Zencare Podcast

Episodios

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  “Is That So?” Hakuin, Equanimity, and Seeing All the Perspectives | Jisho Sara Siebert 21.07.2026 55m

  Editor's Note(s): Just a few weeks ago, Jisho Siebert, teacher at Zen Fields in Ames, Iowa offered the first guest-teacher dharma talk for our summer Commit to Sit. It's an incredibly refreshing take on a classic Zen story which you may have heard a number of times and we are glad to share it with you here. Alongside it, we are very delighted to announce our three Fall courses are now open for registration, the first of which features the guest teacher herself:The Diamond Sutra: Offering Care Without Grasping with Jisho SiebertCatch Your Mind: How to Live in a World on Fire with Koshin SenseiLiving an Ethical Life: A Study of the Zen Precepts with both Koshin Sensei and Chodo SenseiNow, a bit more about Jisho's moving talk...“I found this story really annoying for a long time.”That's how Jisho Siebert opens her exploration of one of Zen's most famous teaching stories, the tale of Master Hakuin, falsely accused of fathering a child, who responds only with “Is that so?” When the truth is revealed a year later and the baby is returned, he says the same three words again.On the surface, it's a story about equanimity. But Jisho invites us to slow down and ask the questions the story leaves out: What was this like for the young woman? For the baby, separated after a year of bonding? For the fish market worker who never came forward? For the parents, the villagers, the storytellers who passed this down, erasing women's perspectives along the way?Drawing on decades of crisis response and violence prevention work, Jisho shows how equanimity in action looks like curiosity instead of judgment, questions instead of arguments, and fierce care that doesn't collapse into either passivity or reactivity.When the whole fabric of a community shifts (as it does for those involved in this classic tale) so does the experience of those within it. There's no one who isn't involved, so how can we act like it?
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  A Quiet Orientation of the Heart | Chodo Robert Campbell 29.06.2026 26m

  Editor's Note: In celebration of Commit to Sit starting this week and Chodo sensei's birthday last week, we share his talk from this past Winter Commit to Sit. Enjoy and may it offer some comfort and guidance for you. ‍In this recent talk, Chodo Sensei asks a deceptively simple question: Without a vow, how do you live?Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's teaching on great effort, Chodo explores what a vow actually is while also reflecting on 36 years of sobriety and three decades of Zen practice, both sustained not by certainty but by a simple, sometimes shaky turning. A vow taken one breath, one moment at a time.In our daily practice at NYZC, we can see certain unreachable vows at work. The Bodhisattva vows that we chant: “sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them” or “the Buddha way is unattainable, I vow to attain it”. Together we promise to walk, even though it is unlikely we will arrive at any destination. In times of outrage, fear, grief, and numbness, Chodo reminds us that we can return to our vows. Even when we fail, even when we fall short, there is a direction to our lives. With some guidance and help from good spiritual friends, we understand the gap between how we're living and how we aspire to live is our unique (and universal) place of practice.
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  The Potter and the Fire: Using Suffering as a Gate | Koshin Paley Ellison 18.06.2026 42m

  Editor's Note: In honor of our Commit to Sit practice period starting July 1st and our Wholehearted Sesshin (silent retreat) in August, we share this opening talk from the first night of both our Winter Commit to Sit and our Winter Sesshin in January. May it serve you! In this opening talk, Koshin Sensei invites us to consider how the very places where we suffer can become gateways into deeper intimacy with life. Drawing on the story of a potter who transformed his relationship to fire after being badly burned, Koshin reflects on courage, practice, and the ways we often use suffering to separate ourselves from others rather than meet the world more fully.As the sangha entered a period of study with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s Becoming Yourself (the guiding text for the last Commit to Sit), Koshin reminds us that practice is not a self-improvement project. It is about releasing our fixation on fixing, meeting life directly, and taking responsibility for how we show up in thought, word, and action.Through teachings from Shakyamuni Buddha, Prajnatara, Bodhidharma, Rujing, Dogen, and Suzuki Roshi, this talk points toward a practice of immediacy, intimacy, and rigorous honesty: becoming our true selves for the benefit of all beings, including those who will inherit this practice long after we are gone.
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  What Must Change, What Must Remain: The Future of Dharma | Koshin Paley Ellison 10.06.2026 29m

  “How you bow is not just for you.” In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei reflects on what it means to practice consistently: to be the same person regardless of who's watching, what conditions you're in, or whether you're getting what you want.Drawing on Dogen Zenji's teaching on the Four Embracing Actions (giving, loving speech, beneficial action, and identity action), Koshin explores what should remain unchangeable in practice and what needs to adapt as NYZC prepares for a major transition.At the core is a distinction borrowed from teacher Aoyama Roshi: Fu'eki, what must not change (the practice of freeing ourselves from small self and habitual mind), and Ryuko, what can evolve to meet the moment.What are the things in your practice and your life that must not change? And what might you need to change in yourself to allow practice to enter you?
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  Finding the Buddha in Others | Chodo Robert Campbell 22.05.2026 28m

  “The precept does not ask us to be passive in the face of injustice. The question is always: from what place do we speak?”In this recent talk, Chodo Sensei explores the sixth and seventh precepts: not speaking of others’ faults and errors, and not elevating oneself while blaming others.What can seem like simple teachings become a profound invitation to examine the energy beneath our speech. Are we speaking from compassion, clarity, and care? Or from reactivity, self-protection, and the need to be right?With honesty (and more than a touch of humor), Chodo reflects on how quickly the mind moves toward comparison, judgment, and disparagement, and how this habit creates suffering for ourselves and others. The practice, he reminds us, is not to suppress truth or avoid difficult conversations, but to slow down, look at our motivations, and learn to speak in ways that are true, timely, kind, and beneficial.This is the work of becoming “that which we already are”; people capable of finding the Buddha in one another, especially those who challenge us most. 
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  Doubt Digs Up the Whole Blue Planet | Chodo Robert Campbell 12.05.2026 22m

  “The purpose of practice might be to enter the question so fully that it begins to reshape us.”What is the purpose of practice after all? In this talk on doubt and the practice of not-knowing, Chodo Sensei shares a teaching from his favorite Zen teacher: Zen Master Raven, the wise old bird from Robert Aitken Roshi's animal sangha stories.When Badger asks what the purpose of practice is, Raven doesn't answer directly. Instead, he asks: “Do you have an inkling?” When Badger hesitates and says “I'm not sure,” Raven responds: “Doubts dig up the whole blue planet.”Rather than treating doubt as something to overcome or push away, Chodo invites us to embrace it. Can you live with the doubt? Can you doubt the doubt? Can you feel it in the body rather than trying to answer it from the head? The talk and teaching is about letting doubt do its work of digging, of opening, of uncovering what's been with us all along, waiting for us to stop long enough to feel it.
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  Not Turning Away from this Fractured World | Chodo Robert Campbell 28.04.2026 29m

  “In Zen practice, we talk about bearing witness; not as a passive act, but as a form of deep engagement. To really see what's happening. Not escaping into numbness, but also not hardening into fixed views.”In this recent talk, Chodo sensei reflects on the fourth and fifth precepts (truthfulness and not clouding the mind) as practices for living in a fractured and overwhelming world.Speaking to the instability, violence, and uncertainty of our current moment, he invites us to notice the ways we reach for certainty, numbness, outrage, or distraction when the truth feels too much to bear.But what can we do when we are stuck in the “sh*t show” (a term Chodo would never use)? He offers bearing witness as a courageous and compassionate response: staying close to what is true, pausing long enough to discern clearly, and meeting the world without adding confusion to confusion. 
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  What Do We Do With Our Anger? | Chodo Robert Campbell 07.04.2026 27m

  “In this moment, what does it mean to care?”What do the precepts ask of us in a time of injustice, division, and outrage? In this recent talk, given the day after millions took to the streets in protest across the US, Chodo Sensei reflects on anger, activism, and the thin line between harm and care.Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's teaching that we don't observe precepts to attain enlightenment but to actualize Buddha's spirit, Chodo explores how the precepts are not commandments that remove us from the world and this very moment, but rather invitations to meet both with intimacy.He reminds us that our practice isn't about perfection. It's about noticing when we're about to cross that line from care to harm in our minds, our words, our actions. It's about letting one question interrupt us, shape our lives: In this moment, what does it mean to care?
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  The Gift of Fearlessness | Koshin Paley Ellison 24.03.2026 39m

  “Faith is not blind belief, but confidence born of seeing what's actually possible—the willingness to plant a seed without yet seeing the fruit.”In this recent talk given on a snowy Sunday morning, Koshin Sensei explores the Buddha's teaching on three forms of generosity: giving out of faith, material generosity, and the gift of fearlessness (abhaya dana).Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's gardening metaphor, Koshin asks: Are you just planting a seed and walking away, or are you tending to it day after day? Do you evaluate your practice after one visit, one year, even ten years or do you give yourself fully to the ongoing work of showing up?Koshin also reflects on his own journey: after ten years of steady practice, he realized he was still deeply self-involved, lazy in zazen, and “one of those people you wouldn't want over for dinner”; lecturing everyone about veganism and Buddhism until a friend finally told him, “you're being an asshole.” Real friendship, real generosity, means being willing to say it like it is out of love, not just making people feel good.At the heart of this talk is a question about faith. Not blind belief, but the willingness to plant a seed without knowing what will grow. Can you give yourself fully to this moment, whatever it brings? Can you offer steadiness in times of your own panic? And most importantly: Are you taking care of the garden every day, whether that be your practice, your relationships, your mind, your sangha, your heart and the hearts of others?
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  Opening the Closed Fist: Money as Spiritual Practice | Koshin Paley Ellison 17.03.2026 38m

  “Do an audit of how you spend your money. Does it match what you say you really care about?”In this powerful recent talk, Koshin Sensei tackles a topic many spiritual communities avoid: money. Often, topics like finances and business can be deemed “not spiritual”, but does it have to be so?Drawing on Suzuki Roshi and the Buddha's teachings on generosity (dana), Koshin explores how money is simply another form of impermanence. When it circulates, there's vitality. When it freezes, whether through fear, scarcity thinking, or the belief that “I don't have enough”, there's suffering.Reflecting on 19 years of building the New York Zen Center, starting with $200 a month in payroll and a smelly room behind a hospital, Koshin invites us to examine our relationship with giving. Do you give freely, or with a closed fist? Does your bank statement match what you say you care about?This isn't about guilt or shoulds–it's about recognizing that the tight fist is exhausting, while freely giving is not. Whether you have $1 or $100,000, the practice is the same: widening the circle in your own mind, including generosity in your life, and understanding that what you give today allows someone to practice decades from now.
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  Where Do Wars Begin? The Second Precept & Human Dignity | Chodo Robert Campbell 03.03.2026 22m

  “Our practice doesn't ask us how to end wars, it asks us where the wars begin. In this body. In this flash of rage. In this certainty that I am right and you are wrong.”Amid news of global conflicts and war, Chodo Sensei offers a profound reflection on the second Buddhist precept: do not steal. But what does stealing mean when the world is organized around taking; lives, safety, homes, childhood, trust, and ultimately, humanity itself?Drawing on Suzuki Roshi's teaching about entering the Buddha Hall with clean feet and the classic Zen story of the samurai and the master, Chodo explores how war begins long before bombs fall. It begins when we steal each other's humanity through language that turns people into targets, grief into statistics, and suffering into abstraction. It begins in the mind that divides the world into “us and them.”With students sheltering from bombs in multiple countries, this isn't abstract philosophy, it's an urgent question: How do we sit with the sorrow of the world without collapsing into it? How do we notice our own anger without weaponizing it? How do we refuse to let suffering become something “out there” that we're not part of?
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  No Arrival: Practice and Realization Are One | Koshin Paley Ellison 24.02.2026 28m

  “When you encounter obstacles, do not see them as hindrances separate from practice.”In this talk from the beginning of the year (and in preparation for the Year of the Fire Horse), Koshin Sensei reflects on what it really means to make effort. Not as self-improvement, but as a vow to be fully here.Drawing on Dōgen’s teachings on continuous practice, he offers simple, direct questions we can live inside: How are you using your time? How are you caring for your body, (the personal and the collective)? Do your investments of time, finances, energy, etc. support what you say you value? And can you meet obstacles not as interruptions, but as the very field of practice?This talk is both grounding and bracing: a reminder that practice and realization are not separate, that there’s no “arrival,” and the most honest measure of our practice might be how the people around us experience it.With humor and warmth, Koshin invites us to return, again and again, to uprightness in this moment, and to a life shaped less by habit energy and more by vow.
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  Safeguarding What Matters Most | Koshin Paley Ellison 10.02.2026 34m

  “Many people can study lots of things, but are you living that way?”On the 12th day of our Commit to Sit, during a winter blizzard, Koshin Sensei explores a profound question: What's the difference between talking about spiritual practice and actually living it?Drawing on teachings from Suzuki Roshi and the 13th-century Zen master Dogen, Koshin examines how we often get caught in our thoughts; arguing with teachers in our minds, feeding our sense of entitlement, constantly debating whether we're “doing it right.” But what would it be like to simply be ourselves, our ordinary selves, without all that noise?At the heart of this talk is the concept of “transmission” from teacher to student, not as something claimed or awarded, but as something shown through how we live. Koshin asks us to consider: Do we practice only when it's convenient? Do we use spirituality as an identity or a lifestyle brand rather than a lived commitment? And perhaps most importantly: How do we practice when we're alone, when no one is watching?Koshin also reflects on his own struggles with “why not me?” and shares Dogen's wisdom about safeguarding genuine practice in a world that makes it easy to dilute or neglect.
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  Not Enough: The Practice of Surrendering the Self | Chodo Robert Campbell 27.01.2026 32m

  “Each in breath is bringing life into the body, and each out breath is a death. We never know if there'll be another inhale.”On the third day of our recent Winter Sesshin (silent retreat), Chodo Sensei offers a profound teaching on the practice of bowing and the art of surrendering the constructed self. Through the story of Gray Wolf and Zen Master Raven, he explores why true bowing leaves no self left to be humiliated; it is awakening expressing itself.Chodo Sensei shares his own journey with body dysmorphia, addiction recovery, and the physical limitations that now prevent him from doing full prostrations. With characteristic honesty and humor, he reminds us that sesshin is “not a spa weekend”, it's rigorous practice that asks us to surrender to the forms, the discomfort, and our resistance itself.Drawing on Naomi Shihab Nye's poem “Kindness,” he invites us to consider: What stories are we holding onto? Can we surrender to this practice as it is, releasing our expectations of “huge awakenings” and bright lights, and instead bow to reality as it unfolds, moment by moment, breath by breath?
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  Becoming Yourself | Jiryu Rutschman-Byler 06.01.2026 34m

  “The best way to observe precepts is just to be you yourself and then the precepts are always with you.”What does it mean to “be yourself” in Zen, not as self-improvement, but as a direct, embodied intimacy with life as it is?We were honored to recently host Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, at our zendo in New York for this moving dharma talk on the newly released collection of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s teachings, Becoming Yourself, that Jiryu and the late Sojun Mel Weitsman were co-editors on.Beginning with the simple form of upright posture, he offers vivid images; zazen as a chrysalis in which we can “melt,” thoughts like a bagel wrapper that’s useful until we keep holding it, and practice as “sharing the feeling” of right here, right now.In the latter half of the talk, Jiryu also explores Suzuki Roshi’s radical view of precepts: not moralism or rule-following, but the natural expression of a life that remembers its place in the cosmos and a self that includes everything, past, present, and future.We hope you enjoy this dharma talk and that you'll join us for our upcoming Commit to Sit, in which Becoming Yourself will be our guiding text!MUSICHeart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.‍NYZC PUBLICATIONSUntangled here: https://bit.ly/untangled-bookWholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1tAwake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL‍‍CONNECT WITH US—Instagram—Facebook—Donate
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  When the Roots Are Deep, There is No Need to Fear the Wind | Koshin Paley Ellison 23.12.2025 56m

  “Settling down is a protest against a society that values speed.”We share this opening talk from our last Commit to Sit in honor of our upcoming 90-day program starting this January.In it, Koshin sensei invites us into studying Shakyamuni Buddha's final teaching on becoming a great person, explored through Dogen Zenji's commentary and Uchiyama Roshi's wisdom.Through powerful stories of the Buddha stopping Angulimala mid-chase, Ryokan wishing he could give away the moonlight, a student rubbing fire sticks until they see flame, Koshin explores the eight qualities of an awakened life: having few desires, knowing one has enough, appreciating serenity, making diligent effort, and more.Koshin shares what it means to live with both hands, to let everything drop, and to become the good adult who can nourish deep roots so that when the winds come, there's no reason to fear.MUSICHeart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.‍NYZC PUBLICATIONSUntangled here: https://bit.ly/untangled-bookWholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1tAwake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL‍‍CONNECT WITH US—Instagram—Facebook—Donate
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  Why Weren't You More Yourself? | Koshin Paley Ellison 10.12.2025 22m

  “They will not ask me why I wasn't Moses. They will ask, ‘why weren't you Zosia? Why weren't you more yourself?’”On the 82nd day of our recent Commit to Sit, Koshin Paley Ellison delivered this dharma talk on the Buddha's final teaching about useless and frivolous discussion.Drawing from Dogen's commentaries and the Buddha's last instructions, Koshin asks how much of our day we spend entertaining confusion versus actually practicing presence.Through humor and honesty, this talk illuminates how our tight grip on wanting things to be different than they are creates suffering and loneliness. Koshin shares the story of Rabbi Zosia and Suzuki Roshi's teaching on “becoming yourself,” clarifying that this doesn't mean reinforcing our opinions, but becoming more ourselves with everyone. A call to soften wherever we're holding too tight, discriminate what's truly wise, and practice the beautiful way together.MUSICHeart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.‍NYZC PUBLICATIONSUntangled here: https://bit.ly/untangled-bookWholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1tAwake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL‍‍CONNECT WITH US—Instagram—Facebook—Donate
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  Skillful Means in a Comfort-Obsessed World | Koshin Paley Ellison 03.12.2025 31m

  “The truth had never been expounded before because the time to do so had not yet come. Now is the time to drop the story about what should have happened.”What if your practice wasn’t about self-improvement, but about opening the door of Buddha wisdom for all beings?Drawing on Chapter Two of the Lotus Sutra, Koshin Sensei speaks about skillful means, our wildly different capacities, and the confusion we create when we cling to comfort or try to please everyone.He introduces the fierce energy of Fudō Myō-o, the immovable one who protects the Dharma in the midst of fire, and asks how we might welcome all our aspects, whether rage, tenderness, confusion, and clarity, into the assembly of our lives.With humor and tenderness, he points us toward a life guided by vow rather than habit.MUSICHeart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.‍NYZC PUBLICATIONSUntangled here: https://bit.ly/untangled-bookWholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1tAwake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL‍‍CONNECT WITH US—Instagram—Facebook—Donate
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  From Demons to Dharma: Transforming Our Difficulties | Koshin Paley Ellison 03.12.2025 21m

  “There is no enemy except our delusion, and even that, when bound to the path, becomes a place of support.”In this talk, Koshin Sensei reflects on the ancient figure of Fudo Myo-o, the “Immovable Wisdom King”, and the role of the abbot as one who stands on the stone mountain in the midst of fire.Drawing on the Lotus Sutra’s parable of the burning house, he invites us to bind everything to the path: our fears, our demons, our need to control the future, even our suffering storylines.Rather than making enemies of our difficulties, we learn to let them become protectors and Dharma gates, burning away what no longer serves and revealing an unwavering vow at the heart of our lives.MUSICHeart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.‍NYZC PUBLICATIONSUntangled here: https://bit.ly/untangled-bookWholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1tAwake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL‍‍CONNECT WITH US—Instagram—Facebook—Donate
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  Practicing with the Dissenters | Koshin Paley Ellison 18.11.2025 27m

  “A good teacher will take the mask off your face.”In this recent drama talk, Koshin Sensei reflects on the first two chapters of the Lotus Sutra. There is a crowd gathering to hear the Buddha teach, millions of beings of all kinds. One of the Buddha's disciples is repeatedly imploring the Buddha to speak and the Buddha finally agrees. Just as he is about to address the crowd, five thousand monks stand up, bow, and leave. Koshin reflects on why these monks left and what we can learn from mutinous groups among and within us. How are we practicing with the dissenters? Are we really listening, carefully pondering or are we convinced we already know? The practice humbles our arrogance and sangha is often a 'messy middle' where everything is not so clear but all are welcome. Together we can learn and practice and start again. ‍MUSICHeart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.‍NYZC PUBLICATIONSUntangled here: https://bit.ly/untangled-bookWholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1tAwake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL‍‍CONNECT WITH US—Instagram—Facebook—Donate