Dharma Talks

Seido tells the Buddha's birth and life story. We celebrate Wesak with this very human tale of seeking which also has a deep archetypal taproot.

Practice is rooted in the big questions: who am I? Do I have a purpose? How do I take my place in a disastrous world? Suzuki Roshi’s “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” offers two metaphors of encouragement, Mind Weeds and the Four Horses. Whatever unwanted plants spring up in the mind, however trainable this particular animal, whether Zen practitioner or apprentice farmer, let life spring from the big questions, and keep going.

The seven factors of awakening are wholesome mind states that we can cultivate: mindfulness, investigation, energy, tranquility, concentration, equanimity, and unconditional joy. Joy is important because we don’t last when practice is a grim chore. Really pay attention—reinhabit the body. Notice moments of everyday joy. This opens the heart, paving the way for an experience of joy that doesn’t depend on pleasure or circumstance. Unconditional joy may be simply an absence of t

This mindfulness teaching helps us study our human tendency to develop and cling to a separate self, the source of much suffering. In the classical teachings, we humans interpret our experience through the simultaneous workings of body (senses and sense objects), feeling tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), perception (labels, expectations), mental formations (decisions based on impulse, past conditioning, mind-states, narrative), and consciousness (simple awareness). Observ

The Satipatthana Sutta names the five hindrances as sense desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, worry and restlessness, and skeptical doubt. These hindrances to meditation reinforce the habit of a separate self. However karmic habits show up on the cushion, they invite us to be curious and investigate. When we know our hindrances and are not distracted by them, we open to the fresh experience of the present moment, dissolving the usual barriers.