Baseline (Finding Balance) w/ Jitsujo Gauthier

“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 friend of the sangha, generously joins us for a raw and revealing talk about rage, compassion, wisdom, the limitations of each of those grand notions, and finding the balance in the baseline that underlines it all. What causes good teachers to go bad? What do we do with our rage and where does it go when it goes away? How do we ask for help from heavenly beings when we’re not fully sold on believing in them in the first place? Find out here!

Nobody’s Fool (The Five Skandhas) w/ Dave Cuomo

“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 reality (seem) real that might even offer us a little bit of free will and agency in said reality (free will not guaranteed). Is holding onto blame ever an accurate and/or helpful view? Do our Zen teachers need therapy and/or do our therapists need a little zazen? Are leaf blowers part of the problem or as they the whole solution?? Find out here!

Consistent Inconsistencies (What Am I Doing Here??) w/ Ish Lipman

“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 becoming an artist and embracing the meaningful meaninglessness of Zen, Ish relatably reminds us how to keep faith in not being sure what’s left to believe in. Is feeling inspired a help or a hindrance for creativity? Can we be ok with not understanding without just giving up? Is ‘being present’ just one more spiritual ideal to shoot for or is there something here we can rely on even in the face of the most certain uncertainties?? Find out here!

Baby Come Back (The Three Returns) w/ Dave Cuomo

“What was really liberating for me was finding out who I am when leaving or getting kicked out aren’t an option for anyone. When not I’m worried about my own survival or earning my place in the community, when you can't fire or cancel people or really even get away from them…. It was like, oh hey, we're actually family now.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave gets down to brass tacks basics with a deep dive into the Triple Treasures, aka the Three Returns, aka Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Can we get meaning out of a religion that isn’t willing to give us anything to believe in? How much is too much practice for lay practitioners, and how little is too little? How do we handle troubling truths, tricky teachings, and problematic people in the sangha? Can we ever actually be alone, and can we ever truly meet anyone else?? Find out here!

On the Road with Herman the Worm Boy w/ Sara Campbell

“Really question what you perceive or know and don’t draw many conclusions from it. Also don't think you know nothing. You do know something, and if you abandon what you know to be true you've missed it altogether.” - Sara Campbell

Sara sends us a dispatch from her post Zen Center exploits and dabbles in some serious storytelling with The Original Adventures of Herman the Worm Boy (as delightful as they sound) and the never ending quest for the One Mind with our old friend Huangbo. How do we take our practice out of the Zen Center and into to the real world? And what is this “real” world anyway? Is there such a thing as honest storytelling? And how DO we explain our Zen hobby to our friends and family if they ask?? Find out here!

Every Day is a Good Day w/ Shumyo Kojima

“If we do not have stress, we will not be healthy enough to survive. We have to be in this, we have to be with our enemies. Even enemies make us healthy.” - Shumyo Kojima

Special guest Reverend Shumyo Kojima, Abbot of Zenshuji Temple (North America’s oldest Zen temple (100 years and counting!)) joins us for a talk about learning to love your stress and enjoy your enemies, with colorful stories (metaphors maybe?) of catfish, eels, outhouses, and bringing the stinky and sacred together in the singularity of a bow. Is stress really the key to health and happiness? Is being weak actually a benefit to all beings? Are good and bad any more real than Santa Claus? Is there a purpose to purpose?? Find out here!

Dawdling Destiny (How I Spent My Summer Vacation) w/ Henry Zander

“Conditions can be perfectly aligned for you to do the right thing, but you have to meet that with a strength of will that comes from failing over, and over, and over again. And that's not easy.” - Henry Zander

Tasked with helming ACZC for the summer practice period, Henry boards a train and heads west for his date with destiny. Does Zen center life actually bestow us with its promised perfections? Is it possible to waste time when time is already everything? How can we uphold the great wisdom of this tradition when we’re not so sure we measure up to such a thing? Find out here!

Over the Wall (Monastic Training Report) w/ Dave Cuomo

“The world of Zen is so full of sh*t, something beautiful is bound to bloom.” - Anonymous

Our long wandering resident priest returns from his stint in Japan with tales of monkly mayhem in the monastery. Did they really beat the self out of him, or just grind it deeper? Is traditional monastic training a test of enlightenment or merely endurance? Is there a method to this madness or has it all just been one continuous mistake lost in translation?? Find out here.

Settled Questions w/ Sara Campbell

“I’ve definitely angrily swept the floor, definitely not been stoked. But I think the constraints are good for you, like in the way that creative constraints can be really helpful.

On some level its a privilege and an honor to have a community relying on you. And on some level its like goddamn it, they’ve got me.” - Sara Campbell

Sara bids farewell to her tenure as an ACZC resident and seasonal caretaker some reflections on her years as a live-in zennie and a reading from Norman Fischer on the stages of monastic life. Was it all worth it? Is residential practice the one way ticket to enlightenment? Or a convenient way to burst your bubble on all such notions? Can we have spring flowers without the cold dead winter? Find out here.

Kind Mind (Zen & Multitasking) w/ Helena Harvilicz

“Capitalism does suck, but you shouldn’t let that make you a bad worker” - Helena Harvilicz

Helena tells stories of Zen, parenting, multitasking, and a history of being half assed at work until a job came along where failure was no longer an option. Along the way we get choice selections from Dogen about the Three Minds of a good cook. Does our work need purpose to be worthwhile? And what is that supposed to look like? Did these celibate monks have any wisdom for the busy parents among us? Find out here!

Instructions for the Working Stiff w/ Emily Eslami

“Never think you’re better than the show. It’s not pleasant to work with, and it doesn’t make the work any easier.” - Emily Eslami

Emily gets brass tacks practical with a walk through Dogen’s best advice for all the working stiffs out there on not only how to get through your work day, but maybe even finding the joyful, nurturing, magnanimous mind of everything by building temples from ordinary greens and working like your head is on fire. Why are bad days and bad bosses the best opportunity to end all suffering everywhere? Is it true that the only way to follow the Way is to stop getting our way? What are Dogen’s favorite ways to prepare mushrooms?? Find out here!!

Mountains Walk, Rivers Talk (Return to the Mountains & Rivers Sutra) w/ Dave Cuomo

“I came to this because I'm a disillusioned person, and they said that's okay. That's the point. But now they’re saying that there is something that doesn’t die, something that stays. And they’re teaching it through their own skepticism and doubt. And that is something I trust.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave dives back in to Dogen’s enigmatic Mountains and Rivers Sutra while looking at what  America might be looking for in a rational religion, and whether or not Zen could fit the bill. What is the half of the dharma that stays even when everything ends? Is it possible to appreciate what actually makes us awesome? Is it rational to think that the world is ultimately rational?? Find out here!

Degenerate Dharma (The Diamond Sutra & Buddhist Cosmology) w/ Jason Dodge

“When I found out that we're in the degenerate dharma ending age where nobody can get enlightened, I thought, ‘That sucks. Why am I even doing this then?’ And then I decided that's a great place to practice. If we don’t have to worry about getting anywhere with it, we can just sit.” - Jason Dodge

Jason skillfully navigates us through the perfect paradoxes of the Diamond Sutra, and we all get a little nerdy on some fascinating (if a little odd) Buddhist Cosmology. What exactly are the 32 marks of a buddha, the three bodies of a Buddha, and the six perfections. Why does none of it matter to our practice and why is it helpful to hear anyway? And are we truly living in the degenerate age, and if so why is that the best time to practice?? Find out here!

Friends Without Benefits (Sangha) w/ Gyokei Yokoyama

“It's brave of them to let people just step in and screw up. But it's not about how well you do, or whether you want to do it - we have a task and each person embodies it. If we’re getting anything here, it’s that authenticity.” - Gyokei Yokoyama

They say you don’t choose your family, and in Zen we don’t pick our sanghas. Gyokei discusses what it means to practice with a sangha, why it can be the trickiest and most rewarding of the big three jewels (Buddha, Dharma, & Sangha), and the kind of authentic bonding that only happens when we don’t get to choose who we sit next to in the zendo. In a culture of transactional communities, what are we getting out of this one? How can we tell the difference between being taken advantage of in a community, versus doing our part to a greater whole? And how do we run a successful operation when the operating plan is to let people screw it up? Find out here.

Mind Blowing Mediocrity - (The Witness Mind) w/ Dave Cuomo

“If you watch a movie where somebody's having a bad day, you laugh along and empathize and think ‘Well that's a good movie about a guy having a bad day.’ And that's what zazen is, just watching a guy maybe having a bad day. And then I empathize with that guy. And you know what? I usually have a better day after that.” - Dave Cuomo

Dave delves into Keizan’s Three Levels of Zazen and tries to figure out whether the “witness mind” is an accurate description of the mind of zazen, and if not, what is? What’s the difference between ordinary and superior meditation? Do we have a choice in which one we sit and would it matter if we did? And how are  we supposed to entertain ourselves in zazen when the things we’ve been wrestling with up and fly away one day? Find out here

Forget Yourself (Non Duality) w/ Emily Eslami

“The cornerstone of non dualism is that you can’t even hold onto non dualism - that non dualism is itself dualistic.” - Emily Eslami

Emily unpacks the perfection of paradox that is Non Dualism, Zen’s crowning ideal that it will never live up to no matter how hard it tries. How is it possible to stop our mind if it’s impossible to stop our mind? Is it true that everything we do is ultimately zazen, and if so why do we still have to sit? Does the sangha actually have hot non dual tips for us on mastering dinner party small talk and landing a relationship?? Find out here!

Blooming Buddhas (Zen Gardening) w/ Helena Harvilicz

“Plants are actually great meditation teachers. They really know how to stay put even in the face of danger.” - Helena Harvilicz

Crowd favorite Helena returns with all the dharma she dug up in her time as ACZC’s gardener, along with some words of wisdom from Dogen’s “Insentient Preach the Dharma. Are our plants and inanimate objects really whispering sweet truths to us like they did to Buddha under that tree? Is this a classic tale of setbacks in practice that lead to enlightening revelation? Or is it the story of a feeble-minded woman facing the horrors of old age and death who gets tricked into paying to do yard work by a somewhat boring cult (her words not ours…)?? Find out here!

Summer of Space (Writer’s Block and the Faith In Mind Inscription) w/ Dave Cuomo

Summer of Space (Writer’s Block and the Faith In Mind Inscription) w/ Dave Cuomo

Dave celebrates the lazy days summer by trying to cure a decade long writer’s block with the help of The Artist’s Way and some sassy ancient commentary on the Xinxinming that sounds uncannily like our own inner critics. What is Dave’s one trick to always be good at zazen? Why is Zen always telling itself it’s doing it wrong? And when we listen to those inner critics, do we get fueled by the friction or just tired and uninspired?? Find out here!

Comes and Goes (The Tathagata) w/ Jason Dodge

“It’s not your zazen, it’s just zazen. And it’s going all the time.” - Jason Dodge

Jason unpacks the meaning behind the Buddha’s beguiling nickname while reminding himself exactly why he does want to sit zazen during a hard month when the last thing he wants to do is sit down and do his zazen. Why did Buddha promise we all get to share his accomplishment while also promising it was something we could never know? What did he mean he’s the one who comes and goes, and why does our desire to sit come and go so easily when we need it most? Where is this zazen train even going and could we get off that train even if we wanted to?? Find out here!

The Red Badge of Suffering (Single Minded Effort) w/ Emily Eslami

“There’s a feeling of, if I was stressed out, then it must have been really good. Or people say, ‘I would meditate but I don’t want to lose my edge.’ But what heights could they attain without the misery and suffering?” - Emily Eslami

Emily throws us a bonfire of the attachments with a pointed talk on single minded effort. With readings from Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind we take a good hard look at all the sticky sweet talking memories and ideas that keep us from fully doing the things we do. Is there a healthy place for praise and blame in our endeavors? Are we entitled to the fruits of our own actions? Is Emily’s casserole just too mouth wateringly delicious to burn up in the flames of enlightenment?? Find out here!!