Zen Master Bon Shim (Aleksandra Porter)

This show is going on hiatus. I have taken a new job out west and I just won't have the time to keep it up. This has been a life-changing experience and I am so grateful to all of you.

The spiritual practice of sharing the dharma is not a form of entertainment. This is something we do to find out what life is. At the foundation of the practice is dana or generosity.

When you’re living the precepts, when you’re living according to your values, then meditation becomes much easier because the precepts are the foundation for what it means to do the work of meditation.

So many people are chasing after happiness like it is something that can be attained. But happiness comes and goes. How can you be with "what is" in this moment?

This practice invites us to be vulnerable, open, and intimate. This is incredibly challenging and requires courage, but it also is the only way to look deeply into who we are.

Living in the dharma allows us to be vulnerable and to connect with the rest of the universe. Practice dismantles the habits of trying to build up the delusions around us.

When we are being choice-full, we are able to live into our values, we can live into the things we care about.

How can we not be deluded? By investigating the great matter of life and death, we see what our thinking creates. By using the Four Great Vows as a guide we see more clearly how to help.

Practice is doing something with intention. You enter into a moment deliberately. You choose into it. There is a willingness to be here. It is an attitude of mind.

There is a process of growing into our roles as students and as teachers. There is a discipline but also a willingness to play and even provoke as we find a way to live within the tradition and to make it a home of our own.