SokukoJi Buddhist Temple Monastery
913 episodes - English - Latest episode: 17 days ago - ★★★★★ - 19 ratingsA Sōtō Zen Buddhist Temple. Visit: SokukoJi.org
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Episodes
Awareness, Hoarding, Conclusions - 05.31.20 By Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 30, 2020 00:00Anytime you have a conclusion, it is just another form of grasping and in its extreme, is greed for something else. Anytime you conclude anything, based on your hope and fear and desire for something else, you actually shut down on your buddha-nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8jaBXCBly8&t=93s
Awareness, Hoarding, Conclusions - 05-31-20 By Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 29, 2020 00:00Anytime you have a conclusion, it is just another form of grasping and in its extreme, is greed for something else. Anytime you conclude anything, based on your hope and fear and desire for something else, you actually shut down on your buddha-nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8jaBXCBly8&t=93s
Mountains And Rivers - 05.30.20 By Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 28, 2020 00:00During the morning session of this last Saturday of the month meditation retreat online, Sokuzan responds to questions from students in the format called “Mountains and Rivers”, especially about awareness practice with the Covid 19 pandemic and the riots after the killing of George Floyd earlier this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D83piTff7HU
Awareness, Hoarding, Conclusions - 05-31-20 by Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 28, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MBAnytime you have a conclusion, it is just another form of grasping and in its extreme, is greed for something else. Anytime you conclude anything, based on your hope and fear and desire for something else, you actually shut down on your buddha-nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8jaBXCBly8&t=93s
When People Demand - 05.30.20 By Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 28, 2020 00:00When things go crazy or go awry, what do you do when people want you to do what they’re doing in response? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUoX5TmvX2A
Mountains And Rivers - 05-30-20 By Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 27, 2020 00:00During the morning session of this last Saturday of the month meditation retreat online, Sokuzan responds to questions from students in the format called “Mountains and Rivers”, especially about awareness practice with the Covid 19 pandemic and the riots after the killing of George Floyd earlier this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D83piTff7HU
When People Demand - 05-30-20 By Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 27, 2020 00:00When things go crazy or go awry, what do you do when people want you to do what they’re doing in response? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUoX5TmvX2A
When People Demand - 05-30-20 by Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 26, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 58.9 MBWhen things go crazy or go awry, what do you do when people want you to do what they’re doing in response? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUoX5TmvX2A
Mountains And Rivers - 05-30-20 by Sokuzan - SokukoJi.org
May 26, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 59.5 MBDuring the morning session of this last Saturday of the month meditation retreat online, Sokuzan responds to questions from students in the format called “Mountains and Rivers”, especially about awareness practice with the Covid 19 pandemic and the riots after the killing of George Floyd earlier this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D83piTff7HU
Dealing with Feelings - 5-24-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 24, 2020 00:00There’s so many levels of feelings and nerve endings and there’s so much pain. We’re not condemned to being at the sharp end of the stick, necessarily. We could work with it in a way that we have as little arm wrestling as possible, as little objection or warfare as possible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epCFMiymWOI&t=47s
Dealing with Feelings - 5-24-20 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 23, 2020 00:00 - 54 minutes - 45.5 MBThere’s so many levels of feelings and nerve endings and there’s so much pain. We’re not condemned to being at the sharp end of the stick, necessarily. We could work with it in a way that we have as little arm wrestling as possible, as little objection or warfare as possible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epCFMiymWOI&t=47s
Spiritual Distancing - 5-20-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 20, 2020 00:00 - 47 minutes - 41.4 MBDistance yourself from everything and face the wall. It could be your daily practice, a weekend retreat, or month-long solitary retreat. Distance yourself from all the distractions without going to war with them. Distance yourself from the various authorities and various morays in society. Not rejecting them, but just step back a little-ways and just watch the nature of your mind that continues to make things more difficult for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf5dEZa6cbU
The Three Own Beings - 5-17-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 17, 2020 00:00 - 52 minutes - 42.4 MBThe Three Own Beings, or “Trisvabhavanirdesa” in Sanskrit, is a conceptual teaching to help us look more deeply into the nature of relative and ultimate truth. It is deliberately constructed in such a way that by bringing The Three Own Beings to the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpVodDOAGLMconceptual mind, the little oligarch we call the ego that’s thinking, thinking, thinking, the understanding will not show up as conventional understanding.
Less Is Best - 5-13-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 13, 2020 00:00 - 44 minutes - 38.2 MBThe idea is a minimalist approach to everything, even the sitting practice of meditation called shikantaza as it instructed by Sokuzan: “Sit down, hold still and watch what moves”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBLN3SH2m-c
More Halfway Measures - 5-6-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 06, 2020 00:00 - 48 minutes - 42.4 MB“Half way measures” is primarily a device post meditation device that Sokuzan teaches for extending the awareness in areas that it won’t naturally go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih2PSof3Kd8&t=4s
Complain Once - 5-3-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
May 03, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.8 MBOf course, you can complain a lot if you want. “Complain once” is just an idea you can contemplate. Reflect on it. The reflection may go a lot deeper if you have a strong awareness practice which is sitting down, holding, still, and watching the movement of the mind. If you don’t do this, you will believe your thoughts. You will believe your emotions. It is not that they’re not there, it’s just that they are not true. They are relatively true but ultimately not true. If you don’t understan...
Action Flood - 4-29-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 29, 2020 00:00 - 43 minutes - 37.4 MBIn some sense your life shows up around your karma. That is, everything is arising in your mind. The reason here for talking in riddles or backward logic is to encourage you to relax a little bit. Release your grip. Have a little bit of a sense of humor around that very, very serious part of the mind that wants something else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQXaycXPCD4&t=1s
How Questions Work - 4-26-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 26, 2020 00:00 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MB“What” questions. It’s an interesting area. What is this? What am I? What are you? Ask and don’t settle. The why question can be helpful and sometimes that’s the only question that works, but the “why?” gives you a “because.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTGmpLqcp1A
Earth Day Mountains and Rivers - 4-22-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 22, 2020 00:00 - 53 minutes - 47.2 MBSokuzan responds to these and other questions from students about their meditation practice: What’s the difference between intuition and feelings? How can we examine an area where shame shows up when it feels very painful? What is it that is aware? How can we relax in the seemingly hard-wired grip of self-reference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGsVsCtQ_68&t=1s
Emotional Lockdown - 4-19-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 19, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBYou are not going to be able to help people if you overcome your emotional difficulty as some kind of person who is better than the rest of humanity that is suffering intensely through passion, aggression and ignorance. You don’t need to keep it either. Just be aware of it so that that which is aware is beginning to transcend the physical attachment and the lockdown on emotions. You need that intense negativity in order to save all beings! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCC1DDJcMmo&t=1s
Endless Mountains and Rivers - 4-15-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 15, 2020 00:00 - 40 minutes - 35.5 MBSokuzan responds to questions about meditation practice from an online audience as sangha gathers virtually during the Covid 19 pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Vf2qizmv0
Easter Mountains and Rivers - 4-12-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 12, 2020 00:00 - 53 minutes - 46.7 MBSokuzan responds to questions about meditation and spiritual practice on this Easter Sunday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axY8D2NWIiI&t=2s
Freedom From Extremes - 4-8-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 08, 2020 00:00 - 42 minutes - 36.6 MBThis title is inspired by the King of Samadhi Sutra (Samadhi Raja Sutra). These words are attributed to the Buddha: “Existence and non-existence are both extremes. Pure and Impure are the same. Therefore, abandoning all extremes, the wise do not even abide in the middle.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgme4pDSTp0
What Resonates - 4-5-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 05, 2020 00:00 - 48 minutes - 42.4 MBThis happens and it’s ignored but that happens and it resonates. Some kind of connection. Is this dependent origination? Is this pratityasamutpada? If not, then what is it when this happens, that occurs? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oksPiIbXQY
Interrupting Confusion - 4-1-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
April 01, 2020 00:00 - 43 minutes - 38.4 MBhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g4y2m7DO5E&t=1s
Grasping - 3-29-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 29, 2020 00:00 - 43 minutes - 38.7 MBSokuzan talks about grasping or “upadana” in Sanskrit. It is the ninth link on the chain of dependent origination or “pratityasamutpada”. It is a way of talking about what happens in consciousness that causes us to continue to confuse ourselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28_L1MQ6C3c
When Concepts Float - 3-25-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 25, 2020 00:00 - 42 minutes - 37.6 MBSokuzan uses this metaphor to talk about relating to conceptual mind, observing practice forms and discipline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhTS6tpUyFs&t=1s
Feeling - 3-22-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 22, 2020 00:00 - 45 minutes - 39.1 MBSokuzan talks about contact and feeling, two of the twelve links on the chain of dependent origination. This is an area of the consciousness where we have a little bit of say so about it. And that say so may come in the form of the way in which you’re aware of the texture, quality, intensity and heat of the feeling. You might not know this, you might not think this, you might not even agree with this: When we feel something, immediately we tend to do something with it. To just feel somethin...
Pathogenesis of Delusion - 3-18-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 18, 2020 00:00 - 44 minutes - 38 MBAs we look at the coronavirus, you might find the contamination in your own mind that is actually trying to take over your own awareness by filling it with fear and filling it with hope. Just observe that. Who you actually are can’t lose. It’s not saying that the body-mind can’t be taken down by this virus. I invite you to go in and look at your mind with the practice of meditation and see the aspects of the mind that have a contamination to them. What is that contamination? Hope and fear...
Friendliness Training - 3-15-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 15, 2020 00:00 - 42 minutes - 38.3 MBFriendliness. If you’re on this path, you’re probably working at that, trying to be more friendly to others. You might want to look in another direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHPTARwDEUk&t=29s
The Ignored Frontier - 3-11-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 11, 2020 00:00 - 40 minutes - 36.5 MBhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlZ7HjPFVrs&t=1s
When Knowledge Is Ignorance - 3-8-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 08, 2020 00:00 - 51 minutes - 44.2 MBThe best way of knowing is not knowing. You’re going to find this out of you stay with it, you’re going to find out what knowledge actually is. It’s quite humorous. It’s quite humorous the way we attach to information, we see it everywhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bnGNvJq-b0&t=1s
Non-Tracking Awareness - 3-4-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 04, 2020 00:00 - 42 minutes - 36.3 MBYou may have to actually see the way the mind keeps tracking everything in order to get very familiar with the way we keep abandoning what is for something else, on and on. The feeling, the sense, the understanding that nothing is separate doesn’t mean that you have some kind of “woo-woo” feeling about it. You may not have any feeling about it. It may not have that kind of dimension for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHwEbWehUQ
Radical Meditation - 3-1-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
March 01, 2020 00:00 - 48 minutes - 52.2 MBWith all the different kinds of meditation there are, how do we go to the root of our situation? Train your mind! How do you do that? See the way your mind is untrained. It is not comfortable. Radical meditation. The way radical may look for any one of you could be quite a bit different. The attitude should be the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cko-T81_jY
Don't Adjust - 2-29-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 29, 2020 00:00 - 56 minutes - 48.5 MBAre you actually receiving what comes in or are you adjusting? Get the whole picture as it shows up. Watch very closely. Don’t jump ahead analysis, presumptions, anticipations, elaborations or screenplays. You can occupy yourself with all kinds of things as your life slowly goes back into the elements. It’s called impermanence and the fruition of that is, of course, death. It is not pessimistic it is just true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxg-pyM-KtQ
Addiction Awareness Meditation Talk 2 - 2-26-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 26, 2020 00:00 - 44 minutes - 38.7 MBThere probably isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t have some kind of addictive behavior going on. That may happen on lots of different levels. One of the levels it happens on is addictive thinking and anybody may say “Well what’s wrong with thinking about stuff?” But the circularity of wanting this and not wanting that, the little tiny skirmishes in the consciousness that are usually submerged is addiction to negative thinking, sometimes it’s called depression. In the practice of meditati...
How Can I Help You - 2-23-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 23, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBHow can I help you? Some people are not ready to be here. This is not a mundane path. This is the spiritual path of seeing what this is fundamentally. My intense motivation is to help people but not to interfere with them. I am here to say: “Don’t believe your thoughts, don’t disbelieve your thoughts, and don’t turn away from your thoughts or try not to think.” How do you do that? Sit down, shut up and watch what keeps talking. And what will that be? Find out. https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Addiction Awareness Meditation Talk 1 - 2-19-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 19, 2020 00:00 - 50 minutes - 44.1 MBSokuzan has taught addiction awareness meditation. in drug recovery situations for a number of years and has trained his students to so the same. The value of simple awareness practice, whether or not one has a spiritual path, is that it allows the consciousness or the awareness to change gears a little bit so one is not quite so magnetized by the emotions and the thought process. If emotions and thought processes get a hold of you, that difficult enough, but if they have a hold of you wi...
Bandits of Wisdom - 2-16-2020 - By Sokuzan
February 16, 2020 00:00 - 36 minutes - 30.3 MBEveryone has wisdom. What captures your wisdom are the bandits of hope and fear: hope for something better and fear of something else. It is not that there shouldn’t be a little of that happening, but we tend to overdose on it. We tend to fill up our life with wanting something else. This means that that mind which sees very clearly what is happening this present moment, your fundamental natural insight, is compromised. Whole societies tend to function under that hinderance. https://www.you...
Body Hurts, Mind Suffers - 2-15-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 15, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 54.3 MBBody hurts, mind suffers. Life is painful. Life is difficult. It’s just the truth. if you want to know what your life is about, receive what is coming your way. The suffering is extra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OIe-E5K6uk&t=1s
Receiving Precepts - 2-15-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 15, 2020 00:00 - 24 MBSokuzan gives a dharma talk after three jukai ceremonies during which students receive the sixteen precepts in the Soto Zen tradition of Buddhism and responds to questions from students and their families. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S984UbBIbac&t=1s
Receiving Precepts - 2-15-20 by Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 14, 2020 00:00 - 30 minutes - 24 MBSokuzan gives a dharma talk after three jukai ceremonies during which students receive the sixteen precepts in the Soto Zen tradition of Buddhism and responds to questions from students and their families. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S984UbBIbac&t=1s
The True Nature - 2-12-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 12, 2020 00:00 - 48 minutes - 56.5 MBhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DofNJTdTmwM
Minimal Meditation - 2-9-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 09, 2020 00:00 - 49 minutes - 41.7 MBMinimize everything you can without struggle. Sit down. Hold still. Just be aware of the body. Look at the wall, look at the floor. Look at your thought patterns. It’s that simple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD_d5yWLo7g&t=1s
Mind Ghosts - 2-5-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 05, 2020 00:00 - 51 minutes - 44 MBAnything that haunts you, anything that keeps showing up and giving you a hard time, different aspects of consciousness or apparitions that are difficult to describe or identify, you could call these “mind ghosts”. It may show up as entities or apparent other consciousnesses. The levels of consciousness are unfathomable. If you can, don’t do anything with it. Don’t ignore it, don’t add onto it some description of what it is. If you make up your mind ahead of time about what it is, then when...
Either Or - 2-2-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
February 02, 2020 00:00 - 49 minutes - 39.6 MBIf we become nauseated with samsara, if it gets tiring to continually have some kind of difficulty, or if we don’t know what to do and who to trust, we may find ourselves looking at our lives through this particular lens of meditation, trying to see “What is this? Is there something I could do? Could I actually turn my life around or begin to have a deeper understanding of this?” Sit down and just watch what the mind does. Just observe. If you practice in this way, I can guarantee you this: ...
Without Status - 1-26-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
January 26, 2020 00:00 - 45 minutes - 40.1 MBYou don’t need a position. You can walk from your house to your car or you can go to your job without being somebody who’s doing something. Something can come up without attaching any idea or interpretation or concept or naming. How do you learn to do that? You sit down and watch the way you keep grasping at status. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekqd3mhnGZQ
Triggered Responses - 1-25-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
January 25, 2020 00:00 - 54 minutes - 46 MBYou’re doing fine then somebody does something or a situation happens that triggers something in your feelings or in your gut. Sometimes we have no description of what it is, it just feels negative. Then the tendency is rather than staying with that we want to put the blame onto something else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2stxn93S8qA
Production Compulsion - 1-22-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
January 22, 2020 00:00 - 50 minutes - 43.5 MBhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ofpAdZ-i4c
Perception Impulse - 1-19-2020 - By Sokuzan - Sokukoji.org
January 19, 2020 00:00 - 46 minutes - 40.5 MBOf the five skandhas, the third is sometimes called “perception-impulse”. It could also be described as “receiving-producing”. It is a conceptual dynamic to help us understand who this is and what the fundamental situation is instead of the ongoing propaganda about ourselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7hOvN__fV0