Weekly public talks recorded live at the Angel City Zen Center
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Little Awakenings (Stuckness) w/ Jitsujo Gauthier
34:10
34:10
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34:10
“Just living my life has a very big effect on the planet, there's a cost to me living my life. And, I still belong here. I have just as much right to belong here as the crickets, and greedy politicians, or righteous beautiful people.” - Jitsujo Gauthier Jitsujo helps us find a way through the stuckness of the internalized hierarchies that can both …
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1
Resting Bodhi Face (No Pressure) w/ Sara Campbell
31:23
31:23
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31:23
“We're not here to be martyrs, we’re not here to take care of others at our own expense. The more I respect myself, the more I can support and give to others.” - Sara Campbell Sara tries to find out what it takes to find contentment in any weather. Do we owe it to the world to be pleasant people, and if not can our bs be at least entertaining? Are …
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1
A Magnanimous Mess (Conflict & Zen) w/ Dave Cuomo
41:16
41:16
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41:16
“Shitsticks become dirty to clean us. If these are not Buddhas, what is?“ - Shundo Aoyama After a messy month of his own, Dave gives us a Zen (and personal) look at conflict in practice, how it happens, whether it’s a problem, and how to work with it in meditation and maybe even with other people. Can we meditate arguments away? Is there a healthy …
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“The dissidents, the ones who disagree, the most eccentric figures… in the world where Soto Zen teaching is alive, these figures become the leadership.” - Gyokei Yokoyama Gyokei has an unfortunate incident at his temple and takes the opportunity to contemplate his life choices, question entanglements, questions the tradition, and give us a little d…
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The Angry Cloud Diaries (Monastery Report pt 2) w/ Dave Cuomo
48:43
48:43
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48:43
“Roshi said, go outside and look at the moon and I promise you, you will be enlightened. but I looked tonight and there was no moon. What’s so wrong with us the way we are, Roshi? an angry cloud wants to know” - Angry Cloud Dave gives us a raw and honest report on his personal experience at the monastery over the Spring. Does Zen inherently breed c…
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The Corpse of Wisdom (Monastery Report pt 1) w/ Dave Cuomo
43:27
43:27
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43:27
“If we want to be true to the tradition of Zen, what were the ancients doing? They were throwing away tradition and recreating it for their time and place. And it worked gangbusters.” - Dave Cuomo Dave returns home from his final round of monastery training with a few thoughts on this whole Zen thing (and a two parter of a talk). This week! The his…
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"There's an very easy way to become a Buddha. Stop doing things wrong.” - Dogen Muhō, Former longtime abbot of Antaiji Monastery (home temple of Kodo Sawaki), treats us to a talk about best practices for farming students and the self, and why zazen alone might not be the answer to Zen. Do each of us really create the whole universe, and if so, how …
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A Shorter Conversation (Arguments & Conflict) w/ Emily Eslami
34:08
34:08
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34:08
“One of the hardest things about being human is that you have to be with other human beings.” - Emily Eslami In a particularly divided year, in a particularly divisive culture, Emily tackles the uncomfortableness of living with other human beings, and how to manage argument and conflict as a practice all their own. When should we speak up and when …
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Don’t Worry, It Gets Worse w/ Corey Warner
29:43
29:43
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29:43
“Illness vanishes. Stress vanishes. Depression vanishes. So where do they go? Don't worry. If you want, you can pull them back at any moment.“ - Gary Shinshin Wick Corey gets a bad diagnosis and gets inspired to give us some Zen teachings on sickness - how to deal with it, how to view it, and how to work with it as practice. Can we meditate the pai…
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“It freaks me out to even think about ordaining someone whose goodness hasn't been shattered.” - Gyokei Yokoyama First, we learn to be good. Then we have that goodness shattered. And then, when we stop trying to do anything, the true goodness can shine through. Dave walks us through Baizhang’s three teachings to try to find out if we are inherently…
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Gnarly Fields of Chill (Twisted Karma) w/ Jordan Mylet
40:31
40:31
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40:31
“Be nice to yourself, include yourself in that ancient twisted karma, allow for the inevitability of people just being people and how irritating that is, but then also how beautiful it is too.“ - Jordan Mylet Jordan takes us on a guided tour of our ancient twisted karma - what it is, where it comes from, and what the hell we’re supposed to do with …
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Barefoot & Drinking (Poetry Corner) w/ Henry Zander
25:18
25:18
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25:18
“Westerners like to conquer mountains. Easterners like to contemplate them. As for me, I like to taste them” - Santoka Taneda Henry brings us a highly entertaining poetry hour as we follow the the lives and words of two Buddhist poets; Miyazawa Kenji trying to help the masses one annoyed farmer at a time, and Santoka Kenji picking himself up from a…
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The Lighter Side of Darkness (Story Time) w/ Dave Cuomo
47:13
47:13
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47:13
“We are the lonely all together. All together, we’re all alone.” - John Prine Dave indulges us in a little story time while also indulging in some explananing of how koans work with a classic tale of dharma drama, jealous rivalries, and onomatopoetic poetry. What should we ask in practice discussion when we don’t know what to say? Can we find a saf…
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The Shadow of Happiness (The 5 Powers) w/ Sara Campbell
32:42
32:42
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32:42
“I've seen too much, man. I know what's out there. And it's not all bad. And it's also not all good.” - Sara Campbell Sara revels in the nightmare of a beautiful spring evening, the fragility of the daffodils, the darkness of the rain, and the five powers that can turn that nightmare into a perfectly present dream. How do we remember to notice the …
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“When the problem is a part of you, there is no problem, because you are the problem itself.” - Shunryu Suzuki Emily brings us a meditation on problems, problem solving, and all the machinations, rationalizations, and somersaults we do to try to prove that our problems are somewhere outside of ourselves, and then what happens when we start to point…
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1
Lost & Found (Meaning & Purpose) w/ Dave Cuomo
41:41
41:41
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41:41
“It’s not an attainment, it’s a lament.” - Dave Cuomo Dave tries to figure out his purpose and articulate what meaning in Zen is while trying to give a talk in a park with threatening geese and impending rain on a retreat not going entirely to plan. What are the stages of meaning making and how do we rate? Is Dave’s level as off the charts as he cl…
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An Awesome Group of Weirdos (The Fruits of Zazen) w/ Sara Campbell
40:18
40:18
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40:18
“The biggest change for me is to stop feeling like I should have it all figured out. And stop believing that anyone else does; and finding it a deep red flag if they claim to.” - Sara Campbell Sara marks her five year anniversary with ACZC by taking stock and admitting how maybe all this goalless practice has changed her for the better, while the s…
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“If somebody is an a-hole, they must be going through something tough. And they’re making it as bad or worse for themselves as they are for anyone they're hurting. So they deserve just as much care as anybody else suffering from the what they're dealing out. That's a hard truth I want to wrestle with. Because I believe it, but I'm not always instin…
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The Winning Ticket (Spiritual Bypassing) w/ Tanya Orlov
30:15
30:15
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30:15
“The winning ticket, the unfortunate truth, is that you have to take a good look at your bullsh*t before you can get to the good stuff.” - Tanya Orlov Tanya brings us some wise warnings about our purported wisdoms with an in depth look at spiritual bypassing; what it is, how to know when we’re doing it, and how it might be holding us back from the …
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Mutual Conspiracy (Sonic Meditations) w/ Robert Holliday
34:56
34:56
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34:56
“There's no reason sound can't be appreciated wherever you're at. It's always there. We think something has to be dramatic or highly structured, but there's always structures to find in our minds. We have that freedom in our own being to be able to see with what's there, with what's here, with what's happening.” - Robert Holliday Robert explores th…
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Your Kindness & Your Hatefulness (See y’all soon) w/ Dave Cuomo
40:28
40:28
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40:28
“Can we keep the goofy light heartedness of being rebel antagonists, along side the sincerity of really caring? Can we care and be funny at the same time? And you know what I've seen us do? Exactly that. And that delights me. Thank you everybody.” - Dave Cuomo Dave gives us his “See Y’all Soon” address before hungry ghosting us for the Spring with …
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Rote Reverence (Rituals) w/ Gyokei Yokoyama
37:57
37:57
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37:57
“First, there's ‘the thing that I want to do.’ They strip that away completely. Then when we’re hollow and empty they come back and ask, ‘So now, what do you really, really want?’” - Gyokei Yokoyama Gyokei pulls back the curtain on the rituals and forms of Zen, the true koan of the Soto School, to find out if there's any meaning in the method or ma…
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“In order to learn something new, first you have to be confused about it. If you aren't confused about it, you already know what it is and then you're not learning anything.” - Jitsujo Gauthier Great sangha friend Jitusjo brings us hard won personal tips and tricks for navigating the confusion and fear of the inner world, and the discomfort we migh…
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1
A Clever Game (What Am I Doing Here??) w/ Pedro Peres
35:34
35:34
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35:34
“Whatever goals you accomplish, you're still the same. There's still that same emptiness - there's still something missing. There's always going to be something missing. And that's okay.” - Pedro Peres Long time sangha friend Pedro Peres regales us with the story of what he’s doing and why he’s here - from early forays into beating koans at their o…
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F#@k Around and Find Out (Prajna (Wisdom)) w/ Dave Cuomo
45:52
45:52
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45:52
“Think for yourselves. Be unruly. Challenge what we tell you, Challenge what I think I know about how this place should work. That’s what all the old teachings tell us to do - even if it is kind of inconvenient to have a room full of people thinking for themselves when you’re trying to run a Zen Center.” - Dave Cuomo In the final installment of his…
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The Messy Middle (The Curse of Self Awareness) w/ Heather Ross
32:32
32:32
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32:32
“You can't sit motionless for 30 minutes without learning something, and when that happens day after day, we learn and we learn. Like it or not, we learn.” - Heather Ross Heather opens up the Pandora’s Box of zazen and takes a hard and healing look at the hidden aspects of ourselves that inevitably unhide themselves through regular sitting. How do …
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Dharmically Unqualified (Dharma Combat) w/ Gyokei Yokoyama
37:00
37:00
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37:00
“Liberation means being liberated from the inclination to ignore our flaws - to dismiss them, hide them, divert or disguise them.“ - Gyokei Yokoyama Gyokei unravels the deeper meaning of Dharma Combat on the eve of ACZC’s first ever attempt at such a ceremony. What qualifies someone to be a Zen teacher? Is a vow to liberate all beings actually good…
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Liberty’s Laments (Year of the Wood Dragon) w/ Dave Cuomo
36:45
36:45
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36:45
“There's a freedom, a pit, a dropping off into something you don't know and don't necessarily trust… It takes a strange kind of trust to let go of everything you’ve known as you.” - Dave Cuomo Dave celebrates the year of the wood dragon with evocative writings on dragons, frogs, and earthworms singing through the hollow trees of you and me. What ca…
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A Subtle Sober Magic (Zazen) w/ Gyokei Yokoyama
45:02
45:02
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45:02
“There's some discomfort there, and there's some comfort there. And when you let that go… it's quite a revolution.” - Gyokei Yokoyama Gyokei gives us fully fleshed out, bare bones official Soto Zen explanations and instructions for zazen - body, breath, and mind. How does it work? How much should it hurt? Are Westerners doing it right? Is Japan doi…
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1
A Seat at the Table (Meditation) w/ Dave Cuomo
54:34
54:34
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54:34
“Probably the best we can train for is to get a seat at the table where our decisions are made; which is not where we're usually hanging out. Usually we’re hanging out after the fact writing propaganda to justify what we just did.” - Dave Cuomo In the penultimate episode to our paramita series, Dave takes on the big one for Zen - meditation (aka Ze…
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The Problem With Happiness (What Am I Doing Here??) w/ Patrick Carroll
29:52
29:52
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29:52
“There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer” - Gertrude Stein Patrick brings us the timeless tale of a Catholic kid trading his faith for the freedom of not quite knowing what the h*ll he’s doing. Along the way we get 30 years worth of ironic wisdom bombs, gleaned from a myriad of li…
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Effortless Efforts (Energy & Depression) w/ Dave Cuomo
43:51
43:51
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43:51
“It includes everything, no matter what. Even being depressed is part of it. That's why I don’t backslide like I used to anymore; because even if I do, I now know for certain that has weight and that's important too.” - Dave Cuomo Dave takes an honest look at energy, the much lauded and lamented fourth paramita, along with all the reasons such thin…
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“It’s less, yes it must be this way, and more, let's go this way together.” - Sara Campbell Sara reflects on the holidays and turns the page on a new year with a simple but endless question, how do we live when we know we’re going to die? Also, what to do when you suddenly realize you’ve gone from wacky aunt to wacky family matriarch without even h…
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A Long Loving Look Into the Darkness w/ Dave Cuomo
47:55
47:55
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47:55
“All the philosophies I grew up on were always trying to take me toward the light - be a good person, know what's going on, know how to handle things… It was always about happiness and positivity. Thats what led me here. That was the problem.” - Dave Cuomo Dave rings in the New Year with an unflinching dive into darkness - what it means in Zen, why…
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“Maybe we don’t need take everything as gospel, or maybe taking things as gospel doesn’t always mean what we want it to mean” - Dave Cuomo Dave brings us a special podcast exclusive Holiday Story Time, with a dramatic reading of a somewhat bananas Buddhist folktale about a young king and his flying elephant trying to get good at giving. It’s a stor…
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Embracing the Suck (Space Flowers) w/ Jason Dodge
28:45
28:45
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28:45
“A person with cloudy eyes is a person of fundamental enlightenment, a person of subtle enlightenment.” - Dogen Jason dives into Dogen’s treatise on the flowery delights of delusion - ‘Space Flowers,’ while discussing the inspiration behind his recent benefit print for ACZC. Along the way we get a bonus peek behind the creative curtain and a conste…
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“If you’re not at least a little uncomfortable, you probably haven’t found whatever it is you really need to make peace with yet.” - Dave Cuomo Dave dives back into the paramitas to learn about patience and finds out that Buddha apparently agrees with Sartre, hell is other people. Along the way we get some personal stories about the time Dave funde…
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Free and Unavoidable Things w/ Gyokei Yokoyama (Great Compassionate Mind)
42:14
42:14
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42:14
“The spring has no particular shape, and yet spring manifests naturally. Or like the moon, it just emerges, versatile and free. When something happens, nobody can really say who did it. That's why we get frustrated. Nobody can know how it happened because everybody contributed.” - Gyokei Yokoyama In our final retreat wrap up, Gyokei gives us an on …
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Surprised and Delighted (Self Compassion & the 5 Skandas) w/ Sara Campbell
35:22
35:22
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35:22
"The more you start to learn about what you are, which is absolutely completely interdependent and just a fractal of what everyone else is, the more it starts to break down. I can't hate myself. It just doesn't make sense.” - Sara Campbell Following up on our retreat theme of compassion and the five skandas, Sara gives us a raw and revealing look a…
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A Carnage of Compassion pt 1 (Compassion Monsters & the 5 Skandas) w/ Dave Cuomo
45:59
45:59
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45:59
“We don't downplay it. We don't sit here and say, ‘what I'm feeling isn't real and doesn't matter.’ It's this weird technique where it's like, no, no, go all in on it and take it very, very seriously with an enormous grain of salt.” - Dave Cuomo Dave gives a pep talk for the deep practice of retreat (and in general) while introducing our theme for …
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Aimless Affirmations (Empowerment vs Emptiness) w/ Sara Campbell
34:30
34:30
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34:30
“If Zen's teaching me that I have inherent value just for existing, part of that whole deal is that I'm going to be doing mantras or some other wacky sh*t that I come across in six months. And I'm okay with that.” - Sara Campbell After finding benefits in affirmative mantra practices, Sara looks back on Zen emptiness teachings to find out if there …
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Where’d the Glow Go? (Morality) w/ Dave Cuomo
45:20
45:20
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45:20
“You see the problems with the system, problems with teachers, and problems with yourself and realize, none of us can quite live up to what we're teaching here. But if I want do something actually good in the world, I can't think of anything more beneficial than providing a quiet empty room where everyone can do whatever they need to do to find som…
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Fierce Compassion (The Magic Hour) w/ Gyokei Yokoyama
47:27
47:27
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47:27
“Zen isn't there to sugarcoat things and cuddle you. We're not talking about being mean, we're talking about, how do we slap someone's face in the most compassionate way? (…metaphorically of course)” - Gyokei Yokoyama Gyokei talks us through the spirit (and specifics) of… ‘Dhaaarmaaa Commbaaat!’ from the lion’s roar, to the three foot long venomous…
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The Great G(r)ift (Generosity) w/ Dave Cuomo
46:01
46:01
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46:01
“The benefit of you existing is you get to figure out what that means for yourself. And then you can come back and teach the rest of us about that. That is a generosity.” - Dave Cuomo Dave gifts us with a deep dive into generosity in the first on a new series on the paramitas, aka the six perfections, aka the six things that all good Buddhas have g…
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Clarity, Purpose, and Joy w/ Curtis Fabens
20:36
20:36
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20:36
“Joy is not a failing. It’s not irresponsible. It’s not deluded. True joy is the birthright of every being. It's a normal thing.” - Curtis Fabens Founding ACZC resident Curtis gives us an impassioned exhortation to the recipe for a life well lived - clarity, purpose, & joy. Is clarity really the path of least resistance and if so, why is it so ofte…
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Burn it Down (Alignment & Blockages) w/ Gyokei Yokoyama
43:15
43:15
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43:15
“You burn the whole forest once. And what comes back is the same forest - the same aspiration, the same desires, the same dreams… But there's this indescribable difference. And that's what makes all the difference.” - Gyokei Yokoyama Gyokei discusses alignment, blockages, and the prickliness that comes from trying to put our own ideals on a world t…
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Ruinous Revelations (Dongshan’s “It’s Only This”) w/ Dave Cuomo
44:20
44:20
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44:20
“We don't need you to regurgitate our answers. We need you to go figure out who the hell you are. That's your contribution.” - Dave Cuomo Dave shares a favorite legend about a cocky young monk crossing a river and a moment of self confidence so powerful we’re still talking about it a thousand years later. In a practice that glorifies not knowing, h…
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Baseline (Finding Balance) w/ Jitsujo Gauthier
42:55
42:55
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42:55
“She asked, ‘How are you?’ And I said, ‘…good.’ But it was like nothing, like plain rice, like oatmeal without sugar and you forgot to even put the dash of salt - like original flavor.” - Jitsujo Gauthier Jitsujo, University of the West Buddhist Chaplaincy department Chair, resident priest and preceptor at Zen Center of Los Angeles, and long time f…
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Nobody’s Fool (The Five Skandhas) w/ Dave Cuomo
43:48
43:48
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“I never feel freer then when I realize I'm the schmuck I've been trying not to be this whole time. If I'm the asshole, I can't judge anybody else. And then I'm free of all of us.” - Dave Cuomo Dave returns with another practical probe into Buddhist basics - this week, the Five Skandhas, aka Buddha’s classic formulation of what makes us us and real…
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Consistent Inconsistency (What Am I Doing Here??) w/ Ish Lipman
25:39
25:39
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25:39
“Zazen is always kind of great, even when it's awful. When I don't understand what I'm doing, I can always sit Zazen.” - Ish Lipman Long time sangha friend Ish brings us the story of what he’s doing and why he’s here while we just maybe learn something about those things for ourselves. From atheist upbringings as a skater kid in the city to becomin…
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