Ordinary Zen Sangha - Dharma Talks: Recent Episodes
Will Rauschenberger
Dharma Talks at the Ordinary Zen Sangha, a Zen Meditation Practice Center located in Sarasota, Florida. Ordinary Zen Sangha Inc. is a non-profit corporation with 501 (c) (3) status as a public charity. Please help us if you can. We welcome financial donations of any size, at any time. Our programs and events are only made possible by donations from our supporting members. Your contributions are tax-deductible.
Thank you for listening,
Will Rauschenberger, Abbot
The audio clip from “The Sutra of Hui Neng” in this Dharma Talk was taken from “The Diamond Sutra, The Heart Sutra, The Sutra of Hui Neng: Three Key Prajna Paramita Texts from the Zen Tradition”, available as an Audiobook on Audible. It is also available in Print on Amazon.
The Six Paramitas (Generosity, Morality, Patience, Diligence, Meditation, and Wisdom) are the actualization of Right Action.
Can you have different emotional states and be calm at the same time? Dharma Talk by Sangha member, Serena Olsen.
What are the aspects of our practice that deal with difficulty? They are: Don’t Know, Don’t Make, and How can I help?
When you are identified with the dream, you don’t know you are dreaming. If you are not identified with the dream, you know you are dreaming.
Our attachments...
Zen is a direct experience, it is not some ideology or escape from reality.
To practice patience is the ability to endure, and to have forbearance. It is integral to living; without it, we
cannot accomplish anything.
The Dharma talk from Sunday 10/2/2022, 4 days after Hurricane Ian. It included a reading from A Bird in Flight Leaves No Trace: The Zen Teaching of Huangbo.
The crisis of humanity, exclusiveness or inclusiveness.
Duality, and Non-Duality.
Hungry Ghosts and Abundance.
Fran Kaplan shares her retreat experience at the Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry in upstate New York.
All Day Retreat in Nature, Join Ordinary Zen Sangha for our all-day retreat at Myakka River State Park,Saturday, November 19, 2022!
- The gateless gate is your own mind, there is no other.
- How to be free in this moment.
- What does a good teacher do?
The thief in the weeds is finally subdued.
Podcasts of the Dharma Talks at OZS are made possible by listeners like you!
“Verses of the Mind King” is attributed to Fu Dashi (a famous Chinese sixth-century Lay Buddhist). The poem, having referred to the Mind King, who, for all his importance, is not evident to the senses, goes on to say:
The salt put in water / the glue put in paint –
Certainly these are present / But we cannot see their form.
The Mind King is also thus / Abiding within the body,
Going in and out the (gate of the) face / In response to things, acording to their feelings.
Freely and without hindrance / All his undertakings are accomplished.
This evening, Alice Greenspan reads one of her poems. "May it bring peace and joy in some small way."
Today’s Dharma Talk includes a reading from “The Record of Linji” – translation and commentary by Ruth Fuller Sasaki.
“I believe that Zen, particularly Rinzai Zen, has a significant role in the present world. Modern people are adrift amid the great confusion and uncertainty of contemporary life. The Linji lu can give us a foundation on which to construct a new and powerful view of human existence.” –Yamada Mumon
While sitting on the wellspring, looking out into the desert at a mirage expecting it to quench our thirst.
The Ten Ox-herding Pictures have concretely depicted the process in which the imperfect, limited, and relative self awakens to the perfect, unlimited, and absolute essential self (the ox), grasps it, tames it, forgets it, and completely incorporates it into the personality.
According to the Buddha, there are three poisons that cause suffering. We examine how the conception of a self and our identification with I, me, and mine is at the root of our suffering.
Learning how to be together in silence. Are you really ready to have a meaningful conversation?
When you are walking are you walking with your mind, tripping on the past or future, or are you walking with your feet on the ground? Open the hand of thought instead of making a fist. Recognize what is empty of any permanence.
We continue to explore what contentment is, with the help of "The Subtleties of Daily Life" by Layman P'ang.
Samsara is life and death, past, present, and future, measurement. Satori is the boundless, endless, clear-like space, timeless moment.
How can you be peace in the midst of the chaos of life? Oneness is the reality even in the midst of duality.
Also, Will talks about the upcoming retreat at Myakka State Park on March 5th, 2022.
The awakened dream. Realization is being in the moment. You already see, you already hear.
Also, what is the current status of Omicron on our practice?
Today's Dharma Talk is dedicated to the memory of Ven Dr. Wonji Dharma of the Five Mountain Zen Order, who passed away unexpectantly in December of 2021. Will’s Dharma name, Hae An, was given to him at his first Precepts Ceremony by Ven Dr. Wonji Dharma.
The energy behind words,
Compassion is before thought.
In times like these, the omicron wave.
Please consider making a donation to OZS. Your support is appreciated, as we are exclusively funded by the generosity of our members.
Transforming the Eight Consciousnesses into the Four Wisdoms.
(https://ordinaryzensangha.org/beginnings-are-endings-endings-are-beginnings/) .
12/19/2021 - What is Wisdom?
Please consider making a donation to OZS. Your support is appreciated, as we are exclusively funded by the generosity of our members.
The six perfections are the attributes of an awakened being.
This morning's talk starts with the second perfection, ethical conduct, and the precepts.
Like the Lilies of the field.
12/02/2021- Tonight's discussion centers around the question; "Is anger ever justified?"
In Sanskrit ‘paramita’ literally means ‘having reached the other shore.’ It
also means ‘transcendence,’ or ‘perfection.’ If we exist on the shore of
suffering, reaching the other shore would mean leaving suffering behind and
becoming enlightened. Hence, transcendence means to become free from
mental afflictions, (the causes of suffering) and from suffering itself. The true
practice of the paramitas is to be free from self-attachment and self-cherishing.
Sharing a poem and its meaning. (https://ordinaryzensangha.org/mountains-rivers-are-just-so/)
Dharma Talk, Oct. 17, 2021.
A Magician is caught up in her own magic trick!
Dharma Talks from our retreat on Saturday, Oct. 2. 2021.
This Podcast was recorded on Sept. 26, 2021, in preparation for our Fall Meditation Retreat on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
Welcoming the Fall Equinox with a poem…
The yellow leaves of a thousand trees fill the empty ground.
Leaves are very good for writing a living zen poem.
On the endless leaves are an endless poem.
Doubling, doubling, there is no end to IL-bung’s poem.
–Il-bung
Are you mindful of each step you take or are you always thinking ten steps ahead and never getting there?
Dharma Talk Sunday, Sept. 5, 2021.
How can we be comforted by knowing there is nothing we can hold on to or grasp?
Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021
Dharma Talk this week focuses on being intimately engaged with life.
The Dharma talk today starts with a Zen Masters poems from my days at the American Zen College.
I sit quietly in the looking-for-ox room.
A cool wind blows on my face from the open window.
A bell rings across the dharma tower.
A lamp quietly illuminates the Lotus platform.
Abbot Will Rauschenberger’s Dharma Talk – 7/25/2021
Morality, meditation, and wisdom as defined by Hui-neng in the Platform Sutra.
Guided by your original nature, your true face, everything is illuminated.
With a reading from: " The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng ." -- Pine, Red.
On this Fathers Day, 6/20/2021, Will reads from The Record of Linji (Linji Lu). Linji is the great grandfather of one of the schools of Zen (Chan) and has a message for us today.
Don’t believe everything you think.
Don’t believe what you are programmed to think.
Imaged reality is created by projecting our habitual thinking.
This week we are birthing the Buddha, as we contemplate dependent origination and no-self.
"The sun, the stars, the trees, the rivers are already teaching us the Diamond Sutra"
- 208 Kongans, Original Light Temple
Great Faith, Great Courage, Great Question.
Upcoming Buddha's Birthday Retreat, what are we celebrating?
Dharma Talk, May 2, 2021 – Parjna Paramita
What are two aspects of consciousness?
What is Perfect Wisdom?
This Dharma Talk was recorded on Wednesday, April 21, 2021, while I was on my way home from visiting my mother who was in the last days of her life. She died that Friday, April 23, 2021.
The Dharma is in plain sight, yet is nowhere to be found. How does a Bodhisattva save all sentient beings?
What is Ordinary Zen?
What happens at Ordinary Zen Sangha?
What is the goal of Ordinary Zen?
"Zen Battles: Modern Commentary on the Teachings of Master Linji" was the book Will mentions in this Dharma Talk about the ninth century Zen Master Linji.
The awakened person is neither obstructed by being or non-being, like gentle rain on the deep ocean.