In these three recordings from the Radian Light Zen Spiritual Friendship Retreat, Michael Melancon and Jonathan Prescott explore the role that spiritual friends play in our lives and practice. Michael shows us how to create and benefit from friendships, while Jonathan speaks about howpractice forms anchor us in the present moment and how adversarial friends help us wake up.

Jonathan Prescott offers a dharma talk exploring the role mothers play in our lives and how mothering is something all of us can offer and receive, even if we've never given birth.
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​Gathas are short poems designed to change our minds. Jonathan Prescott shares how gatha practice can turn mindlessness into awakening.

​Zen can seem mysterious. How does a beginner begin? Is there some sort of training program? In this talk, Jonathan Prescott points to Zen’s counterintuitive core: To learn, we unlearn; to fill our teacup, we empty our teacup.

​Pain and suffering enter all of our lives. How do we meet that suffering so that it transforms us rather than defeats us? Jonathan Prescott looks at what suffering is, how it arises, and how to practice with it.

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​The Buddha once banished 500 noisy monks from the monastery, sending them on a muddy march across India. Jonathan Prescott explores why Buddhist teachers sometimes behave strangely. How can we understand and make use of their unexpected teachings? 

During the year’s darkest days, our natural response is silence. The world’s creatures know to settle into the comfort of darkness, stilling their bodies within the earth’s crevices and hidden places. Jonathan Prescott offers gentle words and practices to connect us with this elemental silence. ​

It’s not enough for us to practice for our benefit alone because, as Bodhisattvas, we aspire to save all beings. Jonathan Prescott turns to 9th century Zen Master Kyogen for inspiration on how to share our one fleeting, precious life with the world.

In this podcast, Jonathan Prescott offers a session of training in Inviting the Bell.  This is a wonderful opportunity to either learn a new skill/gift or deepen the Bell Minder practice you already have.  

​Our adversaries allow us to see more broadly and act more skillfully. Can we find ways to make those adversaries more beautiful? Jonathan Prescott offers tools to help us open our hearts and work with everyone, even those we’ve learned to reject.

​Rest is the absence of restlessness. Jonathan Prescott describes some of the forces that push us towards restless lives, then offers a guided meditation on coming home to ourselves. We are miracles and are already enough.

Jonathan Prescott offers insights into doing non-doing: Using the 'doing' of Zen practice forms to realize the 'non-doing' of deep rest.
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​In this final talk of the 8 Realizations Practice Period and Retreat, Jonathan Prescott tells the story of sailing your Dharmakaya Boat to the shore of Nirvana.

Michael Melancon points toward the deep realization possible when we transcend ideas of birth and death. This talk covers the 8th Realization of the Great Beings.

​Exploring the balance between too little and too much, Michael Melancon takes up the 6th Realization (Poverty) while Jonathan Prescott offers insights about the 7th Realization (Sensual Desire.)

Ignorance is the disease.  Mindfulness is the medicine.

Ignorance is the contraction of awareness. It is the foundation of our suffering. Jonathan Prescott describes how ignorance traps us and how the miracle of mindfulness offers a way back to the freedom of the present moment.

​Jonathan Prescott describes how indolence is failing to act on what we know. We can be indolent by doing too little, but also by doing too much. This is the 5th talk in the 8 Realizations of Great Beings practice period.

​Michael Melancon offers a beautiful explanation of how the human mind is always searching outside itself and never feels fulfilled. This is the 4th talk in our 8 Realizations of the Great Beings practice period.

Jonathan Prescott explores the second Great Realization - that more desire brings more suffering - and offers a practice for transforming our own desire.
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Gail Kirgis offers us a beautiful Guided Meditation that brings us into intimate contact with Impermanence.  
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Michael Melancon explores the first of the 8 Realizations of the Great Beings - Impermanence.

In this conversation between old friends, Jonathan Prescott and Michael Melancon discuss joy - what it is, what it is not, and how to foster it in your life. They look to their 20+ year friendship as a training ground for finding joy in practice forms, generosity, relationships, and the accomplishments of others. Although they use different language to describe joy, both agree that joy is what surfaces when we let go.

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Fear stalks us all. It lurks in the shadows and avoids our conscious awareness. But fear is not something to fear. It is something to turn towards, embrace and transform.
Fear is an energy that both protects us and distorts us. Helpful fear keeps us out of danger, but sometimes hardens into unhelpful fears that color our perceptions and separate us from reality. Our practice is a healing balm that can liberate us from unhelpful fear by creating space in which we can see our fearful mental formations, experience their distortions, and transform them with patience and kindness. Liberation isn't easy and it isn't quick, but having a Sangha and a teacher helps.
Listen to the talk for more detail and inspiration.

​Jonathan Prescott tells stories of kindness so we can feel kindness come alive in our bodies. But kindness is more than a feeling; it's an action, so we explore what kindness is and how we can cultivate kind actions that benefit everyone.

​This week, we bathed ourselves in kindness. We enjoyed stories told by both the givers and receivers of kindness and felt the experiences in our own bodies.