While Zenki Roshi is teaching the Fall Practice Course 'Developing Embodiment' at the Boulder Zen Center, we are re-airing three dharma talks that address fundamental topics and practices related to embodiment.

The second one is "No Inside, No Outside" which was originally published on September 27, 2023. This talk explores how to make use of the turning phrase "No inside, no outside." A turning phrase is a verbal expression that can transform our sense of self and being in the world. The phrase is held in mind as an antidote to culturally or personally ingrained views. When we investigate common sense distinctions such as internal/external and self/other, we come face to face with our tendency to objectify what is perceived to be outside and the resulting sense of alienation. The talk provides embodied practices for entering a space of intimacy so that sight and sounds as well as thoughts and feelings can be perceived as appearing in the same undivided space.

Welcome to Zen Mind! 

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

See all events, programs, and how to become a member at www.boulderzen.org. Reach out and email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

While Zenki Roshi is teaching the Fall Practice Course 'Developing Embodiment' at the Boulder Zen Center, we are re-airing three dharma talks that address fundamental topics and practices related to embodiment.

The first one is "Pause for the Pause" which was originally published on June 27, 2024. This talk was given as part of a Weekend Sitting. It highlights the distinction between the contents of mind and the field of mind. Dogen encouraged his students "to be continuously intimate with the field of mind." The talk presents two attentional practices to discover and establish oneself in the field of mind: (1) "To pause for the particular," a version of mindfulness practice that emphasizes the creation of a dharmic pulse within one's perceptual process, and (2) "to pause for the pause," which invites the stillness of the field to come to the foreground. Perceiving sensorial contents within the context of the field trains the mind in non-attachment and non-identification. Based on these practices, the talk suggests to view Zen rituals as a succession of still points and action, ultimately fostering an embodied integration of stillness and activity.

Welcome to Zen Mind! 

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was given as part of a Weekend Sitting at the Boulder Zen Center. It examines the feeling of alienation that comes from the mental construction of a separate self with an internal and an external space. What is the cure for such alienation? Learning to locate ourselves in an experiential space, in which all the contents of our lives (the physical world as well as our feelings and thoughts) are allowed to happen just as they are happening. Despite the serious personal and societal problems we face in this complicated world, we can discover that the experience of being alive is magnificent and luminous. This is intimacy! – the feeling that all that appears right now is my life right now. This intimacy exists before thought and thus separation arises. Zazen is a way to make this intimate, luminous space before thought arises our true home.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

We have a NEW, self-paced course, "Undivided Activity", now available! In this course, Zenki Roshi offers a complete commentary and experiential translation in a series of talks on Dogen's essay 'Undivided Activity'. Learn more and purchase the course here: https://www.boulderzen.org/undivided-activity

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

It's worth building a regular and diligent practice of disentangling sensation from interpretation/thinking. This is true for the sense perceptions of the phenomenal world and for the proprioceptive intensities that arise within us as we live our life. When thinking is disentangled from sensation with some stability, the structures of the discursive and narrative self collapse. We can begin to discover the field of awareness as the ultimate fact of our aliveness and a source of intimacy and joy. Welcome to Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

In the first half, this talk continues the exploration of the "Modalities of Mind" from last week. The mind (our sentient presence) is like an orchestra with different instruments. We can learn to listen to and conduct these instruments in the service of our deepest intentions. In the second half, the talk presents examples and practices for distinguishing the modalities of “sensation” and “interpretation.” Making a commitment to our sensations (pleasant, unpleasant or neutral) decreases our investment in interpretations as real and increases our freedom for alternative interpretations. Welcome to a NEW SEASON of Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk describes five modalities of mind that we can learn to distinguish when we commit to a path of meditation and mindfulness: (1) discursive thinking (2) applied thinking (3) attentional consciousness (4) felt sense (5) awareness We encounter the modality of discursive thinking when we first sit down in meditation. We begin to see that it obscures, blocks, obstructs the other modalities. By learning to be less invested in discursiveness, over time, we can become more and more familiar with each of the other modalities and see their value, interrelatedness, and limitations. This increasing granularity allows us to employ our minds more and more skillfully on our path of transformation, liberation, wisdom, and compassion. Welcome to a NEW SEASON of Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

This talk is about how to put a regular zazen practice together in one's daily life. It starts out with a look at the two sicknesses of meditation: Treating meditation as a means to an end. Using meditation as a way to escape difficulty. The antidote to the two sicknesses is seeing zazen as the repeated gesture of "opening up around" our experience as it is from moment to moment. By committing to this gesture as the essential enactment of zazen, we can discover zazen as an expression of buddha mind. The talk concludes with some very basic and practical ideas for how to set up a daily meditation practice. Welcome to a NEW SEASON of Zen Mind! New talks will be published bi-weekly on Wednesdays throughout the summer. See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a review! Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on yogic embodiment.

Discipline is not a popular word. To most people, it feels like something imposed from the outside, an expectation others have of us or one we have internalized. This talk is about reframing the concept of "discipline" as the ability to hold an intention over time. Intention is most deeply rooted in satisfaction—not in willpower.

This talk looks at "nourishment" as the other side of suffering. When is an experience nourishing-independent of whether it is pleasant or unpleasant? The answer lies In the practice or completing that which appears: allowing our experience to be exactly what It Is at this time and also allowing it to become what it wants to become.

What is enlightenment? And what is the relationship to habits and karma? This talk examines what the words "enlightenment," "awakening," and "realization" point to. It presents a "practice of enlightenment" based on Dogen's instruction "to be steadily intimate with the field of mind." The practice of enlightenment is not a self-improvement or self-actualization project. However, improvement is a valid interest; so how do we approach it in the context of enlightenment?

Using the koan of "Baizhang's Fox" (Case 8 in the Book Serenity), this talk asks about the Middle Way of being simultaneously free from and entangled in the world of karmic patterns. We are free from karma by savoring nirvanic moments and establishing ourselves more and more in the field of mind that non-reactively allows everything to be the way it is. When we relax and stop seeing ourselves as a problematic person, we can engage with our habits in a practical way, engaging the 10,000 things from moment to moment and inviting their feedback about which of our habits need to change to better benefit all beings.

Transformation through Buddhist practice includes changing our habits/karma. Karma refers to the patterns in our life that emerge from repeated intentional action that, through the repetition, gets automated and subconsciously habituated. This talk examines the structure of habits and how they can be deconstructed. It suggests bringing the practice of Zazen into our daily lives by deliberately being present for the disturbing feelings we tend to "medicate" with our dysfunctional habits and, as a first step, allowing those feelings to be there without doing anything about them.

Transformation through Buddhist practice includes changing our habits/karma. Karma refers to the patterns in our life that emerge from repeated intentional action that, through the repetition, gets automated and subconsciously habituated. This talk examines the structure of habits and how they can be deconstructed. It suggests bringing the practice of Zazen into our daily lives by deliberately being present for the disturbing feelings we tend to "medicate" with our dysfunctional habits and, as a first step, allowing those feelings to be there without doing anything about them.

This talk was given at the Austin Zen Center. It addresses the twin Bodhisattva virtues of wisdom and compassion. These ideals can sound lofty, maybe even unattainable. However, if we understand them as momentary expressions of the practice of not-knowing, they are near at hand. Not-knowing isn't willful ignorance or the random rejection of knowledge; it is a practice of radical openness in the present moment. Openness means to let go of conceptual frames, comparisons, and habituated stories and enter into what Buddhists call suchness. Such openness allows for an intimate resonance of the body-mind with the complexity and uniqueness of the situation at hand. As we learn to make openness and resonance our own continuous practice, we naturally find ourselves walking the Bodhisattva path of wisdom and compassion one step at a time.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

We are excited to announce that a NEW, self-paced course, "Undivided Activity", is now available! In this course, Zenki Roshi offers a complete commentary and experiential translation in a series of talks on Dogen's essay 'Undivided Activity'. Learn more and purchase the course here: https://www.boulderzen.org/undivided-activity

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk takes up a question many people ask these days in the face of political polarization and climate change denial. How can we have compassion with those we disagree with? Usually, we try to establish community on the conceptual level—through an agreement about ideas, opinions, and values. A more fundamental connectedness occurs through "resonance," the bodymind's capacity to "feel with" everything that happens around it. This is the root of com-passion. A deliberate practice of resonance allows us to stay open-hearted in the midst of disagreement.

How can we use the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts to study our own experience and transform it? Buddhism tells us that the root of unwholesomeness (harm, evil) in our own experience is the Three Poisons: greed, hate, and delusion—or more subtly, the moment-to-moment mind-gestures of grasping, resisting, and the delusive replacing of direct experience with conceptual knowledge. Practicing the precepts means to refrain from re-enacting these gestures and instead to commit to the cultivation of a non-reactive mind that allows the flux of pleasant and unpleasant sensations to be the truth of our human experience.

This talk is about exploring the basic practice instruction of shifting from the focus of attention to the field of mind and back and forth. The practice, applied in all six sense fields, reveals a basic structure of the mind with far-reaching transformative potential.

The fundamental instruction of our school is "Just Sitting." This "just"—not limited to the sitting posture—means to allow your experiencing to be exactly what it is at this time. Now. Such non-interference invites the mind to shift into awareness, which is without qualities and always already at ease with experience as it is. The spiritual virtues of kindness, wisdom, and resiliency emerge in our feelings when the shift into awareness stops the habits of rejection, scripted knowing, and mental fragility.

How can you be you yourself? "Being you yourself" implies there are ways you can lose yourself. The antidote to losing yourself is mindfulness practice, which reveals a basic structure of immediacy: the contents of mind and the field of mind. Rooted in the mindful presence of your actual experience right now, you can then take the backward step into the field of mind and explore what is more real: the contents which appear as ordinary reality or the mind that is aware of them? And what does that mean for who you truly are?

This talk was given as part of the "Inaugural Weekend Sitting" that marked the transition of the Boulder Zen Center to an urban residential practice center. It uses the feeling of "homelessness" and "displacement" and the truth of impermanence as a starting point for exploring how we can approach feeling at home in the world on a moment to moment basis. The practice suggestion is to realize how "that which is aware" is what we can truly rely on in the midst of change.

This talk starts out discussing "identification" and "personal identity" as a kind of defense against the groundless, momentary, and insubstantial nature of our existence. It then presents a set of practices – momentariness, bodyfulness, and kindness – that can be used not only on the cushion when practicing sitting meditation but also in daily life.

The pandemic brings out emotions in us: anxiety, sadness, anger, impatience, worry, etc. This talk discusses the "anatomy of emotions" by distinguishing the sensation level from the interpretation level of emotion. This distinction is in relationship to the more general practice concept of the primary and secondary activity of mind. Realizing emotional freedom requires the skill to attend to the primary sensation level without any secondary interpretation whatsoever. Based on that skill, we can begin to develop the freedom to respond (rather than react), that is, to align our interpretations and actions with our highest intentions.

Suffering = Pain x Resistance. When pleasure and grasping are included, the formula can be rendered as: Suffering = Experiential Intensity x Reactivity. This opens up two pathways to end suffering: remove pain (experiential intensity) or eliminate reactivity. Buddhism is about practicing with reactivity, because that’s the factor we can bring under our control. There is freedom from suffering (based on freedom from reactivity), but there is also freedom to reduce pain when that’s possible. This leads to a question about “Engaged Buddhism” or as this talk explores: the “Buddhism of Engagement.” Engagement, based on freedom, comes from what we choose to do, not from what we feel we have to do.

This talk is about how we use narratives as support for personal and collective identity and how the current societal conditions challenge our stories and can leave us with a feeling of groundlessness. Buddhist transformation is about the embrace of groundlessness and about making use of our situation—whatever it is—in accord with our highest intentions. Vow is intention plus commitment. What would it be like to meet goundlessness by aligning ourselves with the four central vows of Buddhism: transformation, liberation, wisdom, and compassionate action?

For many practitioners zazen practice is about quieting the mind. Thoughts and feelings are supposed to stop or at least slow down to achieve peace of mind. When this doesn't work, a sense of frustration or even failure can arise. Two misunderstandings need to be corrected here: (1) a quiet mind isn't a mind without contents; it is a mind that is not disturbed by the coming and going of contents, and (2) the right kind of effort is not to shift attention from one focus (thinking) to another focus (say breathing) but to release focus altogether and let attention widen out into an undivided presence that is aware of everything all at once and nothing in particular. Suzuki Roshi refers to this field awareness as the "emptiness of the mind” and the "readiness of the mind that is wisdom." (The talk uses three quotations from Suzuki Roshi's book 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' that can be found in the show notes below.)

Show Notes:

Three quotations used in the talk from from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s book 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice' (Shambhala Publications).

"To stop your mind does not mean to stop the activities of mind. It means your mind pervades your whole body. Your mind follows your breathing. With your full mind you form the mudra in your hands. With your whole mind you sit with painful legs without being disturbed by them. This is to sit without any gaining idea.” (p. 40)

"Concentration is not to try hard to watch something. In zazen if you try to look at one spot you will be tired in about five minutes. This is not concentration. Concentration means freedom. So your effort should be directed at nothing. You should be concentrated on nothing. In zazen practice we say your mind should be concentrated on your breathing, but the way to keep your mind on your breathing is to forget all about yourself and just to sit and feel your breathing. If you are concentrated on your breathing you will forget yourself, and if you forget yourself you will be concentrated on your breathing. I do not know which is first. So actually there is no need to try too hard to be concentrated on your breathing. Just do as much as you can. If you continue this practice, eventually you will experience the true existence which comes from emptiness.” (p. 111)

"Your thinking should not be one-sided. We just think with our whole mind, and see things as they are without any effort. Just to see, and to be ready to see things with our whole mind, is zazen practice. If we are prepared for thinking, there is no need to make an effort to think. This is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is, at the same time, wisdom. By wisdom we do not mean some particular faculty or philosophy. It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom. So wisdom could be various philosophies and teachings, and various kinds of research and studies. But we should not become attached to some particular wisdom, such as that which was taught by Buddha. Wisdom is not something to learn. Wisdom is something which will come out of your mindfulness. So the point is to be ready for observing things, and to be ready for thinking. This is called emptiness of your mind. Emptiness is nothing but the practice of zazen.” (p. 113-114)

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org. 

This talk is about the difference between healthy and unhealthy transcendence. Meditation practice and the concept of detachment can create the fantasy that we might be able to transcend our humanness by excluding our emotionality and vulnerability from our beingness. Healthy transcendence in contrast allows us to be dis-identified from our experience while staying connected with it. The talk elucidates this difference through the experiential distinction between the field of mind and the contents of mind.

This talk, originally given to a Zoom audience of white people, acknowledges the intensity of this moment in American history: a convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic collapse with 40 million unemployed, and now global protests against racism in America. Zenki Christian Dillo, a white immigrant born in Germany, reflects on his personal experience with the collective trauma of the Holocaust. He offers the view that, as part of a path of liberation, the crime of slavery and continuing racism need to be recognized as a collective trauma, even by those who do not experience it themselves as victims, because it diminishes the full aliveness of everyone in American society. We are resonant bodies. Resonance, experienced on the sensation level of our experience, is the root of compassion. Buddhist practice is to learn to feel this fundamental resonance with a stable and fearless mind and to let it move us to take appropriate action.

This talk gives Zazen instruction for disentangling attention from thinking. The koan story of Baizhang’s Wild Ducks (Case #40 of the Blue Cliff Records) is brought up to clarify the attentional body that needs to be practiced to stabilize a mind that is able to notice without thinking about. It is through this attentional body that the teachings of “no coming, no going” and “no birth, no death” become experientially accessible.

This talk continues the exploration of impermanence, momentariness, and insubstantiality—all aspects of what Buddhism refers to as emptiness—and adds the aspect of interdependence. It highlights the context of Zazen practice, emphasizing that the exploration needs to be experiential not just intellectual. The koan phrase “Heaven, earth, and I have the same root; the 10,000 things and I share the same body” is introduced as a door to the practice of interdependence.

This talk articulates impermanence as momentariness and insubstantiality, continuing the discussion of the practice of impermanence from last week. To investigate and enact our experience as both momentary and insubstantial transforms our sense of self and provides new ways of working with our habits.

Related to questions about death and dying that are highlighted by the pandemic, this talk discusses three arenas, in which to practice impermanence: self, phenomena, and attention. What happens when we say to ourselves, “I will die. I am willing to die. I am ready to die.” Beyond the mortality of our own bodymind, Zen emphasizes momentariness. This talk explores the practice of the Four Marks of all phenomena (birth, duration, dissolution, disappearance) and creatively applies it to the moment-to-moment observation of the movement of attention. In this moment-to-moment unfolding of experience, where is the birthplace and end of suffering?

This talk distinguishes two modalities of mind: consciousness and awareness. The job of consciousness is to make the world cognizable, sequential, predictable, and meaningful. Awareness establishes perceptual immediacy before it gets overlaid with concepts, time structures, expectations, and stories. Always standing on the two feet of both consciousness and awareness, what happens when we shift our weight from one foot to the other? How does that affect our access to freedom, wisdom, and compassionate action and our ability to deal with crisis such as the current pandemic?

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk explores the experiential territory of the famous slogan from the Heart Sutra: "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." At first, the talk differentiates between a realizational and a developmental approach in practice: Are we allowing our experience to be exactly as it is [realizational] or are we trying to alter and improve our experience [developmental]? The two approaches exist in an unresolvable tension but complement and complete each other like a dancing couple—just like emptiness and form. Emptiness can be understood and explored as openness, and conversely, form functions as layers of closure. The talk explores examples for how we can maintain openness (spaciousness) in the midst of closure, and how, on the other hand, we must always express and articulate that openness in concrete forms (closures).

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

We are excited to announce that a NEW, self-paced course, "Undivided Activity", is now available! In this course, Zenki Roshi offers a complete commentary and experiential translation in a series of talks on Dogen's essay 'Undivided Activity'. Learn more and purchase the course here: https://www.boulderzen.org/undivided-activity

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was given as a closing talk for the 2025 Boulder Zen Center - Everyday Bodhisattva Practice Period. It reviews the basic ingredients of practice and summarizes them as (1) daily zazen, (2) working with views, and (3) cultivating relationships. In traditional Buddhist terms, this can be understood as a commitment to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The talk then explores constancy in practice as the most important attitude for making our practice fruitful. Instead of viewing our practice as a struggle to permanently replace the state of suffering (samsara) with a state of liberation (nirvana), it suggests using each moment to establish Big Mind (a widened sense of here-now-ness and self) and thus releasing grasping, resisting, and fixed views—the three tendencies in the human mind that turn experience into dissatisfaction and suffering.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Did you enjoy the topic of Dogen's essay, Undivided Activity, and want to delve deeper? Zenki Roshi offers a complete commentary and experiential translation in a series of talks on this specific essay. You can now access the full series of talks! All of the material is now part of a self-paced course. Learn more and purchase the course here: https://www.boulderzen.org/all-courses

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber for only $9/month. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was recorded by Zenki Dillo Roshi in 2019, prior to the publication of our podcast, but we wanted to share these dharma teachings with you despite the lack of a formal podcast description.

This talk was given as part of a sesshin (7-day meditation intensive) at Boulder Zen Center. It begins by examining the limited view we have in our Western culture of the body as a material object and introduces an alternative view of the body as flow—material as well as energetic flow. The Western word 'energy' is often used to translate the Eastern concept of 'qi,' but this can lead to misunderstandings if energy is understood as the name for a 'quantifiable physical property' rather than a pointer to experiencing a 'dynamic relational vitality' through our very own body. We can discover and cultivate our energy (qi) through various practices of interrelating attention, breath, movement, and space. After exploring examples of such practices, the talk suggests how awareness of our energy body can be used in Zen practice to support and refine the zazen posture, and how it can lead to an experiential understanding of emptiness and interdependence.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

If you would like to listen to all 7 of the Dharma talks given during this intensive and from other intensives, please become a premium podcast subscriber! Doing so will give you access to talks given during all of our intensives plus the recorded Q&A sessions with Zenki Roshi that follow each of the regular public Dharma talks. Memberships begin at only $9/mo! Your support goes a long way towards helping  the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings. 

Become a BZC member here (all levels include premium podcast subscription)!

Subscribe to Zen Mind premium podcast for all the talks from this intensive.

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This is a special conversational episode. Zenki Roshi is interviewed by Nicky Antonellis, a co-founder of the nonprofit organization, Dharma Gates, which aims to connect young adults to deep meditation practices. One of their many offerings is a podcast which features different perspectives on the Buddhist path. You can find out more on the Dharma Gates website.

In today’s conversation, Nicky asks Zenki Roshi about the background and motivation that eventually led to him to Soto Zen practice. They explore the roles of embodiment and concepts in meditation, as well as stages in practice and the curriculum that arises from everyday life. Zenki Roshi offers shifts in views he experienced as a result of practice, for example how he made sense of the initially opaque instruction “to just sit.”

The full conversation is 2 hours, and it is broken up into two episodes. In part two, Nicky asks Zenki Roshi about how to relate as a Buddhist practitioner to issues we face in today’s world, such as climate change, the resurgence of war, and AI—and the anxiety that accompanies these issues.

If you find the conversation meaningful, we hope you’ll tune in to hear the rest. Part 2 of this conversation is available now on the Zen Mind Premium Podcast! 

Check out the Dharma Gates podcast here!

Welcome to Zen Mind!

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.