What the River Says: on Vocation and Calling- Hogen, Roshi

This talk explores the emotional and spiritual dimensions of caring for someone who is suffering, arguing that presence — flawed, tiring, and imperfect as it is — matters more than solutions. It also explores how our own inner work with fear, mortality, and discomfort directly shapes what we're able to offer someone else in their hardest moments. ★ Support this podcast ★

Reflecting on today's overwhelming availability of spiritual teachings from every tradition, this talk asks whether sampling freely across lineages creates confusion and explores how practice is a rhythm of deconstructing our misperceptions of self and world, and reconstructing ourselves toward compassion, embodiment, and ease.   ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk explores vocation not as a career choice but as a calling that arises from deep within the heart. The speaker weaves in poetry from William Stafford, David Whyte and others to illustrate how a life of meaning flows from staying connected to an inner current rather than external trappings. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Tanha Sutta's core teaching, Hogen explains, is that craving turns the fluid, ever-changing experience of being alive into a fixed identity — "I am this," "I am that" — which then must be defended and reinforced. This talk explores this as an attempt to become a solid "thing" and how that goes against reality itself, making us smaller and more fearful rather than secure. ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk explores the observation that craving turns ordinary desire into compulsive thinking, creating a tangle of self-concepts — "I am a failure," "I am a success" — that we then mistake for fixed truths.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk explores patience (kshanti), one of the six Paramitas in Mahayana Buddhism, as an essential practice in a culture built for instant gratification and constant phone-driven distraction. Bansho distinguishes true patience from mere "waiting," framing it instead as fully meeting the present moment without needing it to be different. ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk on reflects on the Five Remembrances — that we are of the nature to age, get sick, die, and be separated from loved ones — as a practice for living wisely rather than in denial. Rather than being purely somber, these reflections are offered as a way to "sweeten the deal," deepening appreciation for the present moment and one's relationships. ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk explores how the ups and downs of a single sitting period mirror the larger arc of a retreat or an entire life of practice.  Drawing on the image of a snake in a bamboo tube, a long marriage and retreat as a modern rite of passage, they explore how difficulty, doubt, and disillusionment aren't failures but essential parts of deepening commitment. ★ Support this podcast ★

Drawing on the eleventh-century yogini Machig Labdron's uncompromising slogans—confess your hidden faults, approach what repels you, help those you think you cannot help—this talk explores how genuine spiritual growth requires more than acceptance.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This talk is a teaching on the ageless, ever-present awareness beneath our changing thoughts and circumstances. Drawing on the Mangala Sutta, this talk explores how recognizing (not manufacturing) this ground allows the mind to remain unshaken "beyond all sorrow." ★ Support this podcast ★