I recently was a guest on Andrew G. Marshall's podcast, The Meaningful Life. You can listen to it here.
The Meaningful Life: How to deal with Change: The Backward Step
The Backward Step
Everything changes. Continually. Always. Nothing is ever the same. This is the foundational teaching of Buddhism. We all know this. Yet our perceptions of how we change are often at odds with this teaching. People tend toward behaviors that attempt to hold on to conceptions of they think they are and what they determine is …
Engaging with Hate and Discrimination: A Queer Buddhist Reflection on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
“When individuals in our society speak or act out of hatred against a whole group of people based solely on superficial appearance, it is a reflection of the mental state of our whole society. We don’t escape because we are not the ones hating. The challenges of race, sexuality, and gender are the very things …
Recognizing and Transforming Shame: A Zen Approach
One of my identities is as a figure skater. For twenty years now, I have been practicing, learning new skills and tricks on the ice. For me, the ice is a source of grace, intimacy, and comradery. I see it as a practice of mindfulness, of Buddha nature, of beingness. On the best days, like …
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Not-knowing is Most-intimate
There is a Chinese Zen kōan, a teaching story about a pilgrimage that I won’t share with you today. If Zen teachers were lawyers, Zen practitioners would be required to sign a release which states that whenever a teacher says they will not do something, it means the opposite, especially if they use words that …
Travels in Grief, Desire and Wonder
Recently, I rediscovered posts on Facebook about my travels seven months after my partner René Valdes died in February 2012. While I have preserved much of the immediacy of the record, I have used them to explore the universality of grief. desire and wonder that we feel daily in the pandemic. Oh, and that includes …
A Solstice Kōan
Imagine that you were on the Tropic of Capricorn where it passes through Kruger National Park in South Africa at 12:02 PM South Africa time (2:02 AM PST) on 21 December 2020. Besides the amazing animals, you would see the sun reach its southernmost point and for a brief second it stops directly overhead and …
Fear & Loathing, Elections and Zazen
The title of this essay uses a phrase from Hunter S. Thompson, the self pro-claimed gonzo journalist from the 1960’s and 70’s who wrote about the 1972 Nixon campaign in his book entitled Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. On the day before election day 2020, we have our own version of fear and …
Beings are numberless, I vow to save them: The 4 Boddhisattva Vows
Shu-jō mu-hen sei-gan-dō Bon-nō mu-jin sei-gan-dan Ho-mon mu-ryō sei-gan-gaku Butsu-do mu-jō sei-gan-jō Beings are numberless; I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them. Buddha’s way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it. The first time I chanted these lines 12 years …
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Endings: Storytelling at the Berkeley Moth
https://youtu.be/SvxwTCGBB34 My first Moth Storytelling night in Berkeley on June 6. 2018 on the theme "endings." Stepping up to speak after my name was called, all I knew was my first line. For the Moth you cannot read anything prepared. Your name is picked out of a hat and you come on stage. As I …
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Alan Lessik 