Nina Snow - Happy

"As long as we view happiness within the duality of fortune and misfortune, and in terms of our ever changing emotions, we’ll be divided within ourselves." - Kosho Uchiyama

Nina tackles the ever tricky subject of happiness with a reading from “The Zen Teachings of Homeless Kodo” - “What is Happiness?” Is happiness the point? Can we transcend the duality of emotion? And what would we call THAT emotional state if not happiness??

Orlando K. - Rogue Idealism

“Its the empty space of meditation that’s beneficial - the silence, the stillness… It’s the stuff that it doesn’t give you, the stuff that it takes away, that makes it meaningful“ - Orlando K.

Bringing back the “What Am I Doing Here??” series, our own Orlando K. regales us with the story of how he got here and what he’s doing to possibly help us answer the question of what any of us are doing here. Orlando goes all in and talks about experiences of death and impermanence, aesthetic and philosophy, debate and silence, and tackles the great questions of “what is a hero, what is justice, what is right and wrong, whats the difference between actions and intention?” 

Emma Roy - Lay Practice

“The role of a lay practitioner is to not have a lot of answers but to be very serious about your questions.” - Emma Roy

Emma Roy celebrates the lay community. While so much has been written about the wise monks and teachers who have defined Buddhism, Emma points out that this is not the vast majority of practitioners, and takes a moment to reflect on the path of being a student as its own ambition. It’s a talk about hierarchy, asking questions, not knowing, and an exploration of practice as an achievement in and of itself.

Emily Eslami - “The Practice of Impossible Things”

“I sit and I sit and I sit, and the effects of it are in my life but I’m not quite sure what the aim is… I might be doing nothing at all and I might be doing everything.” - Emily Eslami

Emily takes on the impossible in her “Intro to Zen” talk. How exactly is anyone supposed to introduce this wild, inexpressible, unattainable practice we do day after day, moment by moment? Reading from Dogen’s Zazen Shin, she takes a deep dive into the classic koan about trying to sit to become a Buddha, described as just as simple as trying to polish a tile to make a mirror. But here we will let Emily speak for herself in a demonstrative moment where she manages to express the inexpressible totality of what exactly Zen practice is:
“There are so many things in our life that are impossible to achieve; being the perfect Buddhist, being the perfect partner, being a well rounded human who cooks and cleans, has a productive work life, an amazing social life, and exercises four times a week. All that stuff we put pressure on ourselves to do, its impossible! So I think its really nice that this is a practice of sitting and doing an impossible thing, and letting go of the need to achieve anything. Maybe that’s the point of letting go, that we do achieve something. Maybe we do get what we want. But we can’t trick it! We can’t pretend we don’t have a goal to get what we want. We just have to accept that what we’re doing is impossible and we don’t have a goal and yet maybe by doing that, maybe the tile is already a mirror”

Dave Cuomo - Wait, what exactly is Mahayana Buddhism? (History of Zen pt 5)

“Rule of life: Never believe in anything because someone will just come along and prove you wrong.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave continues his series on the history of Zen with pt 5 - Mahayana Buddhism. He wades into the murky history to try to find the historical roots of the Mahayana, and what if anything, set it and its followers apart from early Buddhism. Dave and the sangha also reflect on the ways the arguments and differences that caused this split in the first place are still very much alive and relevant today in the different approaches of modern Buddhist schools.

Nina Snow - Greed & Generosity

“If I am willing to sow my seeds anywhere without worrying about the outcome, I might be gratified by unexpected beneficial results.” - Misha Shungen Merrill

Nina Snow leads the sangha in a roundtable discussion on the nature of greed, exploring it’s roots in fear and attachment, and the generosity inherent in letting go.

Emma Roy - The Big Bummers of Buddhism

“Giving up hope in changing the three characteristics is getting on the side of reality.” - Emma Roy

Emma Roy discusses “The Three Characteristics,” the three hallmarks of Buddhism that everyone wishes were not true - suffering, impermanence, and no self. Why do these have to be true and why do we have such a hard time accepting that they are? 

Emma Roy - Not Being Special

“People say the ultimate destiny of consciousness is to be liberated. Is that What we’re up to? Because I like the idea that it’s not.” - Emma Roy

Emma reads “On (Not) Being Special” by Ken McCleod to ask the questions of whether any of us are special, whether zazen does anything special, whether we are all destined for enlightenment, and ultimately what is a good use of a human life or a Monday night (or the 40 minutes it takes to listen to a podcast…). The sangha jumps all the way in and discusses why being art necessarily breeds misery, why they don’t want to be special, why they wouldn’t recommend Zen to anyone, but can’t stop doing it if they tried, and ultimately lament that enlightenment never did anyone’s dishes. All in all, it is a prime example of a good use of a monday night and a fantastic way to spend your 40 minutes to listen.

Emily Eslami - Not to be Achieved by Wanting (Unnecessary Roughness)

“‘But this is not to be achieved by wanting,’ is the saddest sentence in the whole thing, the crux of everything. That should be written on my gravestone. It’s all the pain, all the sorrow, all the despair, and the lamentation. We can’t wish things to be true. We can’t will things into being.” - Emily Eslami

Emily wraps up her series on the three marks of existence with Buddhism's favorite least favorite topic - The Truth of Suffering. She leads the sangha in an acknowledgement of all the large and small ways we experience suffering on a daily basis and then goes into the ways we exacerbate that and compound the problem with the classic parable of the second arrow. Drawing on both straightforward teachings of classical Buddhism and the more open ended Zen approach she explores the ways that suffering is both an inherent product of life and also far more avoidable than we might think.

Dave Cuomo - A Better Way (History of Zen - pt 4)

“What have I done? If this is a victory, what's a defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?” - Emperor Ashoka

Dave Cuomo continues his series on the history of Zen with pt 4 - Ashoka! It's one of the most extraordinary and unexpected stories in world history as a bloodthirsty warlord emperor sees a simple monk walking across a field and over night turns one of the world's largest empires into a bastion of peace, piety, and goodness. Everything we know about Buddhism comes from this one moment and Dave explores all the implications of what happened and why. The sangha jumps in and discusses what morality is and where it comes from, how the Buddhist cannon was formed, and who exactly we can call a sociopath.

Craig French - Community

“The more intimate I become with Zen, it’s less of a religion. It’s just about living. Buddhism is living right, its just waking up.” - Fong Sam

To inspire the sangha in our new center, Craig French gives a reading from Crooked Cucumber, the story of Sunryu Suzuki and San Francisco Zen Center. Craig and the sangha get cute as they discuss community, what it means to help out, the connection between different lineages of Zen, bringing Zen to the West, and whether the Ramones were trying to start British Punk Rock on purpose.

Dave Cuomo - Ananda and the Dharma of Not Getting It (History of Zen pt 3)

“Sometimes getting it means not getting it.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave Cuomo continues his History of Zen series w/ pt 3 - Ananda. He’s the great unreliable narrator of all Buddhist scripture. Dave tells the story of this sweet and simple character and looks into the wisdom in his unenlightnment, what it means to live a life of service, and why Buddhism requires us to ask stupid questions. 

Nina Snow - Love and Kindness

“When people are kind its like a beautiful virus that goes around and infects everyone. It’s gorgeous.” - Nina Snow

Nina and the sangha wade into the messy grey areas of being nice. Reading from “The Thousand Eyes and Hands of Compassion” in Brad’s latest book, they explores the nuanced ways compassion is as much about the way we treat ourselves as it is being kind to others.

Emma Roy - Dogen and the Eternal Age of Collapse

Emma discusses the life of Dogen with readings from Hee-Jin Kim’s “Dogen - Mystical Realist.” She explores parallels between Dogen’s time and ours including the the recurring feeling that we’re living on the verge of collapse. The sangha dives in and debates why every generation seems to feel that way even as the world shambles along without ending.

Dave Cuomo - Hopeless

“Hope is what religions sell when they need to get donations and don’t want to explain the whole truth.”

Dave tries to shock the sangha with a talk on the delusion of hope and the liberation of being hopeless, letting go of our ideals in favor of being open to what is. It’s a talk about goallessness and the freedom and kindness that come from giving in to reality. The conversation is lively and not without disagreement as the sangha discusses expectations, whether there is a basic goodness in staring at the wall, whether we can live without desire, dealing with death, and how pretty a leaf can look in the sunlight.

Erik Andersen - Seeing True Nature

“We’re not looking for true nature, we’re not studying true nature, we’re not researching true nature. You sit down and you’re seeing true nature.” - Erik Andersen

Erik continues his inquiry into beliefs and how they can hinder us. He looks at what was meant by the classic Zen promise of "seeing true nature," beliefs as attachment, and how this is all worked with in psychology, while the sangha turns the discussion to mental health and whether it's possible to be happy about being sad.

Dave Cuomo - History of Zen pt 2

What was Buddha’s problem? - an empty container for an open question

Dave continues his series tracing the philosophical and social history of Zen. In part 2 we come to Buddha himself, what was the social context he was teaching in, who were his teachers and what did they teach him? What was the problem he was trying to solve and how did he solve it?? The sangha discusses our connection to history and whether history is even knowable, what, if anything, Buddha was doing differently, and of course, what is the meaning of life?