Committed to Here (Practice Period Opening Talk)

This talk was given as part of the Opening Ceremony for Boulder Zen Center's annual 3-month 'Everyday Bodhisattva Practice Period,' which intends to create a framework for householders (Everyday Bodhisattvas) to intensify their practice in a committed way. In a monastic 90-day Zen Practice Period, the main commitment is to stay on the premises and follow the schedule completely. If we don't have the support of a monastic setting, we need to ask what we need to be able to STAY in a place of practice-realization. The talk suggests that the "ultimate commitment" is to be fully committed to HERE—to the field of mind, through which all of our experience unfolds. For that, we need to stop trying to escape. And we need supportive ingredients: (1) intimacy with our inmost request, (2) daily zazen, (3) extended zazen intensives, (4) embodiment practice, (5) study (worldview work), (6) a relationship with a teacher, (7) sangha, and (8) engagement with the world.

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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.