The Berkeley Zen Center Audio Archive

Serial: BZ-03236 The talk completes the Satipatthana Sutta by presenting mindfulness of mind and mental objects as continuous observation of their presence, absence, arising, and cessation. It connects this practice to the five hindrances, five...

Serial: BZ-03234 The talk presents sesshin as practice in meeting each moment without rejecting, pursuing, or interpreting what arises. It applies this non-discriminating attention to thoughts, emotions, and physical pain, emphasizing posture,...

Serial: BZ-03232 The talk presents zazen as a continuous practice of staying present with whatever arises, rather than a means to attain a future state. Through the image of the I Ching’s cauldron, Suzuki Roshi’s account of repetition, and Dōgen’...

Serial: BZ-03230 The talk presents sangha practice as an enactment of generosity in which giver, receiver, and gift are inseparable: participation, service, and mutual support make communal practice possible and transform individual sitting. It...

Serial: BZ-03228 The talk reads Sekitō Kisen’s Sandōkai as a teaching on the interdependence of the relative and absolute: sensory distinctions remain present, yet do not obstruct their underlying unity. Its practical emphasis is to avoid...

Serial: BZ-02997 The lecture reads the Sandōkai’s third set of verses through the interdependence of sensory experience, conceptual discrimination, and emptiness. It argues that practice holds relative and absolute perspectives together: precepts...

Serial: BZ-03308 The talk examines how meditation and Yogācāra accounts of consciousness can be considered alongside the social and historical conditions practitioners bring into the zendo. Drawing on W. E. B. Du Bois’s “double consciousness” and...

Serial: BZ-03276 The talk reads Shitou Xiqian’s Sandōkai as a teaching on the inseparability of difference and equality: neither attachment to individual phenomena nor absorption into sameness constitutes enlightenment. Zazen preserves individual...

Serial: BZ-03226 The talk presents time as the lived reality of impermanence and as a medium of care: time cannot be possessed or saved, but offering it to others is an expression of love. Drawing on Dōgen’s Uji (“Being-Time”), it connects each...

Serial: BZ-03224 Fascism, grieving, and keeping our eyes on the prize. The talk argues that Zen practice entails sustained contact with present realities and preparation for wise, strategic individual and collective action, rather than withdrawal from political crises, grief, or anger. It frames...

Serial: BZ-03222 Zen training extends beyond zazen to dokusan, study, work, and shared forms, each offering a way to observe experience, meet conditioning, and cultivate freedom. Everyday tasks become practice when undertaken with attention and...

Serial: BZ-03220 The talk presents beginner’s mind as sustained attention free from preconceptions, expectations, judgments, and prejudices, rather than a state achieved through practice. It applies this principle to changing Zen forms,...

Serial: BZ-03188 The talk frames taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as a practice of meeting present conditions without being governed by anticipatory fear. Through Dōgen’s Five Ranks, refuge becomes a way to recognize the...

Serial: BZ-03217 The gathering presents remembrance itself as a Zen practice: memories of Ron Nestor emphasize ordinary, sustained care, lay practice, and attention to work without “anything extra.” A central teaching emerges through the kōan “...

Serial: BZ-03215 Talk given by Jiryu Rutschman-Byler honoring Sojun Roshi’s role as coeditor of the new Suzuki Roshi book, Becoming Yourself. Jiryu worked closely with Sojun Roshi and others to bring this project to completion. The talk presents Becoming Yourself as a collection centered on Suzuki Roshi’s teaching that fully being oneself includes everything and expresses the Bodhisattva precepts. It discusses the book’s collaborative editing and argues...

Serial: BZ-03213 The talk presents zazen as repeated, embodied return to posture and breath, cultivating concentration without self-criticism or attachment to thoughts and sensations. It guides a practice based on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta’s sixteen...

Serial: BZ-03211 The talk frames sesshin and sangha as forms of awakening undertaken together: practitioners help one another recognize Buddha nature through shared effort, attention, and care. It also emphasizes balancing commitment with self-...

Serial: BZ-03209 The talk interprets the Lotus Sutra’s chapter 16, “The Lifespan of the Tathāgata,” as presenting Buddha not as a figure bounded by birth and death, but as an ever-present reality manifested in ordinary actions of kindness, wisdom...

Serial: BZ-03207 The talk presents zazen as a bodily act of devotion: sitting without expectation expresses faith in Buddha-nature and supports bodhisattva activity, especially the gift of non-fear. Sesshin provides a communal setting to drop...

Serial: BZ-02995 The class concludes its survey of the Lotus Sutra, chapters 23–28, highlighting devotional practice, compassionate adaptability, and repentance through upright sitting and contemplation of reality. It then frames the sutra as an...

Serial: BZ-03204 The talk examines chapters 17–22 of the Lotus Sutra, emphasizing how chanting, repetition, vivid imagery, and sharing the text function as forms of practice rather than merely as intellectual study. It interprets the sutra’s...

Serial: BZ-02994 A five-week class co-taught by Linda and Greg on the Lotus Sutra during the 2025 practice period. This class is an introduction to the Sutra, emphasizing why it is essential in the Dogen Zen tradition and touching on some of the... The class treats Chapters 12–16 of the Lotus Sutra as affirming universal Buddhahood, including for figures conventionally excluded or condemned, and as presenting awakening through mythic narratives that unsettle fixed...

Serial: BZ-02993 A five-week class co-taught by Linda and Greg on the Lotus Sutra during the 2025 practice period. This class is an introduction to the Sutra, emphasizing why it is essential in the Dogen Zen tradition and touching on some of the... The class reads Lotus Sutra chapters 3–11 through their parables and predictions of Buddhahood, emphasizing the Ekayāna: the three vehicles ultimately lead to one vehicle, and Buddhahood is available to all beings. The burning...

Serial: BZ-02992 A five-week class co-taught by Linda and Greg on the Lotus Sutra during the 2025 practice period. This class is an introduction to the Sutra, emphasizing why it is essential in the Dogen Zen tradition and touching on some of the... The class presents the Lotus Sutra as central to Soto Zen through Dōgen’s writings and liturgy, focusing on chapters 1–2. Its key teachings are the One Vehicle, skillful means, and the claim that Buddhahood is realized...