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Community member Richard Daiko Smykla provides a short update regarding the future of the Jizo-an Zen Community Podcast. The new feed and more information can be found on our website at https://www.jizo-an.org/resources/podcasts.

Historically it is said that after his elightenment experience, The Buddha's first discourse was defined as the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. He offered the first teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path to five fellow seekers, who at first denied him an audience...but after noticing something different in him, sat and listened. They became the first Sangha; the community. These Truths are the very essence and core of the Buddhadharma which asks us to return to them time and time again, taking refuge in the lived experience of what they offer: a way to perceive and participate in the great reality. So, understanding and practice leads to wisdom, and wisdom leads to actualization...to make it real.

Vasubandhu was a 5th century Buddhist monk who, along with his brother Asanga formulated the teaching called Yogacara. It arose as means of finding balance between the two major paths of the Early Buddhist teachings and The Mahayana teachings. Vasubandhu and Asanga sought to bring harmony to the vast differences in these two practices, showing that both of them have very important roles in freeing us from suffering and delusion. This talk with be an introduction only...the Thirty Verses are complex; but more importantly, an eye opening into the nature of the Egoic birth and ultimately, its overturning.

Because food is life, it is of upmost importance that we receive it with deepest gratitude. When we eat, we consume life. There isn't a meal that is taken without the expense of another lifeforce — "the practice of eating is the essential truth of all Dharmas. At the very moment of eating, we merge with ultimate reality” — Dogen Zenji. When we eat a meal we enter into the process of merging with everything that surrounds us. Eating becomes a celebration of the Dharma, with no separation between us and the universe.

CLIP: You Have to Come in to Win (Community) by Jizo-an Zen Community