Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on November 9, 2024. We’re going to heal through a community that is grounded in our non-separateness, in our tender vulnerable, non separateness. A community that values human life, period. A community that can grieve. A community that accepts that sometimes we’re brokenhearted. A community that se…

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on November 2, 2024. In our tradition, we lift up an understanding of impermanence and a close relationship with that, so that we also have a sense that we will be ancestors, that already there are descendants, seeds of them in our actions, in our decisions, in our efforts, and as a way to care for …

Recorded at Millerton Zendo in Millerton NY on September 22, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC at brooklynzen.org under ‘Giving.’ Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Millerton Zendo in Millerton NY on September 8, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC at brooklynzen.org under ‘Giving.’ Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on October 26, 2024. "When buddhist modes of being becomes fused into the foundation, home becomes a refuge for healing." The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC at brooklynzen.org under ‘Giving.’ Thank you for your generosity!…

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on October 19, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. Visit brooklynzen.org for more information. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on October 12, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. Visit brooklynzen.org for more information. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on October 5, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC at brooklynzen.org under ‘Giving.’ Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on July 27th, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC at brooklynzen.org under 'Giving.' Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on June 15th, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY on July 6th, 2024. The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. Visit brooklynzen.org for more information. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded as part of BZC’s Fall Practice Period at Boundless Mind Temple The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded as part of BZC's Fall Practice Period at Boundless Mind Temple The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Recorded as part of BZC's Fall Practice Period at Boundless Mind Temple The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

"What is saying a word, when our foundation is sitting? What do we say - can you hear it?" The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

“The faith comes afterwards. It’s not like we have to muster a full body of faith until we go into practice. The practice and the faith happen together.” The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!…

"Practice, what's that? This is not practice, this is their lives, this is not just their way of living, this is the life that wells up within, the life that's forming and moving in the world. Your practice is your life. This is you living." This talk was offered as part of SZBA's Celebrating the Voices of Women in Buddhism series.…

The Teaching of Thus: the Avatamsaka Sutra as a Root of Zen PracticeOleh Brooklyn Zen Center

The Teaching of Thus: the Avatamsaka Sutra as a Root of Zen PracticeOleh Brooklyn Zen Center

The Teaching of Thus: the Avatamsaka Sutra as a Root of Zen Practice.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

The Teaching of Thus: the Avatamsaka Sutra as a Root of Zen PracticeOleh Brooklyn Zen Center

The Teaching of Thus: the Avatamsaka Sutra as a Root of Zen PracticeOleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

"How is what it means to be human transformed, or expanded, by allowing or imagining another perspective?" The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

"Let the rage and the hurt and the righteous anger be one of the things that we affirm in this wide, life affirming embrace." The BZC Podcast is offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. You can donate to BZC here. Thank you for your generosity!Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

"Sometimes it can look like the project is not to feel and not to listen to pain. But can we start, instead, to regard our pain as a kind of superpower?"Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Our being in the world - and our karmic orientations in everything that is happening - is what makes the world around us what it is.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Reflections on Resistance and Pipeline 3: a share by Yoko Ohashi and Koan Anne BrinkOleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Please take care, and practice this song, this Samadhi song, for the welfare of this world. And listen to the teachings that you working on this Samadhi yourself is transforming beings. We are not doing this just to transform our self, were doing it to transform all beings. But working on our self in this way, transforms beings.…

The focus of the Bodhisattva Samadhi is the Bodhisattva wish, the Bodhisattva aspiration: to make Buddhas for the welfare of the world. And then there is that aspiration, you can also, in a sense, vow and commit to that aspiration. So the aspiration, and the commitment of the aspiration, is at the center of the Bodhisattva Samadhi.…

The beings who have this wish and commitment - to realize perfect understanding for the welfare of all beings - when those beings enter into Samadhi, their vow goes with them. So in that sense, the Bodhisattva Samadhi (or what I would call zazen) - I consider the zazen that I am recommending and encouraging is Bodhisattva Samadhi. And that Bodhisat…

The Samadhi is the teaching of Suchness. The Samadhi is intimate communion. The Samadhi is Buddhas and Ancestors. Buddhas and ancestors are the Samadhi. Buddhas and Ancestors are that teaching. Buddhas and Ancestors are intimate communion. Bodhisattvas want to live in that intimate communion, they want to be Buddhas and Ancestors, they want to be t…

Everything you do is an opportunity. Everything you say, every gesture you make, every thought that arises in your mind. All of those are opportunities - each one is an opportunity to take care of this Samadhi that has been given to you.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

In the sensation of the low-grade heartbreak there is gratitude, appreciation, grief and sadness. How can I cultivate the space in my life for a low-grade heartache, that I think is necessary to engage in Bodhisattvic activity? It’s an uplifting grief that sustains us and that can keep us in the game.…

The Bodhisattva vow of living for the liberation of all beings, even before my own, to raise up in the heart the liberation of all beings -- this is the most powerful interrupter and lover of karma. This vow turns everything toward karma.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

Sometimes you sit down - or I sit down - because there is fear. But that is still a fearless choice to face your fear, to understand your fear. Bodhisattva can have fear, but does not live from fear. Fear is not the source of Bodhisattva activity.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

We deeply desire to be in accord with the natural functioning of life, with dependent co-arising, with the way things interact and support each other, without these false senses of separation. That is what our heart and our lives desire in the deepest sense.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

This is our practice, the practice of love, the practice of intimacy. That's why we offer a relationship with a teacher, and we offer sangha, so we can work this way with each other.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

We are training ourselves - in our bodies, in our minds, through the practice, through the teachings - to make it more likely that in a moment of suffering, in a moment of threat, that we will be able to have an intention to, and maybe some sort of capacity to respond to courageous connection, instead of tightening into separation and division.…

For me the most powerful things the vows do are because of their impossible nature -- they are humbling. They have a kind of leveling effect. In the face of this impossible vow, I'm one person in a community. So there is an aspect of confession in that vow, of acknowledging our humanness and our limited view. So there is a humbling and tenderizing …

We can cultivate this sense of great expansive unconditioned love. That allows us to meet the difficulty in life without turning away and without getting caught.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

We really need human beings that are devoted to the difficult spiritual path required to release the full light of love into the world.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

How do we work through our pain, through our numbness? How do we regain a sense of aliveness?Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

I would suggest a mind that is awake, and that settles, and that finds love, joy, and ease in precariousness, so that we can be with each other, and love each other, and support each other. In very real, concrete meaningful ways.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

I think that this gender work is very important for us, it's a real big doorway, and very deep.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

In whatever way Buddhas are directing their attention, their abiding and dwelling happens there.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center

[We can think of] these arising traumas, these beings as I like to think of them, as survival strategies of our ancestors. So fear, anxiety, anger, rage, or joy - these are blood memories. And we all have them, we all carry them. And if we can open them up, see and work with them, we can transform them; we can see what the wisdom is there for us.…

When we talk about karma, it's a way of talking about causality or cause and effects, specifically in human life, in human moral life. It's the effect we cause on the world through our intentions - through our volition, through our will. And the Buddha was clear that when we are looking at the effects we are having, we have to pay attention not jus…

When we work on ourselves deeply enough, when we really are in touch with our own fundamental openness of heart, which really is there, the love that we have for ourselves and other people comes from a place of unconditioned openness. That is what you feel, tremendous gratitude - for every single person.And when you meet them, you are meeting yours…

This darkness, this mystery of who we are, and how we are together, and how we are being influenced all the time, is to be honored and to be listened to, and is necessary for our wholeness.Oleh Brooklyn Zen Center