During Rohatsu Sesshin, Gyodo Sensei reflects on our Ango Practice Period and the Jukai Ceremony earlier in the day where four members received the precepts. Drawing from the final chapter in Maezumi Roshi’s Appreciate Your Life, “Shakyamuni and I are Practicing Together,” he encourages us toward this same deep realization. Appreciate your life as the very life of the Buddha.

Gyodo Sensei explores the spiritual theme of poverty through the koan “Seizei, a Poor Monk" and Maezumi Roshi’s chapter "Pure in Heart" from Appreciate Your Life. We carry around so much, all day, every day. Habits, opinions, ideas desires, plans, ambitions. We also carry around our self-centeredness. What happens when we let these go?

In this talk, given during an introductory retreat, Paul Gyodo Agostinelli Sensei offers an overview of the practice and teachings of Zen Buddhism and responds to questions, comments, and check ins from newer practitioners attending.

Gyodo Sensei offers encouragement as we enter our Fall Ango Practice Period, which we might think of as a “walled garden.” We are all guardians and tenders of this garden. How do we do this? By taking good care of our lives and nurturing our practice.

Gyodo Sensei share reflections on the practice of weeding at our July retreat. As any gardener knows, weeds seem to continuously proliferate and we must take care of them or they will take over. What are the weeds of our life — the weeds on the inside?

Dharma holder Geoff Shōun O'Keeffe offers reflections on practice during our June Sesshin. What is it that we do together in retreat? It may seem like not much is happening, but it is utterly extraordinary.

The first collection of koans in our lineage is called the Mumonkan, or Gateless Gate. Mumon himself says “Zen has no gates”? And yet we chant “Omnipresent Dharma Gates I Vow to Experience.” How can something be both a gate and no gate at all? How do we experience a gateless gate?

Our Zen practice is actually quite simple: be fully alive. When we experience our life fully with -- as Shishin Roshi encourages -- awareness, courage, and tenderness, we wake up to our true nature and find liberation. This is the essence of the Bardo teachings.

Zen is the practice of living in reality, being present in your life as it is, not as we wish it to be, or in denial or resistance to what is. What is happening right now? When we enter the silence, the silence becomes you, and you become it. Return to your being. Enter the flow. Bravely.

Physical and Mental Postures are the essence of our Zen practice. By committing to and bringing our attention to postures of stillness, non-reactivity, non-thinking and non-interference in both our body and our mind, a transformation happens.