Constancy in Practice: Zazen, Views, Relationships

Zen Mind

This talk was given as a closing talk for the 2025 Boulder Zen Center - Everyday Bodhisattva Practice Period. It reviews the basic ingredients of practice and summarizes them as (1) daily zazen, (2) working with views, and (3) cultivating relationships. In traditional Buddhist terms, this can be understood as a commitment to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The talk then explores constancy in practice as the most important attitude for making our practice fruitful. Instead of viewing our practice as a struggle to permanently replace the state of suffering (samsara) with a state of liberation (nirvana), it suggests using each moment to establish Big Mind (a widened sense of here-now-ness and self) and thus releasing grasping, resisting, and fixed views—the three tendencies in the human mind that turn experience into dissatisfaction and suffering.

Welcome to Zen Mind!

Did you enjoy the topic of Dogen's essay, Undivided Activity, and want to delve deeper? Zenki Roshi offers a complete commentary and experiential translation in a series of talks on this specific essay. You can now access the full series of talks! All of the material is now part of a self-paced course. Learn more and purchase the course here: https://www.boulderzen.org/all-courses

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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.