Buddhist practice can permeate every aspect of our lives. To help practitioners appreciate this outside the full-immersion experience of residential training, I’ve defined Nine Fields of Zen Practice: Zazen, Dharma Study, Cultivating Insight, Precepts, Opening the Heart, Connecting with the Ineffable, Nyoho, Karma Work, and Bodhisattva Activity. In this episode I cover Nyoho, Karma Work, and Bodhisattva Activity.

From the beginning, it’s been clear that the highest rewards of Buddhism are experienced through a fundamental and radical shift in the way you understand the world and your place in it. Throughout time, and among different forms of Buddhism, this shift in understanding has been called different things, including awakening, enlightenment, Right View or Right Understanding, realization, satori, or kensho (a Japanese term which means “seeing one’s true nature”). In this episode I explore “awakening” in Buddhism: What’s meant by the term, attitudes we take toward awakening, why it’s so elusive, and how we can make the process of seeking less painful.