Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

Zen Community of Oregon

New podcasts every Tues, Thurs and Sat. Here you can find talks from various teachers involved with the Zen Community of Oregon. We share talks from our retreats, as well as our different weekly offerings between Great Vow Zen Monastery and Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple.

Zen Community of Oregon's purpose is to express and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teachings, as transmitted through an authentic, historical lineage. To support and maintain Zen Buddhist practice in order to realize and actualize our Buddha nature in everyday life.

For more information, please visit zendust.org.

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20 episodes
Updated July 6

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Episodes20

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July 6 · 28 min
The Eternal Child, The Old Man and Spiritual Commitment - Jogen Sensei
Using the Jungian archetypes of the eternal child and the wise elder, this talk maps the tension between following inspiration wherever it leads and committing deeply enough to actually cook — arguing that neither without the other is anything but a different kind of neurosis, and that real spiritual commitment somehow needs both. ★ Support this podcast ★
July 6 · 32 min
How To Be A Mystic In The City- Jogen Sensei
Jogen offers five categories for living a mystical life right in the middle of it — microdosing stillness, staying connected to the tender fleetingness of existence, liquefying your fixity through play, following whatever opens your heart, and finding the skeletal principles that guide you without making your life tight. ★ Support this podcast ★
July 6 · 24 min
According to Me: Opinions About Reality Keep Us From Living It- Hogen Roshi
Drawing on the Mangala Sutta's teaching on gratefulness and a recent pilgrimage to 400-year-old Soto Zen monasteries in Japan, this talk by Hogen Roshi traces how the abiding belief that "the world should work according to me" cuts us off from the very life we're trying to improve. ★ Support this podcast ★
July 6 · 32 min
Trusting Your Sense of the Divine - Jogen Sensei
This talk addresses people who know or have known a natural sense of the sacred — and who may have set it aside when they entered a formal tradition — arguing that what you already know is not less valid than what any lama, priest, or roshi says, and that the meeting of inborn spirituality with a tradition can be the most potent combination of all. ★ Support this podcast ★
July 6 · 24 min
Yes, Yes, Yes - Hogen Roshi
In this talk onn self-sufficiency, impossible decisions, and turning failure into wisdom, Hogen Roshi argues that true liberation isn't a state we achieve and protect but a responsive openness that meets whatever comes with curiosity rather than fear. ★ Support this podcast ★
July 6 · 28 min
Free From What? - Hogen Roshi
Sparked by a Fourth of July celebration, this talk cuts through the cultural fantasy that freedom means getting what you want — and points instead toward the Buddhist understanding of freedom as release from greed, anger, and delusion, discoverable not by chasing carrots but by simply stopping, sitting, and breathing. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 10 · 37 min
There Is No Better You Somewhere Else: Respect, Humility, and the Mangala Sutta- Hogen, Roshi
Contrasting a book of philosophy where every page offers a new way to think about reality with the Buddha Dharma's insistence on direct verification, Hogen argues that contentment and gratitude aren't ideas to adopt but discoveries that arise naturally when we stop managing our experience and simply look closely. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 10 · 34 min
Sacred Lamp Of Awareness- Jogen, Sensei
Rather than talking about awareness, this talk by Jogem invites listeners to taste it directly — through guided exhalations, the image of a hollow vessel lit from within, and the Dzogchen teaching of the Nine Amazing Things — pointing to the primordial light that exists in everyone. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 10 · 29 min
How To Not Waste Time- Jogen Sensei
This talk from Jogen offers a multilayered Zen framework for not wasting time — from daily contemplation of death to touching the bedrock desires beneath our surface wants — and ends by questioning whether time can even be wasted at all. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 10 · 27 min
Carrying the Baton: Leadership, Loss, and the Long Arc of Practice-Jomon, Zen Teacher
In this talk Jomon asks what it really means to belong to a spiritual tradition — and finds that the answer has less to do with personal achievement than with gratitude, flow, and showing up to pass something precious forward. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 10 · 33 min
I Can Be Right or I Can Have Peace: Impermanence, Identity, and Caring for Aging Parents- Jomon, Zen Teacher
Using the Heart Sutra's teaching on the emptiness of the five aggregates as a guide, Jomin weaves together a daughter's struggle to let her mother make her own choices, a charged encounter at a farmers market, and the liberating practice of simply saying "I don't know." ★ Support this podcast ★
June 8 · 49 min
Difficult, Easy, Both and Neither- Kisei, Sensei
Using the koan of Bodhidharma's transmission and the Pang family's teachings on difficulty and ease, Kisei closes sesshin by pointing practitioners toward the vows and confidence that have sustained them through every hard sitting — and toward the Buddha that their teachers have been holding up a mirror to all along. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 7 · 52 min
Ancestral Wakefulness- Kisei, Sensei
Weaving together the koan anecdotes, the awakening poems of early Buddhist women, and the living support of sangha, in this talk Kisei invites practitioners who feel stuck or afraid to ask for help — from the ancestors, from each other, and from the mystery itself. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 7 · 50 min
Don't Give Up, Don't Be So Sure! - Bansho, Zen Teacher
In this talk, Bansho explores two traps that derail even experienced sitters — premature conclusions and comfortable coasting — and points toward the three essentials of trust, persistence, and great question as the way to move forward. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 7 · 45 min
Zazen Is Alive- Bansho, Zen Teacher
Drawing on Dogen's meditation manual, Rumi's "Guest House," and the playful wisdom of Zen ancestor Joshu, Bansho explores how zazen is an embodied practice of patient absorption — not a mental project — where welcoming whatever arises with steadiness and lightheartedness reveals that the ordinary mind itself is the way. ★ Support this podcast ★
June 7 · 41 min
A Buddha Weighs Less Than A Feather- Bansho, Zen Teacher
How is it a Buddha weighs less than a feather? In this talk, Bansho shares about the generosity, mystery and richness of his time training in Japan. ★ Support this podcast ★
May 26 · 27 min
Mind Abiding No Where - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei
In this talk, Kisei explores the Buddha's teaching on how we should practice if we truly seek liberation, as offered in the Diamond Sutra. ★ Support this podcast ★
May 26 · 32 min
Celebrating The Poetry Of Zen - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei
Poetry has a way of cutting to the heart of our lives, and expressing the inexpressible. In this talk Kisei explores the styles of poetry used in the Zen tradition, from poems of enlightenment, to death poems, to capping phrases and poems of deep intimacy--poetry invites us into this living moment, and graces our lives with the mystery. ★ Support this podcast ★
May 26 · 30 min
Encounters with the Stone Woman - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei
During this talk Kisei explores the line from the Mountains and Rivers sutra, "a stone woman gives birth to a child at night", and entertain our own encounters with the stone woman, and what she may have to teach us. ★ Support this podcast ★
May 11 · 35 min
Nuts and Bolts of Meditation- Jogen, Sensei
In this talk, Jogen frames the entire practice — regardless of specific method — as the conscious, intentional use of attention. The core of the talk breaks meditation down into two complementary skills: staying, which is the ability to keep attention where you want it and non-clinging, which is recognizing that body, mind, and experience are largely just happening on their own without needing to be controlled or possessed. The talk closes by noting that love, devotion, and curiosity can all be brought into practice, but staying and non-clinging remain the fundamental nuts and bolts. ★ Support this podcast ★

Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

Support the show

The Eternal Child, The Old Man and Spiritual Commitment - Jogen Sensei

How To Be A Mystic In The City- Jogen Sensei

According to Me: Opinions About Reality Keep Us From Living It- Hogen Roshi

Trusting Your Sense of the Divine - Jogen Sensei

Yes, Yes, Yes - Hogen Roshi

Free From What? - Hogen Roshi

There Is No Better You Somewhere Else: Respect, Humility, and the Mangala Sutta- Hogen, Roshi

Sacred Lamp Of Awareness- Jogen, Sensei

How To Not Waste Time- Jogen Sensei

Carrying the Baton: Leadership, Loss, and the Long Arc of Practice-Jomon, Zen Teacher

I Can Be Right or I Can Have Peace: Impermanence, Identity, and Caring for Aging Parents- Jomon, Zen Teacher

Difficult, Easy, Both and Neither- Kisei, Sensei

Ancestral Wakefulness- Kisei, Sensei

Don't Give Up, Don't Be So Sure! - Bansho, Zen Teacher

Zazen Is Alive- Bansho, Zen Teacher

A Buddha Weighs Less Than A Feather- Bansho, Zen Teacher

Mind Abiding No Where - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei

Celebrating The Poetry Of Zen - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei

Encounters with the Stone Woman - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei

Nuts and Bolts of Meditation- Jogen, Sensei