by Domyo | Nov 29, 2024 | Buddhist Practice, Ten Fields of Zen Practice
The seventh Field of Zen Practice is Opening Your Heart. Working explicitly to open your heart not only benefits other living beings, it puts you in accord with the Dharma and supports all other aspects of your practice. You work on radical self-acceptance to make Awakening and compassion possible. You work on real and personal relationships with other beings – overcoming your social fears, becoming more willing to be seen and known, learning to be authentic, and recognizing the Buddha-Nature manifested in others. Ultimately, self and other are not separate; in practice, you seek to manifest and realize this simultaneously.
by Domyo | Nov 24, 2024 | Buddhism Today, Buddhist Teachings
In a time of political divisiveness, many of us look to the three treasures of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha for solace, strength, and guidance. I offer a few Dharma teachings I have found useful for practicing in tumultuous times.
by Domyo | Nov 16, 2024 | Buddhist Practice, Ten Fields of Zen Practice
This episode is the second part of the sixth chapter of my book-in-progress, The Ten Fields of Zen: A Primer for Practitioners. In the last episode, I offered seven points about the role of Dukkha in our life and practice and discussed the first five points. In this episode I’ll finish the discussion with points six and seven.
by Domyo | Nov 1, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Práctica Budista, Diez campos de la Práctica Zen ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 285 El sexto Campo de la Práctica Zen es poner fin a Dukkha (esto es parte de mi libro, Los Diez...
by Domyo | Oct 31, 2024 | Buddhist Practice, Ten Fields of Zen Practice
The sixth Field of Zen Practice is ending Dukkha. While physical and emotional pain, discomfort, and longing are an inevitable part of human life, Dukkha is existential angst we add to such experiences, ranging from subtle uneasiness to acute anguish. It drives our unhealthy or harmful behaviors, so we seek to end Dukkha for the sake of self and others. Buddhism offers a holistic approach to doing this, including maximizing our overall spiritual health and working with our karma. However, Buddhism’s radical teaching is that Dukkha is a symptom of underlying spiritual illness caused by false views – so, through practice, our spiritual illness can be cured, and Dukkha ended.
by Domyo | Oct 25, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Textos Budistas, Enseñanzas Zen ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 284 Es un desafío hacer que nuestra práctica del Dharma sea continua, manteniendo la conciencia y la conducta...
by Domyo | Oct 24, 2024 | Buddhist Texts, Zen Teachings
It’s challenging to make our Dharma practice continuous – maintaining awareness and appropriate conduct each moment of our lives. In his essay Gyoji, or “Continuous Practice,” Zen Master Dogen doesn’t offer practical tips for mindfulness and pure conduct in everyday life, but instead challenges our limited ideas about what practice is. In this episode (part 2), I continue discussing four points I think Dogen makes about Gyoji.
by Domyo | Oct 3, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Textos Budistas, Enseñanzas Zen ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 283 Nuestro objetivo en la práctica, es vivir de acuerdo con la verdad o el Dharma, no sólo mientras estamos sentados...
by Domyo | Oct 2, 2024 | Buddhist Texts, Zen Teachings
Our goal in practice is to live in accord with the truth, or the Dharma – not only while sitting in meditation or studying Buddhism, but every moment of our lives. In other words, we strive to make our practice continuous. It can be extremely challenging to maintain mindfulness and good behavior all the time. How can we make our practice more continuous? Not surprisingly, in his essay “Gyoji,” or Continuous Practice, Dogen does not give us practical tips but instead challenges our limited ideas about what practice is.
by Domyo | Sep 22, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Práctica Budista ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 282 Esta es la segunda parte de mi charla “Tomando Atajos Morales: ¿Es el Budismo Compatible Con la Vida del Siglo XXI?”....
by Domyo | Sep 21, 2024 | Buddhist Practice
This is part two of my discussion “Cutting Moral Corners: Is Buddhism Compatible with 21st-Century Life?” In Part 1 I talked about the moral stress that arises from living a modern life, where almost every decision we make becomes a moral choice. I discussed how home leaving – or monasticism – was early Buddhism’s prescription for avoiding moral stress, and then how the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal become a model for lay practice. In this episode I address the matter of moral stress and how we might practice in the midst of it in order to free ourselves from dukkha, or suffering.
by Domyo | Sep 12, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Práctica Budista ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 281 Mientras sigamos viviendo en el siglo XXI, al menos en cualquier sociedad industrializada, formaremos parte de una red infinitamente...
by Domyo | Sep 11, 2024 | Buddhist Practice
As long as we remain engaged in 21st-century life, at least in any industrialized society, we are part of an infinitely complex web of karma that covers our planet. Even the details of our lives become moral choices, and it becomes increasingly difficult to live in a way that does no harm or that fulfills the ideal of the selfless Buddhist contemplative. Because of our interconnectedness with all things, we feel pain and moral stress when we act out of accord with our ideals. What does lay Buddhist practice look like in the midst of all of this?
by Domyo | Aug 27, 2024 | Buddhist Practice
In a lineage tradition like Zen, your understanding, manifestation, and expression of the Dharma is deeply influenced by your teachers, and by their teachers. Whether you are a member of my Zen Center, Bright Way Zen, or a fan of this podcast, you may appreciate stories of my teachers Kyogen and Gyokuko Carlson in this live talk.* (*Most of my episodes are produced specifically for podcast listeners, but I am on sabbatical in August.)
by Domyo | Aug 21, 2024 | Buddhism Today
I am on sabbatical for the month of August, so this episode is a live talk* I gave at Bright Way Zen, “Talking about Politics as a Buddhist.” This is, of course, a very timely topic with a major election coming up in the U.S. in just over two months. How can we engage in conversations about what we should do as a group, institution, organization, community, state, nation, or species, while remaining centered in our practice and true to our aspirations as Buddhists? (*Most of my episodes are produced specifically for podcast listeners.)
by Domyo | Aug 8, 2024 | Buddhist Practice
This August sabbatical offering is an informal, live talk* I gave in response to a question someone: Is everything a Zen teacher does a “teaching”? How do you know? This led to discussion of other topics as well, related to having a formal relationship with a Zen teacher – What does it mean? What does it look like? Why would someone want this? (*Most of my episodes are produced specifically for podcast listeners.)
by Domyo | Aug 1, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Práctica Budista ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 277 En este episodio y el anterior hago algo radical y comparto mi experiencia de una sesshin al que asistí recientemente,...
by Domyo | Jul 31, 2024 | Buddhist Practice
In this episode and the previous one, I do something radical and share my experience of a sesshin I recently attended, describing it day by day. There are many reasons not to do this, and I went into those reasons in the last episode (part one), where I also described my first two full days of retreat. In this episode I describe days 3-5 and make some closing remarks.
by Domyo | Jul 28, 2024 | Spanish Translations
Category: Práctica Budista ~ Translator: Claudio Sabogal Click here for audio + English version of Episode 276 En este episodio voy a hacer algo radical y compartiré con vosotros mi experiencia de la sesshin a la que asistí la semana...
by Domyo | Jul 27, 2024 | Buddhist Practice
In this episode I’m going to do something radical and share with you my experience of the sesshin I attended last week, describing it day by day. There are many reasons not to do this, which I will go into. I certainly don’t intend to do it again. Still, despite my misgivings I thought it might be helpful for you to get an insight into what a sesshin is like for another person.
