Explore the whole library.

40 Years on Tremper Mountain

Shugen Roshi reflects on forty years of Zen Mountain Monastery, on the monastery's own channel.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold

Zen Mountain Monastery

52 min

A Buffalo Goes Through a Window

A teisho on case 38 of the Mumonkan, recorded at the centre he founded.

Philip Kapleau

Rochester Zen Center

43 min

Meditation · Zen2021

A Guided Sitting

Forty minutes of guided meditation led by Ozeki, recorded for a college audience.

Centenary College of Louisiana

34 min

Talk · Zen2019

A Summer Dharma Talk

A talk given at the Village Zendo in July 2016.

Village Zendo

A casual conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim

1h 37m

Talk · Zen2020

A casual conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim

A long livestreamed session in which he takes questions from an international audience without a set topic.

Ven. Pomnyun Sunim

A complete shakuhachi concert in Princeton

1h 26m

Music · Zen2024

A complete shakuhachi concert in Princeton

Riley Lee's full Taplin Auditorium recital, honkyoku and newer pieces, with his own spoken introductions between them.

Riley Lee

Riley Lee Music

An hour on the shakuhachi and the path that led to it

1h 11m

Interview · Zen2021

An hour on the shakuhachi and the path that led to it

A full conversation with Schlefer on Music Matters: how a Western musician came to the Kinko repertoire, and what the solo honkyoku asks of a player.

James Nyoraku Schlefer

Jason Tramm (Music Matters)

6 min

Talk · Zen2012

Awareness is More Than Just Knowing

A short talk on the difference between knowing about your experience and being aware of it while it happens.

Guo Jun

Simple Mindful Life

29 min

Talk · Zen2013

Be your own teacher. Martine Batchelor

A talk drawing on Batchelor's Korean Zen training on learning to trust one's own practice.

Martine Batchelor

Original source

Music · Zen

Betsuden Shika no Tone

Kiku Day performs the honkyoku piece Betsuden Shika no Tone on jinashi shakuhachi.

Kiku Day

1h 9m

Bodhisattva Love

A morning dharma talk on bodhisattva love, recorded at No Abode Hermitage and posted to Reb Anderson's own channel.

TenshinRebAnderson

56 min

Buddhism Is a Way of Life

A dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm on practice as something lived rather than believed.

San Francisco Zen Center

12 min

Music · Zen

Byakudo

Kiku Day performs the Zen honkyoku piece Byakudo on shakuhachi for the European Shakuhachi Society.

Kiku Day

European Shakuhachi Society

1h 19m

Interview · Zen2024

Can Zen Help You Rewrite Your Life?

Nicole Baden talks with podcast host Elizabeth Rovere about how Zen practice can reshape the way we live our lives.

The Wonderstruck Podcast with Elizabeth Rovere

7 min

Talk · Zen2012

Chan is All Encompassing

Why Chan is not a compartment of life to be visited at set hours but something that includes whatever is already happening.

Guo Jun

Simple Mindful Life

Dharma Talk: "The World and Us" with Henry Shukman

Dharma Talk: "The World and Us" with Henry Shukman

A Zen dharma talk on the relationship between self and world.

Henry Shukman

Original source

1h 6m

Music · Zen2024

Edinburgh Concert

A full shakuhachi concert by Kakizakai Kaoru, recorded in Edinburgh.

Kakizakai Kaoru

Markus Guhe

1h 32m

Emptiness and Social Action

A dharma talk on emptiness and social action, given at Union Theological Seminary.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold

Union Theological Seminary

52 min

Interview · Zen

Enlightenment is in the Body

An interview by Renate McNay for Conscious TV.

Linda Clair

Conscious TV

Talk · Zen2015

Essential Chan Buddhism

A short film in which the abbot of Mahabodhi Monastery in Singapore speaks about meditation, nature and what Chan asks of a person.

Guo Jun

Monkfish Book Publishing

Everyday Mind is the Way — Zoketsu Norman Fischer — Dharma Talk at Green Gulch Farm

40 min

Everyday Mind is the Way — Zoketsu Norman Fischer — Dharma Talk at Green Gulch Farm

A Zen dharma talk on ordinary mind as the way, given at Green Gulch Farm.

Norman Fischer

Original source

Fuketsu and the Dharma Seal

A teisho on case 38 of the Hekiganroku, on what cannot be handed over and is handed over anyway.

Philip Kapleau

Rochester Zen Center

25 min

Meditation · Zen2019

Guided Meditation — Resting in Being

Adyashanti guides a long sitting in which effort is gradually set down and attention is left to rest where it is.

Adyashanti

Guided Meditation — Resting in the Field of Presence

Meditation · Zen2025

Guided Meditation — Resting in the Field of Presence

Adyashanti guides a short sitting, turning attention to the inner quiet and to the presence that pervades it.

Adyashanti

Guided Meditation — Three Centers Meditation

30 min

Meditation · Zen2020

Guided Meditation — Three Centers Meditation

Adyashanti guides a sitting that moves through the head, the heart and the belly, and then rests in all three at once.

Adyashanti

Haemin Sunim & Tara Brach: Embracing Imperfections in Love & Life – A Conversation

A cross-tradition conversation between two teachers on accepting imperfection.

Haemin Sunim

Original source

1h 1m

Interview · Zen2011

Hardcore Zen

Iain McNay asks him how a punk bass player ended up a Sōtō priest, and what he thinks the robes are worth.

Conscious TV

1h 36m

Interview · Zen2022

Hardcore Zen: The Long Interview

An hour and a half on his training with Nishijima, on dissolving the organisation he inherited, and on teaching without a lineage to lean on.

Guru Viking

How he came to the shakuhachi, and what the lineage asks

13 min

Interview · Zen2022

How he came to the shakuhachi, and what the lineage asks

Riley Lee talks through his beginning in 1970, the instrument itself, and what carrying the komusō repertoire has meant for his own playing.

Riley Lee

Riley Lee Music

How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection | Haemin Sunim | Talks at Google

46 min

Talk · Zen2019

How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection | Haemin Sunim | Talks at Google

A Talks at Google session on self-acceptance, drawn from Haemin Sunim's Zen background.

Haemin Sunim

Original source

9 min

Music · Zen2013

Ichijo, played whole on the shakuhachi

Nine minutes of solo bamboo flute on Schlefer's own channel: the honkyoku Ichijo, from first breath to last.

James Nyoraku Schlefer

James Nyoraku Schlefer - Shakuhachi

Inviting the Wisdom of Death into Life | Frank Ostaseski | Talks at Google

54 min

Inviting the Wisdom of Death into Life | Frank Ostaseski | Talks at Google

A Talks at Google session on what proximity to death can teach about how to live.

Frank Ostaseski

Original source

Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy

13 min

Talk · Zen2011

Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy

Roshi Joan Halifax's widely viewed TED talk distinguishing empathy from compassionate action.

Joan Halifax

Original source

35 min

Kakizakai Kaoru sensei on the KSK

The first part of a long interview, on the Chikushinkai school he teaches in and on what he inherited from Yokoyama Katsuya.

Kakizakai Kaoru

Markus Guhe

Learning From Death and Dying: Lessons for All of Us From Zen Hospice with Frank Ostaseski

1h 41m

Learning From Death and Dying: Lessons for All of Us From Zen Hospice with Frank Ostaseski

Lessons on living well drawn from years of accompanying people who are dying.

Frank Ostaseski

Original source

Lecture on the Philosophy of Zen Buddhism

2h 37m

Talk · Zen2021

Lecture on the Philosophy of Zen Buddhism

A long lecture on Zen as a way of seeing, given to a university audience.

Shunmyō Masuno

University of Latvia

Life Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master - Henry Shukman

1h 55m

Life Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master - Henry Shukman

A wide-ranging conversation on Zen practice, kensho and what a genuine teacher offers.

Henry Shukman

Original source

Living the Question

Nicole Baden explores why sitting with an open question, rather than rushing to an answer, is itself a Zen practice.

Tatsudo Nicole Baden

1h 48m

Talk · Zen2013

Making Peace: The World as One Body

Nearly two hours at Naropa on treating society as a single body, which is where the bakery and the street retreats came from.

Bernie Glassman

Naropa University

3 min

Meditation: Concentration and Enquiry

A teaching on balancing concentration practice with open enquiry.

Martine Batchelor

Original source

Moving From Emptiness: The Life and Art of a Zen Dude

1h 9m

Documentary · Zen2022

Moving From Emptiness: The Life and Art of a Zen Dude

A portrait of the Zen calligraphic painter Alok Hsu Kwang-han, who teaches students to paint from the silence before thought.

Alok Hsu Kwang-han

Kino Lorber

Mumonkan Case 17: The National Teacher Calls Three Times

23 min

Mumonkan Case 17: The National Teacher Calls Three Times

A teisho on case 17 of the Mumonkan given at Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery, delivered in Japanese with DaiChi Zenni's consecutive English interpretation.

Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery

22 min

Mumonkan Case 1: Joshu's Mu

A teisho on the first case of the Mumonkan, Joshu's "Mu," given in Japanese with ShoE Zenni's consecutive English interpretation.

Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery

Nagashi Reibo: eighteen minutes of blowing zen

18 min

Music · Zen2024

Nagashi Reibo: eighteen minutes of blowing zen

One honkyoku played whole, live in Helsinki: Nagashi Reibo, the Kinpu-ryū piece on yearning for the bell, on solo shakuhachi.

Riley Lee

Riley Lee Music

1h 31m

On Books and Tales

An hour and a half with Jon Joseph of Pacific Zen Institute on storytelling as a form of practice.

Pacific Zen Institute

On Buddhism and Creativity, with Stephen Batchelor

1h 1m

Interview · Zen2021

On Buddhism and Creativity, with Stephen Batchelor

An hour with Stephen Batchelor on where practice and making things meet, and where they get in each other's way.

Tricycle

Documentary · Zen

On Happiness: A Short Documentary

A short documentary built around a conversation with Linda Clair on happiness.

Linda Clair

Thomas D-W

25 min

Pick Up the Sack

A dharma talk on taking up what is yours to carry instead of putting it down.

Village Zendo

Radical Dharma: Rev angel Kyodo williams Talks Race, Love & Liberation

1h 1m

Radical Dharma: Rev angel Kyodo williams Talks Race, Love & Liberation

A talk drawn from Radical Dharma, connecting Zen practice to race and liberation.

angel Kyodo williams

Original source

Returning to the Robe: Shohaku Okumura on the Early History of Sōtō Zen & Nyoho-e

1h 40m

Returning to the Robe: Shohaku Okumura on the Early History of Sōtō Zen & Nyoho-e

A scholarly talk on the early history of the Sōtō Zen robe tradition.

Shohaku Okumura

Original source

Roshi Joan - Standing at the Edge Dharma Talk

46 min

Roshi Joan - Standing at the Edge Dharma Talk

A dharma talk on staying present at the edge of what's difficult, drawn from Standing at the Edge.

Joan Halifax

Original source

Sailing Home | Norman Fischer | Talks at Google

43 min

Sailing Home | Norman Fischer | Talks at Google

A Talks at Google session drawing on Fischer's book Sailing Home, using Homer's Odyssey as a Zen teaching story.

Norman Fischer

Original source

1h 41m

Interview · Zen2025

See Your Nature and Be Free

A conversation on years of monastic training in Japan and on what a Zen monk does with ordinary life afterwards.

Kogen Czarnik

Zubin

1h 27m

Shamanic Bones, Dark Gates

An hour and a half with Jon Joseph Roshi on fifty years of practice, on ritual, and on balancing darkness and light.

Pacific Zen Institute

58 min

Silent Illumination and Peacemaking

Rebecca Li for the Zen Peacemakers, on where silent illumination meets peace work.

Rebecca Li

Zen Peacemakers

Silent Illumination: Unlearning Habits of Suffering in Daily Life

44 min

Silent Illumination: Unlearning Habits of Suffering in Daily Life

A dharma talk given at Beginner's Mind Temple on silent illumination in ordinary life.

Rebecca Li

San Francisco Zen Center

Sitting for 10 Years, 10 More, and 10 More: Shohaku Okumura

1h 22m

Sitting for 10 Years, 10 More, and 10 More: Shohaku Okumura

A reflection on decades of zazen practice from a senior Sōtō Zen priest and Dōgen scholar.

Shohaku Okumura

Original source

37 min

Interview · Zen2026

Sixty Years of Practice

Looking back over six decades, from engineering drawings to Yonkers.

Bernie Glassman

Zen Peacemakers

5 min

Music · Zen2015

Sokkan

Kakizakai Kaoru plays Sokkan, one of the honkyoku pieces that came out of the breath practice of the wandering monks.

Kakizakai Kaoru

shakuhachigaku

Taigen Dan Leighton Dharma Talk: The Soto Zen Meditation Tradition

1h 30m

Taigen Dan Leighton Dharma Talk: The Soto Zen Meditation Tradition

A dharma talk by Taigen Dan Leighton on the Soto Zen meditation tradition, given at Atlanta Soto Zen Center.

Taigen Dan Leighton

Atlanta Soto Zen Center

Tatsudo Nicole Baden: A Zen Teacher Interview

2h 16m

Tatsudo Nicole Baden: A Zen Teacher Interview

Nicole Baden is interviewed at length about her path and her teaching as a Zen teacher.

Simplicity Zen

1h 20m

Ten Bodhisattva Practices

Reb Anderson introduces the ten practices of the bodhisattva as set out in the Flower Adornment Scripture, with questions from those attending.

TenshinRebAnderson

44 min

Tenshin Reb Anderson - The Bodhisattvas' Six Modes of Going Beyond

A talk given at San Francisco Zen Center on the six paramitas, the bodhisattva's modes of going beyond.

San Francisco Zen Center

The Art and Philosophy of Zen Garden Design

1h 8m

The Art and Philosophy of Zen Garden Design

The Soto priest and garden designer on what a garden is for, and why he treats laying stones as a form of practice.

Shunmyō Masuno

Brown University

43 min

Talk · Zen2021

The Book of Form and Emptiness

A talk at Upaya Zen Center on the novel that takes its title from a line of the Heart Sutra.

Upaya Zen Center

The Lived Experience as the Gateway to Freedom

49 min

Talk · Zen2020

The Lived Experience as the Gateway to Freedom

An evening lecture at Naropa on race, gender and the body as the door to practice rather than an obstacle to it.

Naropa University

1h 33m

Documentary · Zen

The Mountain Path (山道)

Edward A. Burger's search for his teacher among Chan Buddhist hermits in the Zhongnan Mountains, a reworked, improved version of Burger's earlier film Amongst White Clouds.

Edward A. Burger / One Mind Productions

28 min

Interview · Zen2017

The Psychology of Religious Experience

Jeffrey Mishlove asks him what actually happens to a person in a religious experience.

Huston Smith

Thinking Allowed

Talk · Zen2021

The Shamanic Roots of Zen

On zazen as a ritual of sitting with the earth, and on what Zen shares with older indigenous practice.

Upaya Zen Center

9 min

Meditation · Zen2008

The Still Point

His 1998 introduction to zazen: posture, breath and what to do with the mind, in nine minutes.

Zen Mountain Monastery

1h 27m

The Three Realms Are Just One Mind

A recorded dharma talk from No Abode Hermitage in which Reb Anderson takes up the teaching that the three realms are only mind.

TenshinRebAnderson

1h 32m

Interview · Zen

The Transformative and The Transcendent

An interview by Iain McNay for Conscious TV.

Stephen Snyder

Conscious TV

The Way of the Buddha: A Conversation with Michael Lerner

59 min

Interview · Zen2025

The Way of the Buddha: A Conversation with Michael Lerner

In conversation with Commonweal's Michael Lerner, Harada Roshi discusses the Buddhist path and performs a calligraphy demonstration, his Japanese remarks interpreted into English by his longtime translator.

The New School at Commonweal

23 min

There Are No Zen Teachers

Twenty minutes arguing against the role he himself holds.

Hardcore Zen

Tsuru no Sugomori: the nesting of the cranes

12 min

Music · Zen2015

Tsuru no Sugomori: the nesting of the cranes

The Futaiken version of the old honkyoku that follows a pair of cranes through nesting, flight and parting, played on solo shakuhachi.

James Nyoraku Schlefer

James Nyoraku Schlefer - Topic (official release)

8 min

Talk · Zen2009

Twenty-First Century Morality

The precepts read for a century that has more power than it knows what to do with.

Zen Mountain Monastery

Wash Your Bowls: Public Talk for Enso House

2h 7m

Talk · Zen2008

Wash Your Bowls: Public Talk for Enso House

A public talk in which Harada Roshi opens up Joshu's koan "wash your bowls" to show how everyday life itself is Zen practice; he teaches in Japanese with English interpretation by Chisan.

Tahoma One Drop Zen Monastery

30 min

Documentary · Zen2023

Water Speaking Water

His own 2008 film: half an hour of moving water, made as a teaching rather than about one.

Zen Mountain Monastery

16 min

Talk · Zen2025

What I Do and Why

Nicole Baden explains what she does as a teacher and why, introducing her approach to Zen practice.

Tatsudo Nicole Baden

49 min

What Is Meditation, Really?

Nicole Baden gives a talk unpacking what meditation actually is, beneath common misconceptions about the practice.

Tatsudo Nicole Baden

20 min

Talk · Zen2022

What Is Your True Self?

Twenty minutes on the koan that will not be answered by thinking about it.

Village Zendo

3 min

Interview · Zen2019

What Is Zen?

Three minutes, answered without a single technical term.

Bernie Glassman

Loyola Productions Munich

1h 6m

Talk · Zen2023

What Is a Zen Garden?

A lecture in Japanese at Tama Art University on what makes a garden a Zen garden rather than a decorated space.

Shunmyō Masuno

Tama Art University

1 min

Genpo Roshi (Dennis Merzel)

What We're About Is The Spirit Of Zen

Genpo Roshi speaks on the spirit of Zen practice.

Kanzeon Big Mind

22 min

Interview · Zen2026

When is a good time to retire?

A conversation about work, enough, and what people expect retirement to solve.

Ven. Pomnyun Sunim

Buddhistdoor Global

11 min

Talk · Zen2025

Why Stillness Can Change the World

Nicole Baden makes the case that cultivating inner stillness has an outward, world-changing effect.

Tatsudo Nicole Baden

27 min

Why Zen?

A dharma talk at the Village Zendo on the question a newcomer asks and a long-time student keeps asking.

Village Zendo

8 min

Why do we need to change toxic people?

A short answer in his Dharma Q&A format to a questioner who wants a difficult person to be different.

Ven. Pomnyun Sunim

Wisdom Podcast 004 — David Loy: Modern Buddhism

Interview · Zen

Wisdom Podcast 004 — David Loy: Modern Buddhism

David Loy discusses modern Buddhism in a wide-ranging conversation with Wisdom Publications.

David Loy

Wisdom Publications

42 min

You Are Echo

A teisho on case 7 of the Blue Cliff Record, where a monk asks who the Buddha is and is told his own name.

Philip Kapleau

Rochester Zen Center

18 min

Talk · Zen2025

Zazen Is Not Meditation

Why he thinks the word meditation gets zazen wrong, and what he says instead.

Hardcore Zen

Zen Awakening, No-Self and Life Beyond Story

2h 5m

Interview · Zen2026

Zen Awakening, No-Self and Life Beyond Story

A long interview with the Polish Soto priest on awakening, the absence of a fixed self, and what remains when the story about oneself stops.

Kogen Czarnik

Buddha at the Gas Pump

44 min

Zen Jhanas: Dharma Talk

A teisho on the Buddha's first and last practice, given at Mountain Cloud Zen Center.

Stephen Snyder

Mountain Cloud Zen Center

8 min

Talk · Zen2009

Zen Photography

On the camera as a way of seeing rather than of recording.

Zen Mountain Monastery

1h 57m

Zen Priest Interview

A podcast interview on ordination, koan work and the practical shape of a Zen priest's day.

Kogen Czarnik

Simplicity Zen

56 min