Ram Dass once said: "If you think you’re enlightened, try spending a week with your family."
In this week’s Dharma talk, Jonathan Prescott explores how Zen can help you smile to troublesome Uncle Ned and enjoy your sister’s dry fruitcake. Happy Holidays!

Bright Buddhas show us how to be free. Shadow Buddhas show us how to suffer. In this talk from our December 4th Morning of Mindfulness, Jonathan Prescott offers a 3-step practice to help us embrace our Shadow Buddhas and turn them into transformative teachers.

Jonathan Prescott shares several talks from the recent "Listening With Love Retreat".   

Jonathan Prescott offers a model of how our core suffering begins, how we create a self to avoid our code suffering, and how we try to force the world to play along with our scheme. He then offers practices for transforming our suffering, our self, and the world.

​Jonathan Prescott explores Right Effort, one of the elements of the Buddha's 8-Fold Path. He shares stories and insights to help us find the balance between effort and ease.
Photo credit: Steamfitter, by Lewis Hine, 1920

Since the human mind generates strong currents, we need a meditation anchor. Otherwise, we're swept away by thoughts and emotions. Join Jonathan Prescott as he demonstrates breathing techniques to help our meditation feel solid and fruitful.

Mercy isn’t often explored in Zen but it is a powerful way to release attachment and deepen joy. Jonathan Prescott tells stories of mercy and invites us to become more merciful.

​Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that happiness is here and now. In this talk, Jonathan Prescott shows how to find happiness in your own here and now.

In the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara tells his friend Shariputra about the moment he awakened to emptiness. In this talk, Jonathan Prescott explores what these two ancient spiritual friends woke up to and how we can touch the same transformative insight in our modern lives.

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In these three recordings from the Radiant 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 how practice 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.