resident senior teacher and former Abbot, discusses the deepening of awareness and noticing how it affects how we respond to self and others; as we learn to see how we respond to our experiences, we see how we cause suffering for ourselves and others.

This talk was streamed live for this fall’s second EPP (Establishing the Path of Practice) course. Learn more about EPP here.

Establishing the Path of Practice Young Urban Zen

There’s an obvious and vital reason why we humans are so attached to our convictions, and the evidence for this attachment is written all over our history, from the earliest written records to this morning's edition of whatever news media we happen to be consuming now.

It is also is the subject of the very first chapter of the very first published koan collection. Referring to the exchange between Emperor Wu of Liang and the great master Bodhidharma in the aforementioned chapter, Anshi Zachary Smith develops a perspective, informed by zen teachings, on knowing and not-knowing.

Knowing and Not-Knowing Young Urban Zen

We wouldn't enter into a romantic or business relationship without shared agreements, some established boundaries, and emphasis on acceptable communication; however, it is quite common for us to have entrenched relationships with technology that have never been examined as to their overall net effect on us. In this talk, Michael examines technology using some of the principles we use in Zen practice to navigate relationships.

Relationships with Technology Young Urban Zen

Rev. Kristin Diggs speaks about meeting zen's "True Person"—an engagement that requires looking directly at what it is you are actually seeking.

True Person Young Urban Zen

Impermanence is one of the Three Marks of Existence, yet often the most difficult to accept in our daily lives. Whether it’s the changing of the seasons, a shift in career, or the realities of aging, sickness, and death, change is constant. In this talk we’ll practice how to meet impermanence not as an abstract concept, but as a lived experience, through the simple, fleeting beauty of bubbles.

Bubbles and Impermanence Young Urban Zen

Tonight’s talk was about a chapter from the recently published book of Suzuki Roshi’s teachings, "Becoming Yourself". The chapter is titled “Do Not Be Angry.”

Kōgetsu takes a look at how this fits with our practice of the Bodhisattva precepts and how we can live with more groundedness, connection, and clarity, even when we're angry.

Do Not Be Angry Young Urban Zen

In this episode, Michael discusses the precept, “I Vow to Refrain from Intoxicants”.  This vow is one that is often misunderstood in its scope and purpose. How is this core vow in Buddhism practiced in our everyday lives?

I Vow to Refrain from Intoxicants Young Urban Zen

Hiro offers a short talk on Letting Go of Resistance. Often what weighs on us most is not the situation itself, but our resistance to it. Resistance is not something we need to fight, but something we can meet with awareness and compassion. The aim is not to manipulate experience, but to access a dimension of being where resistance is already absent.

Letting Go of Resistance Young Urban Zen

The theme for this talk is Liberative Constraints. 

This is a topic Eli brought up at this year’s Young Urban Zen retreat at Tassajara. In a world shaped by constant choice and digital customization, Zen practice offers a radically different kind of freedom, the kind that arises from structure, rhythm, and restraint. We discuss the liberating power of intentional constraints, and how forms like zazen, silence, and schedule can support presence, belonging, and internal spaciousness. Eli reflects on what it means to live unedited.

Liberative Constraints Young Urban Zen

The theme for this talk is Taking the Monastery Home. 

First, what brings us to the temple and to practice? What kind of experiences can we have at the temple that can help us in our lives? If we get the opportunity to visit and stay at a monastery, what do we take with us? If not, can we build a sacred space within ourselves and in our homes?

Kōgetsu Mok discusses the various ancient forms practiced in the temples that have real practical meaning and can be a frame for our home practice.

Taking the Monastery Home Young Urban Zen

Michael McCord discusses ‘taking what is not given’, essentially, the precept around stealing. However, just like all the precepts, this one goes quite deep in regards to relationships and our expectations/ demands for how we want others to show up for us and the capacities we expect. And like all the precepts, the antidote is what we focus on most of the time.

For not stealing, the antidote is generosity and not acting from a stance of scarcity. Michael looks at behaviors that support this way of going through the world as well as habits, mentalities, and outlooks that can work against it.

Taking What Is Not Given Young Urban Zen