Video Library

My primary work continues to focus on issues related to death and dying, to grief and loss, and on supporting mindful and compassionate care. Through these activities I share the precious gifts offered by my teachers, most especially the hundreds who have allowed me to accompany them in the vulnerable and sacred time of their dying. (Frank Ostaseski) Conversation hosted by Jon Joseph from April 24, 2023.

Jesse Cardin responds to the intimacy of intensely difficult moments, including frustration and delight with his son, while moving house from the mainland to Hawai’i. When everything is included, even the most difficult things, people, or events, then intimacy is possible and uncertainty is a friend. Complete session recorded May 7, 2023.

There is an inner restlessness in the question, “What is Buddha?” If we look beyond what we think we know of as Buddha, the answer can be anything. A Zen master answered this question with, “dried shit stick!” Nothing is excluded; the jewel can be anywhere. Complete Sunday Zen session, with poems from Li Bai and John Tarrant. April 28, 2023.

Nothing like a return from eight days in the hospital—an episode of great pain to make spring even more welcome. John tells his story of being hospitalized, and the legend of the painter of a yellow crane who disappears on the back of his creation. There is nothing to do or dread in pain. The heart opens: there are no barriers in evolving consciousness. Complete Sunday Zen session from April 12, 2023.

John remarks on being freed from the hospital after a brush with Covid and more, and feeling our ties to the birds, symbolizing freedom through their ability to take off at will. Also: The legend of the painter who disappeared on the back of a painted crane, and the Zhuangzi’s fish named Kuhn who becomes a bird. Recorded April 23, 2023

Zhuangzi said, “We wander in borderless vastness; Great Knowledge enters in, and we don’t know where it will ever end.” Dharma talk given by John Tarrant in a Sunday Zen session on February 26, 2023.

Explanations of Zen, or of anything, are not it. Zen does not try to make you pure—it tries to make you whole. We can trust in the Dao, but by explaining it, we move away from it. Something deeper is going on, carrying us.

It’s all medicine, really. Everything has Buddha nature, beauty and value. Healing is the big point of view. So the point is not to panic when the big moments come. If you can move out of your own point of view it becomes clearer. Complete Sunday Zen session from March 5, 2023.

Our greatest tool from practice is a calm center in the middle of turbulence. My journey’s trajectory and outcome is not completely in my hands. It is hard to say whether circumstances are fortunate or not: are we drifting toward the rakshasas, or is it clear sailing? Lessons from a Polynesian legend: Trust your life, locate with love. As recorded March 18, 2023. Music for meditation from Michael Wilding.

The red thread holds all the great forces, the fraught encounters, and intense relationships with people. Why are we so entangled? Will we find a place of ease and peace that severs the complications of the red thread? Is that even a good idea? Connection is a way we understand our own hearts. Complete Sunday Zen session with Guest Host Tess Beasley, Music for meditation from Michael Wilding vows with Amaryllis Fletcher & Jesse Cardin. As recorded March 26, 2023.

Zen Luminary Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel joins Jon Joseph in a conversation about her life of practice in many traditions, including Zen. They discuss the importance of balancing darkness and light, and Zenju’s oracle cards, teaching names, her continuing work on behalf of children, upbringing in folk medicine, brief participation in plant medicine, and more. Includes readings from her books, The Shamanic Bones of Zen and Opening to Darkness. Recorded March 27, 2023.

The salt and sauce is the invisible component of practice, of life. It is the place in which we are held when disaster strikes, or there’s chronic illness, or you find yourself at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. You might not need what you think you do to get by. What is salt and sauce for you? We can be at peace in the midst of the madness of events – this is our main work in zen. Music for meditation from Micheal Wilding on flute and then on drum. Complete Sunday Zen session from March 12, 2023. 

A short reading extolls the benefits of the Red Thread, from a Sunday Zen session with guest host Tess Beasley. A student of Socrates notes how much he profits from the nearness of the teacher even when the lesson remains obscure. Recorded March 26, 2023.

A beautiful, personal a cappella rendition of the four boundless vows from Jesse Cardin Roshi, sung at the end of the Red Thread Sunday Zen session with guest host Tess Beasley. Recorded March 26, 2023.

It’s all medicine, really. Everything has Buddha nature, beauty and value. Healing is the big point of view. John Tarrant reads his poem, Healing Is Like Kissing, written for the dedication of an integrative medicine center. From Sunday Zen on March 5, 2023.

Author and essayist Lewis Hyde talks with Jon Joseph about his most recent book, A Primer for Forgetting. To be born is thought of as a forgetting in many cultures around the world. Hyde also explores the creative need for the trickster and unconventional gift economy running parallel to Zen.

What is this? is an ancient question—it holds our whole lives. That wondering is the essence of what it is to be human. If you allow wonder into a hard time, it will change it. The attempt to discover something is where the question or problem will change.

From a Sunday Zen session with John Tarrant (What Is This?): Amaryllis plays a violin intro for Jesse’s rendition of the Four Vows on bongos and vocals. 3-minute clip recorded February 19, 2023.

Jon Joseph recalls the powerful influence of his high school Zen teacher Señor King, and others along the way, as his unfolding path of practice is carried by the great current.

Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange. What is it to receive one? What comes with that? Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming. Includes the story of an olive tree delivery, Denise Levertov’s poem The Gift, and music from PZI musicians. Complete Sunday Zen session.

The Dharma is a spiral path of lostness. What will happen next? It’s dark. We’re here no matter what. When you think okay, I’m lost, what’s next? Trusting in the dark is the Way—it is not our business how we awaken. Dharma talk in Winter Sesshin 2023.

Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming—the joys and pains of life, of forgetting and remembering. Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange, and life is a gift. Just accept it, like the flowers at the foot of the cliff. 17-minute excerpt from Sunday Zen on February 12, 2023.

In trying hard to find home, Michelle realizes that everything is happening on a deeper level, in great silence. Everything is always coming through—our role is to notice without manipulating the situation. 17-minute excerpt from January Sunday Zen, Part 4.

When even your own being can feel like the wrong container, Tess Beasley talks about the other side of finding home, where nowhere is home: the great silence that is before all divisions and differentiation. 15-minute excerpt from January Sunday Zen, Part 4.

Jesse is coming home to Hawaii. 15-minute excerpt from January Sunday Zen, Part 4.

Tess tells a story about the confinements of physical pain and long isolation for a musician during Covid lockdown. What are the gifts of turning into the trouble and the fear? 7-minute excerpt from Sunday Zen on Memorial Day 2022.

What if, suddenly, it’s midnight? The usual navigational tools are not available. The reaching is the important component of this moment. Understanding the suffering we fabricate, which separates us, versus a fitting suffering which opens our hearts in connection. Complete talk from Winter Sesshin 2023.

Jordan McConnell plays music for meditation during Sunday Zen: The Transformation in Things with John Tarrant & Friends. December 18, 2022.

David shares his incredible life journey, being carried from a 3-month meditation course in Nepal with Lama Yeshe to Seoul, Korea, and back again to Japan, meeting Koun Yamada in Kamakura, and eventually coming to California and PZI. Complete talk from Winter Sesshin 2023.

Zen Luminary Ruben Habito, a former Jesuit priest, studied Zen in Kamakura with Koun Yamada and there met David Weinstein and Jon Joseph. The three reminisce about their zendo time and the warm, welcoming teacher they found in Yamada. January 30, 2023.