Brooklyn Zen Center

The focus of the Bodhisattva Samadhi is the Bodhisattva wish, the Bodhisattva aspiration: to make Buddhas for the welfare of the world. And then there is that aspiration, you can also, in a sense, vow and commit to that aspiration. So the aspiration, and the commitment of the aspiration, is at the center of the Bodhisattva Samadhi.

Shohaku Okumura is a Japanese Soto Zen priest and the founder and abbot of the Sanshin Zen Community located in Bloomington, Indiana.

Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

My deep gratitude for the many people taking care of those who are suffering. Boundless gratitude. And for all the people who are courageously keeping the basic functioning of our city going. Of course, the medical workers who take care of the sick, the people who drive the ambulances, the truckers who are delivering us food from the farmers, the people who are selling and delivering our food to us, the people who pick up the trash, the people who deliver the mail and the packages. And deep gratitude for whoever it is that is keeping all this technology going at this time. It’s a mystery to me how it even works but I know there are human beings working hard to keep us in contact. Deep gratitude to all of them.

Rev. Francisco (Paco) Genkoji Lugoviña, Sensei is a Teacher & Priest in the White Plum Lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi & The Zen Peacemaker Order. Rev. Daiken Nelson, Sensei is a Teacher & Priest in the White Plum Lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi & The Zen Peacemaker Order.

Our audio dharma talks are offered free of charge and made possible by the donations we receive. If you would like to support Brooklyn Zen Center, please visit the “Giving” section of our website.

My experience in the undoing patriarchy group very much affirms that for me – that we come together to create a space where we can talk about how we harm, how we are harmed, share stories of brokenness. And the sharing of it reveals a wholeness there, a healing. And when that’s set in motion, compassion flowers out of that. Almost like it rushes into the space that’s created in that holding. It’s like just the act of allowing our full selves to come out enables us to meet others in a full way, completely. And then we act from there. Bodhisattvas help bodhisattvas become bodhisattva. It happens across time – like this koan from the 11th century- and then across space and within spaces like the sangha.