Mota gets an unexpected phone call and takes the opportunity to dig into some tough love teachings on change and transiency, and how they might even open us up to something warm and maybe even a little fuzzy. Have we forgotten how to die in this country? Why is Zen oddly good at the idea? Can it help us deal with the odd role reversals that come with parents getting older? Find out here!

Jordan takes a critical look at the benefits of zazen and questions whether that was ever really the point, or even something we should rely on. Can meditation become a form of avoidance? Is the need to feel better just one more attempt to control the world? And if Buddhism is really working why do we still wake up with a brain full of a-hole thoughts and feelings? Find out here!

Sara goes looking for healthy ambitions in certain impermanence as she rests her case on training with a deeply personal breakdown and exegesis of her story/koan of the season - Dasui’s Kalpa Fire. How do we live a life worth living when society, and our own standards, aren’t aligned with our values? Does Zen offer alternative ambitions to aspire to? Is it possible to diagnose our own distress while sitting smack dab in the middle of it?? Find out here!

Dave tells us the full creation myth of how Buddhism says this world came to be, how it’s going to end, and all the mishaps and miracles in between. Has all of this happened before? Is everything we love just a lament for what we lost? Was this whole existence thing really a good idea and is there even such a thing as a true story?? Find out here!!

Sara Campbell closes out our first official training ango with a flash fiction final - a brief loving study of our favorite Buddha and Bodhisattva archetypes.

Dave tackles the big Buddhist question of the hour - are we really learning traditional Buddhism over here or are we making up our own thing and covering it up with a set of appropriated robes? Is it actually a problem if we are (and would it be possible not to)? Are lay people even supposed to be meditating? Is the East/West cultural divide too wide to bridge, or too fascinating not to try?? Find out here!!

Poet in residence and long time ACZC collaborator, Matt, generously boils down 14 billion years of carefully cultivated circumstances into one lucid and spiritually eclectic tale of what he’s doing and why he’s here - from the Zen prone slowness of the South, to the urban chaos of LA, to the sacred solitude of getting lost in foreign lands. Is restlessness a hindrance or a catalyst to personal progress? Can we go off recipe and create our own practice from whatever ingredients intrigue us? What creative fruits lie waiting for us in the gaps between what we think and what we see?? Find out here!

Dave unpacks the Ryogone, that monster of a magical incantation we’ve recently incorporated into our laid back secular practice here, and along the way explains how to work with magical traditions in the modern age, the use of chanting and daranis in Zen practice, and a whole a host of legends and lore complete with a battle of five armies. Can the secular among us pray so that it works and what does that actually mean?? What keeps us coming back to our Zen Centers after the honeymoon glow wears off? If we don’t believe in ghosts, can we still ask them for help?? Find out here!