Attention is our most precious resource. Where our attention goes, our life goes. The cultivation of attention is at the center of Zen practice. This talk points out that this cultivation is extra challenging under the conditions of what social scientists and critics have come to call the ‘attention economy’ and ‘surveillance capitalism.’ We’re not just dealing with the typical entanglement of attention with discursive thinking, we are now also facing algorithms that lead to ‘attention fragmentation’ because they have been carefully designed to maximize our screen time by getting us hooked to keep clicking. While one dimension of practice is to be able to sustain focus (a skill that's relevant for our everyday life and work), in Zen it is essential to discover and stabilize a nonfocused awareness. It is through this 'field of mind' that we can notice and appreciate the 'rich webs of connectedness' (Bernard Stiegler's term) from which both we and the objects of our attention arise.

Bernard Stiegler, Taking Care of Youth and the Generations

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17590

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Zenki Roshi's upcoming course, "Transforming Habits" will explore how we can discontinue dysfunctional habits, and instead, form habits that create a wholesome, nourishing life. The course will be live October 4-November 9, 2024. Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforminghabits

Become a Boulder Zen Center Member and gain access to sliding scale pricing to get up to 60% off on all our courses and events, PLUS you'll support the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings! Learn more about membership here: https://www.boulderzen.org/becomeamember

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk is about habit change from a Buddhist perspective. In one sense, it is a preview of BZC‘s upcoming Practice Course “Transforming Habits” (Oct 4-Nov 9, 2024). However, it also stands on its own. It explores what happens when we bring the question “What would a Buddha do?” to every moment in which we feel a misalignment between our habituated actions and our inmost intentions. What kind of decisional map and directional guidance does our felt sense of what a Buddha is provide for our day-to-day living and our intention to transform dysfunctional habits?

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Zenki Roshi's upcoming course, "Transforming Habits" will explore how we can discontinue dysfunctional habits, and instead, form habits that create a wholesome, nourishing life. The course will be live October 4-November 9, 2024. Learn more here: https://www.boulderzen.org/transforminghabits

Become a Boulder Zen Center Member and gain access to sliding scale pricing to get up to 60% off on all our courses and events, PLUS you'll support the continuation of the Boulder Zen Center and Zenki Roshi’s teachings! Learn more about membership here: https://www.boulderzen.org/becomeamember

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk continues the exploration of how to discover and develop a sense of community. It differentiates between intimacy as undividedness with all beings (the spiritual dimension of community) and intimacy as closeness (the conventional longing for being known and understood by others in our physicality, feelings, and thoughts). Regarding this longing for closeness, the talk examines the typical meditation instruction of LETTING GO of feelings and thoughts. This practice can engender the freedom of non-attachment but can also, when misused, generate spiritual bypassing and a more or less subtle sense of separation and loneliness. To counteract this tendency, the practice can be fruitfully expanded into LETTING feelings and thought COME, letting them BE, and letting them UNFOLD. For the practice of unfolding, the importance of non-conceptual situational knowing (felt sense) is emphasized.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk was given as part of a Weekend Sitting at the Boulder Zen Center. It highlights the distinction between the contents of mind and the field of mind and its importance for practice. Dogen encouraged his students "to be continuously intimate with the field of mind." The talk presents two attentional practices to discover and establish oneself in the field of mind: (1) "To pause for the particular," a version of mindfulness practice that emphasizes the creation of a dharmic pulse within one's perceptual process, and (2) "to pause for the pause," which invites the stillness of the field to come to the foreground. Perceiving sensorial contents within the context of the field trains the mind in non-attachment and non-identification. Based on these practices, the talk suggests to view Zen rituals as a succession of still points and action, ultimately fostering an embodied integration of stillness and activity.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This is a special conversational episode. Christian (Zenki Roshi) is interviewed by Dr. Greg Madison, a British psychologist and psychotherapist. More than usual, Christian connects the concepts and practices he teaches with his own biographical journey. In the beginning, the conversation centers around Christian's encounter of and interest in Gene Gendlin's philosophy and his psychotherapeutic method and social practice called Focusing. One of Gendlin's core concepts is 'Felt Sense," which plays a prominent role in Christian's life story and approach to Zen. Greg and Christian explore the differences and commonalities between Focusing practice and Zen (or spiritual practice in general). An ongoing theme throughout the conversation is the nature of the self and the importance of the personal, a dimension that Buddhism is prone to bypass when emphasizing the idea of non-self. Other topics are: authenticity, metal posture, Buddhism as transformative phenomenology, ritual as mutual embodiment practice, study of attention (focus and field), the spiritual dimension, the antidotal nature of teachings, and the personal as an expression of the whole.

This interview was originally published on Greg Madison's podcast, The Living Process with Greg Madison.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk explores the experience of loneliness and the practice and views we might want to adopt to foster a sense of community: (1) share space instead of expecting to share beliefs or interests, (2) prioritize doing things together over talking, (3) practice mutual embodiment (notice how we interaffect each other in our sensations and movements). Along the way, the talk highlights reductionism and psychologism (body-mind dualism) as errors of Western culture and suggests ways to understand and employ situational knowing. Community arises when we allow our personal situation to be embedded in common situations.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This episode was first published in February 2022. We are republishing this episode because in it, Zenki Roshi addresses the most common questions asked by beginners and the issue of discomfort sometimes experienced by practitioners of all levels during zazen.

What exactly are we doing in zazen meditation? What kind of effort is necessary? This talk addresses the shift we are inviting when we sit still, and it explores three zazen instructions and how they are interrelated: (1) just sit, (2) think not-thinking, and (3) counting the breath.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.

This talk is the first of seven Sesshin talks. (A Sesshin is a 7-day Zen meditation intensive.) It starts with the question, 'What does it mean to love?' The word 'love' carries all kind of baggage. So much so that in American Zen it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of currency. Yet, we're all longing for the spiritual dimension of love. This wide-ranging talk explores the connections between love and unconditional acceptance, saying yes to life, sweetness, straightforwardness, meaning, self-improvement, buddha, big mind, warm-heartedness—and how all of that can only be practiced and embodied in this very moment now.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Love the dharma talks and want to hear more? Become a Premium Podcast subscriber. Dive deeper into the topics through Q&A sessions related to each of the talks. You can even ask questions of your own through the 'Ask Me Anything' platform and gain access to previously unpublished talks from intensives. Learn more here: https://zenmind.supercast.com/

Zenki Roshi's book, THE PATH OF ALIVENESS is now available in both hardcopy and audiobook formats! We appreciate you leaving a rating on Amazon, and if you have time, a review is even better!

Join us live for our Saturday Dharma talks, in person or online.

See all events and join our mailing list at www.boulderzen.org. Email us at office@boulderzen.org or give us a call: (303) 442–3007.

If you're enjoying these talks, please subscribe and leave us a rating or review!

Zenki Christian Dillo Roshi is the the guiding teacher at the Boulder Zen Center in Colorado, USA. This podcast shares the regular dharma talks given at the center. Zenki Roshi approaches Zen practice as a craft of transformation, liberation, wisdom and compassionate action. His interest is to bring Buddhism alive within the Western cultural context, while staying committed to the traditional emphasis on embodiment.