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PODCAST

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World

Zen Buddhist teachings point to a profound view of reality--one of deep interconnection and non-separation. Awakening is a word used to describe the freedom, creativity and love of our original nature. This podcast explores the profound liberating teachings of Zen Buddhism at the intersection of dreamwork and the soul. The intention is to offer a view of awakening that explores our deep interconnection with the living world and the cosmos as well as to invite a re-imagining of what human life and

religion & spirituality buddhism

All Episodes

40:03

One Hundred Demons Night Parade

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/10/31

I am currently spending some time with this beautiful teaching poem, Affirming Faith in Mind as part of Autumn Ango through ZCO. As I was reading it this week, I thought about how would I summarize this teaching in one sentence. I came up with:Everything’s Included on the Path!Everything is included. Maybe it seems too simple, too obvious. And yet, how often are we looking outside of our experience for satisfaction, the answer, some-thing-else. How could it be that our doubt, fear, the wars and

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30:55

The Bright Dark

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/10/24

Deep Autumn Greetings Fellow Travelers of the Way!As autumn becomes us, I have been contemplating darkness and the creaturely way my body seems to respond to the cold-dark. Maybe you too feel a little more intimate with the night and the dark creature of the body at this time of year. Sometimes I feel, and I know others feel, that we are living in dark times—and whether this feels true for you—I think we all know something about the dark. Whether its as the seasonal darkening of autumn, energetic

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37:39

Playing in Polarizations

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/09/13

Polarization & PlayPolarization (def)—division into two sharply contrasting groups, sets of opinions or beliefs. When we stop seeing similarity or what is shared, but only see difference. When difference becomes a threat.Play (def)— to engage in something for enjoyment or for sport. Be cooperative. Try something out.I want to say, we are living in a polarized time. But I find myself questioning each word. I look for polarization and find it in my social media feed, in the news, in my own inner

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39:32

Heart Mirror Gazing

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/09/07

Greetings Friends,I have a deep love and appreciation for the wonderment and creativity of this life. It’s un-pin-down-able, slippery, un-define-able—like a water color painting that continuously repaints itself.One story from the Zen tradition that has always helped me stay awake to amazement and in courtship with the great mystery is the Zen Mirror of Tokeiji.A partial-telling of which can be found in Case 34 of the Hidden Lamp.The convent of Tokeiji had a great mirror. The founding abbess,

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25:43

Transmissions from the Crescent Moon

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/08/29

Hello Good Friends,It’s late summer and I can feel the seasonal shift. Here in the northern states the Earth is darkening earlier and staying dark later, its cooler too. The humidity has dropped and the insects have grown quieter in my central ohio village. The tomatoes, peaches, corn, and zucchini are in abundance, the pawpaws are ripening and chicken-of-the-woods are blazing orange on fallen logs. We even found some huitlacoche! What seasonal shifts are happening where you are?What are you

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8:39

Like a Mountain

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/08/23

Greetings Friends,I am returning from 10 days of monastic practice at my former home, Great Vow Zen Monastery. While I was there I had the opportunity to celebrate my teacher Chozen Bays Roshi’s 80th birthday, to practice and lead the annual outdoor sesshin that we call Grasses, Trees and the Great Earth Sesshin and to facilitate a precepts ceremony. I love monastic practice. I love merging with the great activity of awakening. I love the depth of practice that opens up when we sustain the gaze on

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30:29

Remember Being A Flower?

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/08/09

Being FlowerOn Monday night during meditation we sat together as a community of flowers. Sun flower, daisy, rose, violet, marigold, milkweed, celosia, echinacea, blue vervain, poppy, queen anne’s lace, crocosmia, zinnia.We were studying the koan Case 19 from the Hidden Lamp, Flowers in the Buddha Hall.The nuns of Tokeiji were famous for their beautiful elaborate flower decorations on Buddha’s Birthday. Zen Teacher Yodo, the abbess wrote a verse for the occasion:Decorate the heart of the beholder,for

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34:33

The Shape of Faith

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/08/03

This life is mysterious.I often marvel at how there is so much more that we don’t know then that we do. Walk into a forest or a city.Even if I knew every being in the forest by name.Will I ever be able to comprehend the relationships between them?The relationships between the cells in my own body?Even the mystery of what a tree is, this tree—the sycamore standingright here, at the entrance to the park.I can stand in her regal presence.I can feel together for a momentthe majesty of being rooted—And

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34:02

A Wild Love for the World

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/07/26

Greetings Friends,Here we are in the heart of summer. I am writing this a week after the passing of beloved eco-dharma elder Joanna Macy. We are also in the middle of our summer read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women. The koan story that we explored this week was Case 13: Chen’s Mountain Flowers and the commentary happens to be written by Joanna Macy. So I want to take the time in this post as well as the dharma talk audio to appreciate Joanna Macy’s life, work and practice through

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35:15

Hearing the Sounds of the World

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/07/18

Greetings Friends,As we move through our Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women this week we focused on Case 10: Asan’s Rooster. The koan is one of devotion, deep listening and awakening to our true undivided nature.Here’s the case.Asan was a lay woman who studied Zen with Master Tetsumon and was unremitting in her devotion to practice. One day during her morning sitting she heard the crow of the rooster and her mind suddenly opened. She spoke a verse in

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32:31

One-what is that?

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/07/11

Greetings Friends,I am just getting back from our Interdependence Sesshin— five-days of residential silent retreat practice in the hills of West Virginia with the Mud Lotus Sangha. It was moving for me to practice sesshin in a new environment with many people who it was their first longer retreat.Sesshin is healing, no matter what the theme, it transforms us to sit and live in silence together, to practice opening the senses and seeing into our nature. It’s a non-linear practice that awakens faith,

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31:22

Life as Pilgrimage

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/06/28

Greetings Friends,We began the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp: 25 Centuries of Awakened Women with the first koan—The Old Woman of Wutai, a story about the spiritual path, pilgrimage and life direction that features crone wisdom. If you are interested in joining the summer read, more information and reading schedule can be found here.In this email I would like to share the koan and some reflections about life as pilgrimage. I would also love to create space for your own reflections and engagement

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43:03

Meeting Fear with Love and Understanding

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/06/20

Happy Summer Solstice!I feel deep gratitude to be on this path of friendship, communion and inquiry with you. The path of dharma is a path of truth, of getting closer to the actuality of our lives—to the heart of what is right here.In this journey of the heart there are so many encounters, so many opportunities for reflection, so many relationships, learnings, emotions, sensations. Fear is a natural part of the human experience. It is often connected to a sense of not feeling safe or

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32:26

Love: one-hundred-thousand times

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/06/15

I have been reflecting on the nature of practice-awakening. In the Buddhist tradition this refers to the process (both sudden and gradual) of realizing our fundamental wellbeing. This is a transformational practice. This is a healing practice. And it is mysterious. It doesn’t happen in the way that we expect.Insights happen, and then are forgotten. Love is awakened and then seemingly covered over. Only to be rediscovered again. We can read the same teaching years later and feel like it opens a new

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37:58

The Failure is Wonderful Indeed

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/06/06

One can, the other cannotBoth are freeA god mask, a demon maskThe failure is wonderful indeed —Mumon’s poemIf I reflect back on my life, it is possible to see a series of failures, mistakes, broken dreams and incomplete projects. Relationships that I probably should have left before they ended, others that I probably shouldn’t have even pursued, still others that I could have worked harder to repair.One Zen teacher said at the end of their life—one continuous mistake.Ever feel this way?From one

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38:33

Getting Unstuck

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/05/30

I have been contemplating being stuck. You know that feeling that something else should be happening. Something more, or different, or better. The sense that whatever is happening is somehow wrong, or bad, or amiss in some way.The sense of being stuck can even manifest as an over-identification with the hope for growth or healing in a particular area of life.I want to share a koan from the mumonkan. It’s an old buddhist folktale, that offers some playfulness and insight to this dynamic of being

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28:41

Meeting the Ancestors

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/05/25

Greetings Friends,I am returning from a 10-day stay at my former home—Great Vow Zen Monastery. While I was there I had the opportunity to co-lead a sesshin (weeklong silent meditation retreat). The sesshin’s theme was The Light of the Ancestors.Yunmen said to the assembly of practitioners, “Everyone has a light. When you look for it, its dark, dark, hidden. What is this light that everyone has?”What is this light that everyone has?I find this to be a wonderful question. One I carry around with me,

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14:17

Conversations in a Dream

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/05/01

Are you dreaming? How is your experience, like a dream?In one sense, the words you are reading, the sounds you are hearing, the thoughts racing through your mind and the ones seeming to linger in the background, the worries, and any other emotion that you might be experiencing, including experience itself—all are un-pin-down-able, you can not grasp them, you can not even find a single unchanging sensation that you can call yourself.All appearance is as ephemeral as a dream.In Zen practice we are

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36:17

Dream as Medicine, Dream as Love

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/04/20

Dream as Analogy for RealityThis world is psychoactive. So much so that we don’t even realize how are fundamental beliefs and unquestioned assumptions shape our sense of who we are and what the world is.One of those assumptions is the referent to this simple, and often thought/spoken phrase I am.Its innocuous, we think it constantly. I am hungry, I am tired, I am sad, I am lonely, I am scared, etc.When we say “I am” —this thought or sensation goes unquestioned, and so we build our life or our sense

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39:46

What's Real?

Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World ·

2025/04/11

What is real? What is true?These questions are fundamental to the spiritual path, to the path of awakening.There is much confusion in our world right now. Blatant lies or mis-truths are being thrown around about immigrants rights, dei, trans and queer people, how the economy works, science, climate change, you name it…The question of what is real in a spiritual sense invites us to look into the basic assumptions we make about the nature of reality. This is relevant in our considerations of the real

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