PODCAST · religion
Cosmopolitan Zen
by Shining Bright Lotus Meditation Society
Meditations from our teachers.
Episodes
-
Metacognition, Finders and the Three Turnings - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Metacognition, Finders and the Three Turnings - Ekai Joel Kreisberg - August 8th, 2026 Ekai Joel Kreisberg explains metacognition as “thinking about awareness” and connects it to Zen, Mondo Zen, and Buddhist practice. The practice develops through four stages: receptive, active, reciprocal, and...
-
You have to be Somebody before you become Nobody - Hosho Don Koehler
You have to be Somebody before you become Nobody - Hosho Don Koehler - July 11th, 2026 - WSP26 Hosho Don Koehler explores the apparent tension between developing a healthy sense of self and the Buddhist teaching of non-self, arguing that they are complementary rather than contradictory. Drawing…
more -
Metacognitive Monitoring: Pointing Out Instructions Versus Zen Koans - Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi
Metacognitive Monitoring: Pointing Out Instructions Versus Zen Koans - Ekai Joel Kreisberg - July 25th, 2026 In this talk, Ekai Joel Kreisberg explores metacognitive awareness, the practice of becoming aware of awareness itself. Drawing from Zen, Mondo Koans and pointing out instructions, he...
-
There Is a Deeper Connection Through Zen - Zen Ko Ryan Harriott
The interview traces Zenko’s journey from early interests in martial arts, poetry, and meditation to a deep commitment to Zen practice. Through experiences with the Mankind Project, Warrior Monk training, Hollow Bones Zen, and Mondo Zen, he developed a path centered on self-discovery, compassion,...
-
Walking the Silver River - Ming Po Larry Matthews
Walking the Silver River - Ming Po Larry Matthews - June 27, 2026 - WSP26 Ming Po Larry Matthews explains that the spiritual path is not separate from ordinary life, it is found in each moment, each breath, and every daily challenge. Drawing on the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, he encourages...
-
How to Work with Emotional Koans - Part 2 - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
How to Work with Emotional Koans - Part 2 - Ekai Joel Kreisberg - WSP26 - May 30th, 2026 Ekai Joel Kreisberg explains that Junpo Roshi’s emotional koans (11–13) were designed to bring Zen practice into everyday life by helping practitioners work skillfully with emotional reactivity. Rather than...
-
Shuso Ceremony - Why Climb a Mountain - Zen Ko Ryan Harriott
Shuso Ceremony - Dharma Reflection - Why Climb a Mountain - Zen Ko Ryan Harriott - June 13th, 2026 Zen Ko Ryan Harriott compares Zen practice to climbing a mountain, teaching that progress requires the three pillars of Zen: great faith, great doubt, and great determination. Through stories of…
more -
The Background Hum: Why More Insight Doesn't Produce More Freedom - Kenshin Cian Whalley
The Background Hum: Why More Insight Doesn't Produce More Freedom - Kenshin Cian Whalley - May 2nd, 2006 Kenshin talks about the “background hum” that is the constant mental effort of maintaining the self, such as planning, judging and creating stories to avoid uncertainty. Most self-work adds…
more -
Zen Master Bankei and the Unborn - Nanda Nina Lynch
Zen Master Bankei and the Unborn - Nanda Nina Lynch - April 18th, 2026 Nanda Nina Lynch gives a talk on Bankei Yōtaku and his realization of the “Unborn” shows that awareness is already complete and effortless. Suffering comes from clinging to thoughts and emotions, practice is simply to trust…
more -
Suffer Well: Insights from Buddha's Teachings - Ming Po Larry Matthews
Suffer Well: Insights from Buddha's Teachings - Ming Po Larry Matthews - April 4th, 2026 Ming Po gives a talk inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh teachings that true peace comes from accepting yourself, staying present through mindful breathing, and meeting suffering with awareness and kindness, allowing...
-
Seven Bodhisattvas - Manjushri - Jozen Jonathon Fielder
Seven Bodhisattva Archetypes - Manjushri - Jozen Jonathon Fielder - April 12th, 2025 - SPP25 Faces of Compassion - Week 2 - Our next exploration is of Manjushri as a Bodhisattva archetype. Manjushri is a bodhisattva embodying supreme wisdom and clear seeing. He is often depicted with a sword...
-
Remembering the Light - Awakening to What Is - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
This talk introduces Rohatsu—the traditional period honoring the Buddha’s awakening—and places it in the context of winter’s darkness and the symbolic “birth of the light.” Roshi Ekai reflects on the masculine framing often found in Zen history and highlights overlooked feminine perspectives...
-
The Dignity and Disaster of My Ego - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
FPP25 - The Dignity and Disaster of My Ego - Emyo Darlene Tataryn Fall Practice Period - October 25th, 2025 Emyo gives a Dharma talk entitled, The Dignity and Disaster of My Ego. Based on Keith Martin-Smith's book, When the Buddha Needs Therapy, for our Fall Practice Period. Emyo talks about how...
-
Letting It Out: Extending the Love that We Receive - Nanda Nina Lynch
Letting It Out: Extending the Love that We Receive - Nanda Nina Lynch - January 31st, 2026 - WPP26 This talk by Nanda Nina Lynch explores the Buddhist teaching that true happiness comes not from self-centered striving, but from love and compassion for others. Drawing on Shantideva, Makransky, and...
-
Compassion as a Liberating Power: Bring Difficulties into Compassion - Jozen Jonathon Fielder
Compassion as a Liberating Power: Bring Difficulties into Compassion - Jozen Jonathon Fielder - February 7th, 2026 - WPP26 This talk marks the final week of a winter practice series based on Awakening Through Love and focuses on compassion as a liberating power. After briefly recapping earlier...
-
What We Are Learning In Mondo Zen Facilitation - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
In this talk, originally made for Hollow Bones Zen, Ekai explains that Mondo Zen is not just a facilitation process but an ongoing path that blends genuine insight with emotional maturity, rooted in zazen, koan practice, and community support. The first set of koans deepens direct realization of...
-
Does This Come And Go? - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Ekai Joel Kreisberg explains the Zen koan “Does this clear, deep heart-mind come and go?” and emphasizes that while awakened awareness (clear, deep heart-mind) is ever-present, our sense of self or ego “comes and goes” and often obscures it. Meditation practices like concentration (shamatha) can...
-
Spirituality and Spiritual Identity - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Spirituality and Spiritual Identity - Ekai Joel Kreisberg - October 18th, 2025 The talk introduces a six-week Shining Bright Lotus series on Junpo Roshi and Keith Martin-Smith’s When the Buddha Needs Therapy, exploring how Buddhism can meet modern psychological and emotional realities. It focuses...
-
How to Work with Emotional Koans - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
How to Work with Emotional Koans - Ekai Joel Kreisberg - February 21st, 2026 Ekai Joel Kreisberg explains that traditional Rinzai koan training, systematized by Hakuin Ekaku, treats awakening (kensho) as the starting point of practice. Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi recognized that insight alone does…
more -
What Makes A Good Listener - Ekai Joel Kreisberg and Emyo Darlene Tataryn
Ekai Joel Kreisberg and Emyo Darlene Tataryn introduce their four-month Foundations in Mondo Zen Facilitation program, describing it as a structured, relational, and embodied path rooted in koan practice and emotional inquiry. They emphasize that effective learning begins with sincere curiosity,...
-
Confessions of a Buddhist Rebel - Simha Frederick Marx
In this interview, Simha Frederick Marx recounts his Buddhist journey from beginning practice in 1988 with Nichiren Shoshu, moving to vipassana, and meeting Junpo in 2000, which led him to decades of practice with Hollow Bones Rinzai Zen. He describes attending 15–16 retreats over 26 years, his...
-
Letting Be: Relaxing into Natural Wisdom - Hosho Don Koehler
Letting Be: Relaxing into Natural Wisdom - Hosho Don Koehler - January 24th, 2026 - WPP26 A Dharma talk exploring “Awakening Through Love” based on Chapter 2 of John Makransky’s work. Hosho Don Koehler reflects on innate wisdom beyond self-grasping, drawing from Dzogchen and contemporary…
more -
Looking at the Structure of Mondo Zen Facilitation - Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi
This talk explains the structure and purpose of Mondo Zen facilitation as a living dialogue rather than a technique. Ekai describes how a facilitator uses precise, compassionate questioning to bring unconscious beliefs, emotional patterns, and fixed identities into direct awareness. The process...
-
Receiving Love: The Key to the Spiritual Path - Ming Po Larry Matthews
Receiving Love: The Key to the Spiritual Path - Ming Po Larry Matthews - January 17th, 2026 - WPP26 Ming Po Larry Matthews teaches that spiritual awakening does not begin with effort, self-improvement, or performance, but with allowing ourselves to be loved as we are. Drawing on Makransky, Alan...
-
Introduction to Mondo Zen Facilitation - Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi
Ekai Joel Kreisberg Roshi offers an introduction to the Mondo Zen Facilitation, through an intensive look at the Thirteen koans of Jun Po Roshi. After a discussion of the context and history of Mondo Zen Facilitation, Ekai Roshi leads a pointing out meditation for the First Koan of Mondo Zen - Is...
-
Atta Dipa and Prayer - Heisoku Maik Bain
Atta Dipa and Prayer - Heisoku Maik Bain - WSP25 - December 20th, 2025 Heisoku gives a reflection on the Buddha’s teaching to be your own refuge: recognize the inner light of selfless awareness, let go of ego, beliefs, and emotions as they arise and pass, and live with meditative awareness, clear...
-
Seven Koans Of Mondo Zen Facilitation - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
The Heart of Zen FPP24 - October 27, 2024 Emyo Darlene offers her unique teachings on Jun Po Roshi's Mondo koans. She takes students all the way through the first seven koans in this teaching. Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist…
more -
Zen and the Middle of Everything - Mingpo Larry Matthews
Zen and the Middle of Everything - Mingpo Larry Matthews - January 3rd, 2026 - WSP26 Through humor, poetry, and lived examples, Ming Po reflects on non-duality, mindfulness, and the ordinary moments of daily life, inviting listeners to discover awakening not by escaping life, but by meeting it...
-
Why there are no victims - Kenshin Cian Whalley
Why there are no victims - Kenshin Cian Whalley - November 15th, 2025 - FPP25 Kenshin Cian reflects on a lifetime of examining the difference between real victimization and the identity of victimhood, sharing how early childhood trauma shaped his unconscious patterns in relationships. Through…
more -
Be the Best Form of Yourself - Jozen Jonathon Fielder
A brief profile of Zen priest and martial arts teacher Jozen Jonathon Fielder, tracing his path from yoga and diverse Buddhist traditions to Rinzai Zen, Hollow Bones ordination, and the integration of Zen practice with martial arts through his teaching and the emerging Iron Mountain Zendo. Jozen...
-
Seven Bodhisattvas - Shakyamuni - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
Seven Bodhisattvas - Shakyamuni - Emyo Darlene Tataryn - April 5, 2025 - SPP25 Faces of Compassion - Week 1 - We begin with an exploration of Shakyamuni as a Bodhisattva archetype. The journey from Prince Siddhartha to the Awakened One offers insights for all the bodhisattva archetypes. Join us…
more -
Can you choose enlightenment? - Kogen Keith Martin-Smith
Can you choose enlightenment? - Kogen Keith Martin-Smith - FPP25 Keith Martin-Smith reflects on writing When the Buddha Needs Therapy as a way of distilling what he learned from his teacher Junpo, who passed soon after the book was finished, leaving Keith to continue his path without a direct...
-
Non - Meditation - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Dharma Reflection - Weekend Sangha Practice - January 25, 2025 Ekai delves into the difference between dharana, shamata or concentration practice and non-meditation, silent illumination or shikantaza, or just sitting, being with what arises. The distinction helps one recognize the value of both...
-
Three Refuges - Nanda Nina Lynch
Three Refuges - Nanda Nina Lynch - June 14th, 2025 Nanda gives a Dharma Reflection and brief meditation on the Three Refuges. In Buddhism, the three refuges, also known as the Three Jewels or Triple Gem, are the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (community). They represent the...
-
When Does the Buddha Need Therapy? - Daiden Dan Pecaut
Fall Practice Period 2025 Daiden Dan Pecaut’s talk centers on awakening as the process of seeing through the ego and returning to embodied wholeness. He describes the ego not as a fixed entity but as a shifting collection of stories, memories, and defenses. Zen, he says, doesn’t destroy this...
-
Origins of our Practice - Roshi Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Ekai gives a talk about the Origins of Our Practice at Gently Sitting Like a Stone 2025. Ekai Roshi Joel Kreisberg discusses the origins of our lineage and practice. Bridging ancient teachings with 21st-century understanding, translating traditional koans like “What is the sound of one hand...
-
Can anyone make you angry? - Shunya Lynn Hyer
Fall Practice Period 2025 Shunya Lynn Hyer shares teachings inspired by Junpo Roshi, exploring the transformative nature of emotions, especially anger and fear, as gateways to awareness rather than reactions to avoid. She explains that beneath anger lies deep caring, and when met with…
more -
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Upekkha - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Upekkha - April 6, 2025 Emyo leads us on a guided meditation of the fourth of the Brahmaviharas, Upekkha also known as Equanimity. https://www.onewisdom.ca/ Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to...
-
You Can't Awaken What You Can't See - An interview with Kogen Keith Martin-Smith
Fall Practice Period 2025 Kogen Keith Martin-Smith is the author of several books devoted to the life and dharma teaching of Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi. Kogen was ordained by Jun Po Roshi in 2012. He continues to teach and to write. He offers an innovative podcast at The Integral Edge. Roshi Ekai...
-
Ethical Living and Spiritual Practice - Ming Po Larry Matthews
Ming Po gives a Dharma talk on Ethical Living and Spiritual Practice. The talk explores how the Three Pure Precepts—refraining from harm, doing good, and living for the benefit of all—interweave with the Zen Peacemaker Tenets of not knowing, bearing witness, and taking loving action. Ming Po...
-
Celebrate Others - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Ekai gives a Dharma talk on the 7th precept, Celebrate Others - I vow to refrain from praising self at the expense of others. I rejoice in the good fortune of others. I do not, through my thoughts, words or actions, separate myself from others through coveting, envy or jealousy. Our mission is to...
-
The Way Out Is Through - Jozen Jonathon Fielder
Fall Practice Period 2025 In “The Way Out Is Through” Jozen Jonathon Fielder defines consciousness as the ever-changing lens shaped by upbringing, biology, culture and ego—those personas and hot buttons we wear—then distinguishes that from awareness: the unchanging, ever-present ground that…
more -
How Does Zen Evolve Into What We Are Doing Today - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
How does Zen understand meditation? In what ways is Rinzai practice different from Soto practice? How do we understand Zazen versus meditation? In this introductory talk, Ekai Joel Kreisberg traces the history of Zen Buddhism and how it evolves into the modern day practice of Zen in 21st Century...
-
Embody Compassion - Nanda Nina Lynch
WSP25 - Embody Compassion - Nanda Nina Lynch - September 6th, 2025 Nanda gives a Dharma Reflection on the precept, Embody Compassion - I vow to refrain from ill will. Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and...
-
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Mudita - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Mudita - April 6, 2025 Emyo leads us on a guided meditation of the third of the Brahmaviharas, Mudita also known as Sympathetic Joy. https://www.onewisdom.ca/ Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to...
-
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Karuna - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Karuna - April 6, 2025 Emyo leads us on a guided meditation of the second of the Brahmaviharas, Karuna also known as Compassion. https://www.onewisdom.ca/ Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to...
-
Respect Clarity - Nanda Nina Lynch
WSP - Respect Clarity - Nanda Nina Lynch - August 9th, 2025 Nanda gives a Dharma Reflection on the fifth precept, Respect Clarity - I vow to refrain from intoxicants. I act at all times with mindfulness and clarity. I do not abuse my body or cloud my mind with the misuse of intoxicants. Our…
more -
Brahmavihara: Cultivating Virtue Through The Four Immeasurables - Metta - Emyo Darlene Tataryn
Emyo leads us on a guided meditation of the first of the Brahmaviharas, Metta also known as Loving Kindness. https://www.onewisdom.ca/ Our mission is to foster a diverse, inclusive community, dedicated to awakening through Buddhist teachings promoting personal and interpersonal healing with…
more -
Between Love and Lust - Ming Po Larry Matthews
Weekend Sangha Practice - Between Love and Lust - Ming Po Larry Matthews - July 26th, 2025 Ming Po gives a Dharma Reflection on the 3rd precept, Be Loving – I vow to refrain from misusing sexuality. I am conscious and loving in all of my relationships. In sexuality, I discern the difference…
more -
Seven Bodhisattvas - Samantabadhra - Ekai Joel Kreisberg
Seven Bodhisattva Archetypes - Samantabadhra - Ekai Joel Kreisberg - April 21st, 2025 - SPP25 Faces of Compassion - Week 3 - Our next exploration is of Samantabadhra as a Bodhisattva archetype. Samantabhadra is a prominent Bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism, often associated with wisdom…
more
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Meditations from our teachers.
HOSTED BY
Shining Bright Lotus Meditation Society
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Cosmopolitan Zen have?
Cosmopolitan Zen currently has 91 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Cosmopolitan Zen about?
Meditations from our teachers.
How often does Cosmopolitan Zen release new episodes?
Cosmopolitan Zen has 91 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Cosmopolitan Zen?
You can listen to Cosmopolitan Zen on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Cosmopolitan Zen?
Cosmopolitan Zen is created and hosted by Shining Bright Lotus Meditation Society.
URL copied to clipboard!