The Living Zen Podcast

Hand Me the Cushion

From Meditation as Refuge, an online evening with the Insight Community of the Desert, August 2026. A talk on Case 20 of the Blue Cliff Record.

The Three Pure Precepts

From the March 2025 7-Day Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center

A Thousand Buddhas Don’t Know

From the October 2022 Long Beach Meditation “Mountain Refuge Retreat”

Awareness is the Root Experience of All

The Blue Cliff Record, Case 40, from Insight Community of the Desert’s Tuesday Meditation As Refuge class.

As You Are. Here. Now.

Case 1 of the Gateless Gate: “Ordinary Mind is the Way” from Insight Community of the Desert’s Tuesday Meditation As Refuge class.

The Essential Practice of Just Sitting

Case 1 from the Book of Equanimity “The World Honored One Ascends the Platform” from the May 2025 sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center

Pointing to the Human Mind

From the September 2024 7-Day Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center

Trust Your Heart

Return to What is Most Vital

The Heart of the Matter

From the Summer 2023 Beginner’s Mind Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center

This Mysterious Life

From Beginner’s Mind Sesshin, January 2023

The One Behind the Name

You have to break through to this.

The Three Essentials

Great faith, great doubt, and great determination are considered to be three essentials for Zen practice. If any of these essentials are absent, we may not accomplish our

Call and Response

Yes!

The Meaning Finds You

How can it be understood?

How to do Nothing

Doing nothing can be surprisingly difficult.

Feeling the Heat

The Practice of Active Acceptance.

Searching for the Mind

Exploring the island.

The Exploration of Self Nature

Leaping Clear of the Many and the One.

The Role of a Lifetime

Are we really who we think we are?

The Oak Tree

What is the Essential meaning?