Dharma Talks

Debra Seido Martin is Zen West's Guiding Teacher. She was transmitted in 2009 by Kyogen Carlson, late Abbott of Dharma Rain Zen Center. Seido is an organic farmer and psychotherapist devoted to the wild and giving space of practice and grace of the land. She carries forward her teacher’s directive to “ordain into your life.”

Tozan’s Five Seasons: Three—Letting Go of the Handlebars

The promise of the third season is whole-hearted practice without an agenda. The third season describes moments of kensho, when we deeply realize the emptiness beyond self. In the bicycle metaphor, it is the moment when we take the hands off the handlebars and know that we keep going. No choreography, no separate self, no words.

Oct 29

Tozan’s Five Seasons: Two—Surrender

What is whole-heartedness in practice? As beginners, we often practice for the sake of the self and its suffering. Tozan’s second Cycle of Merit poem (Kokun Goi) invites us into the season of practicing for others. We realize it is not just about the self, but that we are part of a larger flow of practice. Let us go further into the jumbled peaks.

Oct 15

Tozan’s Five Seasons: Two—Eternity in a Grain of Sand

As we let go of our usual pressing forward, our usual dominant mind, we see that something comes to meet us. Form and reflection behold each other. One of the practices of this season is to look, really look, and forget what we know.

Oct 8

Tozan’s Five Seasons: One—Reorientation

Seido invites us into the first of the Kokun Goi—the “Cycle of Merit” poems corresponding to Tozan’s Five Ranks. We are invited to...

Oct 1

Tozan's Five Seasons: One--the Relative within the Absolute

In the dark, the darkening of the mind The mind that is spent of its thoughts and stories And the silence envelopes you Something alive...

Sep 24

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