This episode features several stories of awakening to what was always already here and on our side. To end the project of suffering that many of us take on, we need first to identify the types of suffering. Only then can we begin to look past the suffering to the root causes. In Buddhism, we can learn to make use…

In this episode, Roshi Tess Beasley begins with an old Seamus Heaney poem about how the universe appears in all its splendor in the places we least expect. What does it mean to stay intimate with the being of the world, and let it unfold against our fingertips? What does it mean to give way to poverty in Zen, meaning…

Roshi John Tarrant explores the intersection of the art of haiku and silence. In this episode, he shows how the vastness of the universe is always ready to emerge out of our very own heart-mind. How do we convey this? Listen to this episode as we grapple with the marvel of being alive and the sense of vastness of things.…

As the year comes to a close, "the Guanyins" – Roshis Allison Atwill, Tess Beasley, Michelle Riddle, and Sarah Bender – team up to tell a wintery Christmas tale of wonder. Holidays often come with difficulties, but also have the potential of opening the heart into unexpected moments of healing. Listen to a story of reconciliation, surprise, and the blessing…

In this episode Roshi John Tarrant shares a wondrous and humorous rendition of an old fairytale about the Golden Bird and its relationship to Buddha Nature. Explore how it is never our most treasured or heroic attitudes that lead us through the gates of awakening; it is far simpler than that. Tarrant reminds us that as the great Japanese teacher…

Thanksgiving and the whole notion of gratitude can bring along complicated feelings. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant shares an old story about a miserable student convinced that he is beyond help. The teacher he finds tells him she'll offer him a practice but only if he promises to take it up for a whole year, no questions asked. It…

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant shares an old Zen story about navigating impossible times and realizing how life carries us even when it's tough. "For thirty years, I've been just getting by," says the teacher in question, "but I've never lacked for salt or sauce." What makes the salt and sauce of our lives? Listen to this moving and…

Being lost has a transformative beauty to it. Being lost is a gateway to the extraordinary, as it brings about the possibility of not knowing who we are. Listen to this episode as Roshi John Tarrant discusses the importance of being tossed out of our certainties and discovering something far more strange and true. The final evening of sesshin in…

During our journey of existence, we lose and find our true nature. It's amazing what we know once we allow ourselves to know it. What magic happens when koans start talking to each other? In this episode, Roshi Tess Beasley discusses the game of hide-and-seek we are constantly playing with ourselves, others, and everything.   Subscribe and listen on Apple…

What does it mean to be in the bath of awakening? We somehow always have a reluctance to immerse ourselves completely, which is the very thing that holds it at bay. In this episode, Roshi Jesse Cardin talks listeners through another water koan from The Blue Cliff Record in which the teacher recounts the "subtle touch that reveals the light…

The stone drenched with rain points the way. In this episode, Roshi Allison Atwill speaks on a koan born of a haiku by Japanese poet Santoka Taneda. What does it mean to be drenched in our own lives and experiences? This episode invites listeners into the constant downpour that is the universe itself. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts or…

We are all walking through the valley holding our lanterns. What is the Way? What do the valley and the lantern represent? Koans allow us to stop chasing. When we are not chasing things, we can experience freedom and delight. When you relate to something outside of yourself, you can be free. Listen to this episode as Roshi John Tarrant…

With realization, all things are one family. Without realization, all things are separate and disconnected. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant talks about the empathy of meditation and its lack of opposition. Meditation assists in undoing the structures the mind makes. We can let go of control and let the koans carry us. Listen in to learn about the hidden…

Today, Roshi Allison Atwill shares a poem about our intrinsic ability to always carry light and silence. In this episode, she explains how the original silence is always with us and within us. What are the elemental termas of Tibetan Buddhism? How can we apply these termas to meditation practice? We can learn and teach from the silence and the…

There is always a certain amount of mystery to who we are and where we are. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a poetic case entitled Jiashan's Beautiful State of Mind. What is your state of mind? What is it like to be you? Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. And be…

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant tells the story of Deshan and his transformative pilgrimage of awakening. We are all Deshan, ready to let go of our old pile of stories. What is it like to be on a journey? How do we get home from a journey? How does the journey change us? How can we meet our journey…

Today, Roshi John Tarrant takes listeners on a vivid imaginal journey into the depths of the Blue Dragon's cave of wisdom. "For twenty years, I've struggled fiercely. How many times have I gone down into the Blue Dagon's cave for you?" This great question appears in Case 3 of The Blue Cliff Record, the canonical Zen Buddhist koan collection. Tarrant…

Today, Roshi Allison Atwill explores the bodhisattva’s unique relationship with uncertainty as a healing balm for suffering. Describing how Zen Buddhism draws from the Mahayana tradition, in which the bodhisattva path means helping to awaken all beings, Atwill notes that this is not a future goal to somehow be achieved but a moment-to-moment way of meeting every aspect of our…

Can we trust our own unique response to life, our own dharma? In this episode, Roshi Tess Beasley speaks about how seductive problems are, and how frozen we can become when we think that something beyond what's already here is required. Telling the story of Juzhi and his infamous awakening encounters, first with the Zen Buddhist nun, True World, and…

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a series of bright gate koans from The Blue Cliff Record, all featuring one of the greatest Zen masters of all time, Yunmen. At the root of these dharmakaya koans lies the question of consciousness, or what Yunmen describes as: What is that light that everyone has? Chock-full of awakening stories from…

Today, Roshi John Tarrant offers a guided meditation on a spring koan from the canonical Blue Cliff Record. It tells the story of longtime practitioner Lingyun, wandering in the mountains on a spring day and suddenly, really seeing peach blossoms for the first time. He writes this verse: For thirty years I searched for a master swordsman, how many times…

In this episode, Roshi Allison Atwill offers insight into Zen's signature transmission beyond words and letters. Telling the story of infamous Japanese Zen Master, Ikkyu Sojun, and his ambivalence toward transmission, Atwill describes how our particular awakening is always tailor-made to the circumstances of our lives. It always comes through the door we least expect, and dissolves whatever sense of…

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a deep, strange koan in which a student asks Yunmen, "Where do all the Buddhas come from?" And, Yunmen answers: "East mountain walks on the water." Pondering the inevitable questions that appear as part of koan study, like where do we come from, and what is the source of this existence we…

In this episode, Roshi Tess Beasley speaks about the nature of self-consciousness and how the koan path slowly guides us through the process of discovering our part in it all. It also ferrets out our strategies for making a separate self that cannot bear the intimacy of awakening. If we imagine that we are "us", it can be difficult to…

Join Roshi Allison Atwill to explore awakening as a great voyage, one that is entirely your own, and yet in which you are somehow accompanied by the entire universe. Atwill tells the riveting story of one sailor's solo journey around Cape Horn and reveals how, in the end, he gives up on the mind that races and compares, and turns…

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant tackles the first great gate of koan study, in which a student asks, "Does a dog have buddha nature or not?" And Zhaozhou simply answers, "No," (or "Mu" in Japanese and "Wu" in Chinese). Exploring the vivid commentaries that accompany this foundational koan case, including instructions to "cut off the mind road" and "make…

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant, takes up a koan from The Gateless Gate collection in which the Buddha tells his attendant, "That person is like a fine racehorse who runs at the mere shadow of a whip." Tarrant investigates our relationship to suffering, describing the four kinds of horse metaphors in Zen Buddhism, ranging from the one who runs…

Fire is a vital element of transformation. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant discusses the Zen koan, Put Out the Fire Across the River, which originally arose in response to seeing the camp fires of Genghis Khan's army burn brightly through the night. Fire has a terrifying power for destruction but also a sacred role in connecting us. Like the…

In this episode, Roshi Allison Atwill tells the story of Baizhang's Fox, a classic koan from The Gateless Gate collection about the nature of karma. In this koan case, an old man confesses he was once abbot of the mountain temple, but was sentenced to live 500 lives as a fox for misapprehending the nature of cause and effect. The…

Today Roshi Tess Beasley offers a talk on the infamous Miscellaneous Collection koan: Why can't the clear-eyed bodhisattva sever the red thread? Many people enter the spiritual journey hoping to transcend the messiness of being human and the inevitable longing, heartbreak, and passion it brings. Koans take another tack, which is to discover awakened mind in the very midst of…