From Permanent Beginner to Developmental Practitioner
A dialogue on:
– training to be a developmental practitioner.
– technical notes on nervous system instability, and
– the difference between anxiety and agitated bliss.
When Practice Stops Being a Place You Go
A sangha dialogue on interruption, unity of mind, and why depth isn’t lost in daily life—practice matures when responsibility becomes the path.
Beyond Zen: Toward Sovereign Practice
A candid inquiry into how our practice has evolved beyond Zen categories—reworking refuge, reclaiming discernment, and naming the need for responsibility in becoming, not just realization.
The Way between Yoga & Religion
A satsang on why life feels dreamlike when agency drops offline, and how awakening in this spiritual discipline involves integrity, intentionality, and enacting what silence reveals—not just witnessing it.
The “paradox” of self, other, and Interpenetration
*transcript produced by AI Welcome, everybody, and thank you for practicing today. I’m excited to start exploring this new open door zen sutra book with you as we kind of figure out our way of moving through the ritual service. And now we’re here for Dharma discussion. I think, Cass, you said you had something…
Volition and Non-Self
A cutting exploration of not-self, volition, and compassion. Liberation is lived integrity, not found in the palliative consolation of “being.”
Equanimity, Boundaries, Precepts, Self
Exploring how equanimity can blur boundaries, how precepts guide action, and how Buddhism reframes “Self” beyond Atman into dynamic suchness.
Intimacy, Practice, and the Many Faces of Awakening
An open forum exploring practice vs. meditation, intimacy with life, and the spectrum of awakening, with lived examples from music, parenting, and the subtle art of appropriateness.
Lankavatara 2:IX verses part 2
This session follows the final verses of Chapter 2.IX, with sustained attention to Yogācāra’s account of karmic appearance and the structure of mind-only experience. The painter and ocean metaphors are unpacked to show how perception arises from perfumed seeds and mistaken construction. A discussion of Bodhidharma’s Two Entrances is used to clarify how early Zen aligned with the Laṅkāvatāra—not philosophically, but functionally—through direct realization of mind. “Suchness” is handled without reification, and teachings are presented as conditional rather than final. The session closes without synthesis, keeping attention on how language, perception, and practice co-arise.
Lankavatara 2.IX:Verses part 1
In this talk, we explore the Lankāvatāra’s vision of karma and perception as wave-like processes, uncovering how consciousness, grasping, and memory generate karmic entanglement—and how release becomes possible through non-possession.