Episode Details

Greetings Friends,

I remember when I first entered a space dedicated to dharma practice, after sitting in the zendo that first night my body felt like I was home.

Which was strange because the building and atmosphere was so foreign to me, the spicey smell of incense, the monotone chanting, the long black robes that the monks wore, being told to sit still and face a wall. None of these things were reminiscent of any kind of home that I was familiar with and yet, I felt at home.

The homecoming wasn’t about the particulars of place, it was deeper then that. Somehow that environment, the silence of the meditation hall, the deeply embodied practice of meditation brought me home to myself.

I was discovering myself in a way that I had tasted in peak moments scattered throughout my childhood and adolescence—myself before the labels, names, beliefs, judgments, self-criticisms, notions of good and bad, right and wrong.

at home in myself was a spacious home of deep acceptance—and love unconditioned. everything was welcomed, nothing was amiss.

through dharma practice my sense of being at home in the mystery of who I am has become a reliable refuge. a place of return when i get tangled up from time to time in thoughts, judgments, worries, fears and self-protective strategies.

starting in the beginning of 2025, i have been giving talks on the heart of great perfect wisdom sutra. this teaching claims to offer a practice of liberation from suffering. in this podcast episode i offer some commentary and practices on the first two stanzas of the heart sutra. here is an excerpt below.

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing prajña paramita, clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering.

Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself form. Sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness are also like this. Shariputra, all dharmas are marked by emptiness; they neither arise nor cease, are neither defiled nor pure, neither increase nor decrease.

The heart sutra is reminding us of the ground of who we are.

The stillness, quiet, spaciousness of our being before identification happens.

Before we grab a hold of something and make a story out of it, make a problem out of it, and then need to try to fix or solve or get rid of the problem.

Forms, sensations, perceptions, thoughts and consciousness are emptiness—pure potential energy—pure possibility—spaciousness—unconditional acceptance

This is the heart of who we are.

Its not something that we have to get to, or make happen.

It is already us, we just tend to forget about it, or don’t notice it—because we are busy identifying with our thinking, our problems, our worries, our to do list, our comparisons, our judgments.

Avaloketeshvara is saying—our thinking, our problems, our worries, our to do lists, our comparisons, our judgments are no other then emptiness.

Insubstantial—yet appearing.

Shaping or coloring this moment of life.

And there’s nothing wrong with them —they aren’t defiled or pure.

It’s just that their content isn’t the whole of who we are. It just isn’t the whole truth.

We can follow them back home, being awake to them but instead of following them into some conclusion about ourselves or the world, or into crisis—

What happens when we trace thought back to its source? Or judgements back to their source? Where do they seem to come from? Or go?

What are we left with?

What is this moment made of? What is this thought or feeling or belief made of?

Anything that is seeming to arise, is already accepted in our awareness