Handcrafted Zen

23 The Joy of Zen (Sept 2019)

October 30, 2019 14:15 - 20 minutes - 22.6 MB

What does Zen practice do, how does it work? Why does joy often show up, even in the midst of darkness. What do you do when demons show up in an SUV and ask you to ride with them?

22 Sugar Sugar (June 2019)

July 26, 2019 01:09 - 19 minutes - 19.5 MB

What happens when you mix an ancient Zen koan with a pop song? Sweetness and the way into Zen. "Sugar, Sugar, Honey, Honey, The wonder of this feeling, I just can't believe its true" A dharma talk by By Guy Gaudry, Roshi

21 Love Yourself Then Forget It (June 2019)

June 15, 2019 13:40 - 15 minutes - 29.7 MB

A short riff on lines from the poet Mary Oliver and the famous Zen master Dogen. How do we actually love ourselves - and what happens when we do? By Guy Gaudry, Roshi

20 A Tree Older Than The Forest It Stands In (May 2019)

June 15, 2019 13:37 - 12 minutes - 25.2 MB

A koan often takes us to a personal and ancient place and offers a gift. It’s a kind gift that shows us how to move in a way that is closer and truer to our heart. By Guy Gaudry, Roshi

19 Spiritual Friendship (Guy Gaudry, Roshi, March 2019)

May 04, 2019 23:29 - 18 minutes - 8.75 MB

Kalyanamitta, the friendship between a teacher and student, can be a catalyst for awakening. It also requires work, warmth, elasticity, authenticity, and openness - like any great friend friendship.

18 We Get To Be Changed (Guy Gaudry, Roshi, April 2019)

April 19, 2019 23:40 - 27 minutes - 62.3 MB

A Dharma talk on quote by Jorie Graham (an America Poet) "we long to be pure, what we get is to be changed". This is one of the discoveries of Zen practice, it's a discovery that can be unsettling at first but is ultimately grounding.

17 Stillness and warmth. (Guy Gaudry Roshi, March 2018)

October 03, 2018 20:27 - 11 minutes - 27.2 MB

Is there more to zen practice than the stillness and warmth that comes from deep Zen meditation. Yes, there is! It's more about connection and intimacy; intimacy changes the way we respond to each other, to animals, to the environment, to the world.

16 Working With A Teacher (Guy Gaudry Roshi, 26 February 2018)

May 06, 2018 17:25 - 24 minutes - 56.8 MB

How do we work with a Zen teacher? This is not talked about a lot and the whole process can feel mysterious and full of potholes. Working with a teacher is how Zen is transmitted across the centuries and verified. It's an incredibly intimate and tangled process - and completely rewarding. What does it look like, how do we make it work?

15 Responding Well (Guy Gaudry Roshi, 13 February 2018)

May 06, 2018 17:24 - 11 minutes - 25.7 MB

A short riff inspired by the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. Are we practicing to reach some sort of enlightenment state, or are we practicing so we can respond well to the world. And, are these two different things?

14 Beneath A Shadowless Tree (Guy Gaudry Roshi, 5 February 2018)

May 01, 2018 20:37 - 11 minutes - 26.5 MB

Beneath a shadowless tree, a ferry boat. ~ zen verse A shadowless tree is metaphor for reality and that reality is unique to each of us. Our own life, our own edges, is a shadowless tree. So this is where our work is, and it's where we find the way to connection (the ferryboat).

13 A River Runs Through It (Guy Gaudry Roshi, 29 January 2018)

April 24, 2018 22:30 - 6 minutes - 15.4 MB

A very short talk on the connecting and grounding power of practicing zazen(zen meditation)in a community, using fly fishing and a river as a metaphor.

12 Discovering Not Creating (Guy Gaudry Roshi, 22 January 2018)

April 24, 2018 22:28 - 20 minutes - 46.4 MB

The way lies before us, we don't need to create it(nor can we). So we can relax and just start walking. It's available to us all, it doesn't matter if we are a round peg or a square peg, the way fits us perfectly. In this work we discover many things, one of the most comforting is that this path is full of mistakes, thousands of mistakes, and that's OK. It's not about being perfect, it's about walking, and when we do that, we step into an unexpected happiness.

11 Awareness to engagement (Guy Gaudry Roshi, 18 January 2018)

April 24, 2018 22:27 - 3 minutes - 8.51 MB

There's no end point to practice. After awareness comes engagement.

10 Fall Sesshin: Working with fear. (Guy Gaudry Roshi, November 2017)

December 14, 2017 14:06 - 35 minutes - 80.9 MB

A talk about working in fear and darkness, especially as it arises in zen(spiritual) practice, and how this fear is a step and guide towards awakening.

09 Fall Sesshin: "If It Be Your Will" (Guy Gaudry Roshi, November 2017)

December 06, 2017 03:22 - 18 minutes - 41.8 MB

How do we move forward in our practice? This is an age old question in Zen, it often becomes pressing for us in a Zen meditation intensive (sesshin). This talk explores one way to move forward using a verse from the Leonard Cohen song "If It Be Your Will" and the koan “step by step in the dark, if my foot is not wet, I’ve found the stone”. This talk was presented on the third night of a five day sesshin.

08 Bend And You Will Be Whole (Guy Gaudry Roshi, October 2017)

October 31, 2017 15:57 - 9 minutes - 21.6 MB

Bend and you will be whole. Curl and you will be straight. Keep empty and you will be filled. Grow old and you will be renewed. ~Tao Te Ching

07 Feeling Our Way In (Guy Gaudry Roshi, October 2017)

October 26, 2017 21:29 - 11 minutes - 27.1 MB

After a while our meditation moves beyond calming our mind and then we move forward by feeling.

06 Suchness (Guy Gaudry Roshi, October 2013)

October 06, 2017 15:23 - 14 minutes - 33.1 MB

“The teaching of suchness is intimately transmitted by buddhas and ancestors; Now you have it; preserve it well.” ~ Dongshan, The Jewel Mirror Samadhi Suchness is a key concept of Zen and Mahayana Buddhism in general. What does it actually look and feel like? Here's one example.

Episodes