Podcasts

Zen centers itself around questioning. In this talk Michael suggests that we get past ego's habitual inertia by recognizing its tendency to "fortify itself against vulnerability". From here we allow acceptance and non-attachment to support our spiritual work. In this...

Dainin Katagiri Roshi speaks eloquently about authentic stillness in his work Returning to Silence. In this talk Michael, and his students, add commentary to the idea that even in great activity we can uncover a liberating and spacious silence and stillness. The...

Recognizing that Awareness is not thought is one of the key steps that all practitioners must take on the Path to Awakening. In this talk Michael suggests that shifting our approach to day-to-day living from thought into Awareness allows us to lose our addiction to...

Whenever the Infinite brushes up against that in us which is contracted we are given an opportunity to Awaken. Realigning our relationship with these "run ins" with the Infinite can bring about conscious participation with each of these spiritual earthquakes that help...

Like all things, we have a limited amount of time. Or, as the African proverb says, "Two people shouldn't argue when their house is on fire". With this in mind, how should we use our time wisely? In this talk Michael reviews the essential nature of all things: all...

Do authentic spiritual paths leave us without passion? And what does surrender feel like anyway? In this talk Michael suggests practices that support a deeper way of living where life's joys are celebrated and cultivated in ways that wake us up rather than shut us down.

So what does it mean to have a felt sense of our True Nature? What does it mean to cut through the veils of delusion and have a felt sense of the Radiant Clarity of Emptiness? In this talk Michael suggests that we can uncover our deepest Freedom when we carefully...

How exactly do we cut through delusion and have a direct experience of the Truth beyond name and form? We begin by studying our resistance so that we can uncover the source of delusion, then we practice letting it go. In this talk Michael points out how we can look at...

  What are we doing here? What is this practice and what are we striving for, especially when the teaching tells us not to strive for anything? In this talk Michael points out that we Awaken when we follow these questions to their core. Opening to forgiveness and...

The great sage Bodhidharma tells us that "the wise among us" don't attach, and therefore wake up. This Awakening is nothing less than play infused with, and spawned from, the Divine. In this talk Michael points to a map that leads us both to as well as from our soul....