Zen Mind

We live in an "achievement society," in which we are encouraged to constantly improve our lives in search for happiness. This talk presents Zen practice as a series of simple instructions like sitting down, not moving, and attending to breath and body, which facilitate the discovery and cultivation of a breath-body-attentional-space that can flower into a presence that doesn't go anywhere in the midst of changing experiences. This always-there presence hosts all of our experiences—pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad. This attentional presence can become for each person, independent of particular circumstances, the timeless source of contentment.Welcome to Zen Mind!Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" is now available in a self-paced online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits.Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at [email protected] or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk is the third talk given during the seven-day December Sesshin held at the Boulder Zen Center. It is a detailed investigation of why, despite our sincere mindfulness practice, it can be so difficult to disentangle our attention from the thinking process. It explores the hypothesis that thinking can be non-consciously used as a defense against the anxiety and disturbance we experience around existential facts like discontinuity, uncertainty, powerlessness, and pain. As a remedy, we can practice to invite our most disturbing existential feelings with gentle fearlessness. The stillness and stability of the physical zazen posture (discussed in the first Sesshin talk) is an invaluable resource for this.Welcome to Zen Mind!If you would like to listen to all 7 of the Dharma talks given during this intensive and from other intensives, please become a premium podcast subscriber! Doing so will give you access to talks given during all of our intensives plus the recorded Q&A sessions with Zenki Roshi that follow each of the regular public Dharma talks. Memberships begin at only $9/mo! Your support goes a long way towards helping  the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings.  Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/becomeamemberZenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at [email protected] or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk asks what it means to be identified with thoughts, opinions, emotions, personal characteristics, roles, and positions. And then, what it means to dis-identify from those aspects. It explores Dogen's practice instruction "to take the backward step that turns the light around and inward." Dogen's stepping back is to first discover and then establish oneself in the 'field of mind' that is always present "behind" the many 'contents of mind' that are coming and going from moment to moment. This is the realization of non-attachment and freedom. However, there remains a dualism between field and content, self and other, subject and object. So after taking the backward step, what does it take to "step back in" and release one's self and this dualism?Welcome to Zen Mind!Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" explores how we can discontinue dysfunctional habits, and instead, form habits that create a wholesome, nourishing life. The course is now available in a self-paced online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits. Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at [email protected] or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk is plucked from the middle of the 6-week Practice Course 'Transforming Habits' which just concluded at the Boulder Zen Center. The talk provides a summary of some of the ground that has been covered during the course up until this point: the nature and purpose of habits; the structure of habits – cue, craving, behavior, reward; how habits can become dysfunctional; and the "gears" we can use to transform habits: (1) mapping, (2) disenchantment, (3) awareness, (4) transformation through untangling. The idea of gears is borrowed from research psychologist Judson Brewer (see book recommendation in the show notes). Using concrete examples, the talk outlines how to work with the first two gears and then centers on the role awareness plays in habit transformation. A guided meditation is offered to demonstrate how readily available this transformative awareness is to all of us at any time. The fourth gear, which goes beyond Brewer's model, doesn't get covered in this talk. If you're interested to learn more, check out the show notes to access the self-paced version of the complete course 'Transforming Habits.' Welcome to Zen Mind!Zenki Roshi's 6-week practice course, "Transforming Habits" is now available in a self-paced online format! Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforming-habits. Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at [email protected] or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.