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.”

Oxherding Pictures 1 & 2: Searching and Finding Traces

The first two pictures invite us to leave the familiar and enter the unknown. Like the little boy, we seem to be empty handed . Yet with...

Mar 20

Genjo Koan: A Life Worth Living

Seido talks about the existential question driving the Genjo Koan and the lines that respond to the inquiry as to what is a life worth...

Jun 9, 2023

Diamond Sutra: Entering the Stream

Seido talks about the early Buddhist teachings that described stages on the path of practice and how the bodhisattva vow that relies upon...

Apr 14, 2023

Openings Large and Small

Seido talks about the transition from winter’s “studying the self” through precepts to the spring mystery of “forgetting the self”...

Mar 17, 2023

Tenzo Kyokun: How to Cook Your Life

Seido introduces Dogen Zenji’s “Instructions to the Cook” and how the Zen training of working in the kitchen expresses the wholehearted...

Sep 23, 2022

Heart Sutra: The Meandering Nature of Practice

In this talk, Seido shares her own meander through the sixty days of the spring Ango period studying the Heart Sutra. Rather than a...

May 20, 2022

Bodhisattva Activity: Vimilakirti on Embrace of the World’s Suffering

In this talk, Seido uses the teachings of Vimilakirti to suggest how we might bear witness to the war in Ukraine and all suffering in the...

Mar 11, 2022