Podcast Episodes

Words can’t teach how to practice. Like swimming, we must do it. Jul 22, 1984

Season 2 Episode 80

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, discusses how words can’t teach how to practice or how to wake up. Just like the wheelwright can’t teach how to make a wheel. Too much force and it weakens. Too little a…

Published on 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Lola recounts the surprising tale of the Sufi mystic who is captured and taken to the slave market by his captors. July 15, 1984

Season 2 Episode 79

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explains how if we are ruled from without, we are slaves. If we are ruled from within, we are still enslaved.

Short review of recent sesshin.

Lola shares the amusing tale …

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

The Paramitas - 1. Giving 2. Observing precepts 3. Patience 4. Diligence 5. Meditation. 6. Wisdom.  July 8, 1984

Season 2 Episode 78

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, suggests you look at your life as a story. Is there anything you would change? Though this life is not perfect, you’re probably reasonably comfortable living on this sho…

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago

Pranyaparamita, or “the perfection of transcendental wisdom.” July 1, 1984

Season 2 Episode 77

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explores the possible meanings of several Buddhist and Christian concepts:

• Pranyaparamita, or “the perfection of transcendental wisdom.”

• Sunyata, or the emptiness that…

Published on 11 months, 4 weeks ago

The similarities between Hassidic Judaism and Buddhism. May 19, 1985

Season 2 Episode 76

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, discusses the similarities between Hasidic Judaism and Buddhism.

Many religions are more emotional. Zen practitioners are often intellectual. The similarities between Has…

Published on 1 year ago

Make the smallest distinction and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. May 12, 1985

Season 2 Episode 75

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explores the notion of preferences. As the Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen put it: when love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the …

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

A monk asked his teacher, "I am pecking from inside the shell. I beg you, Master, please peck from outside." May 5, 1985

Season 2 Episode 74

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explains that when most of us listen to a teacher talk, what we hear is determined by our conditioning. When one talks to God in his thoughts, he is not talking to God. …

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

First is learning, called hearing. Then approaching. Then transcending. Lola Apr 14, 1985

Season 2 Episode 73

During this talk, Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, has a bad cough, which she lightheartedly uses in her discussion about how to hear and how to listen. To listen like a tape recorder, without thinking.…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

As illusions drop, as attitudes drop, how relaxing it is to be at ease with yourself. Mar 31, 1985

Season 2 Episode 72

You are born into pleasure and pain, and eventually emotions develop. Then centuries of conditioning. From your parents, from your culture. How many personalities and faces do you have? All creating …

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

The depth in saying “I don’t know.” Mystica Theologica. Lola Jul 22, 1985

Season 2 Episode 71

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, discusses Mystica Theologica by St Dionysias. He said religious experience can’t be described. Like music: as much as you might name notes, no description is adequate to…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago