Dive into the complete episode list for Zen at the Sharp End. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Pub. Date
Title
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14 Feb 2022
Seeing her mother in herself - with April Mannino
00:38:38
In this episode I speak to April Mannino, member of the Zenways sangha and trainee Zen teacher, about her troublesome buddhas.
April talks very honestly and candidly about an old work colleague who she found particularly difficult, and who, over years of reflection and contemplation has taught her a great deal about herself and her relationship with her mother. She also talks about a few other more recent troublesome examples, including when people don’t show up to meetings and how her young grandchild’s relaxed table manners contrast with the strict manners that were drilled into her when she was young.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
In this epiode I'm talking to Melanie Sinclair, ICU nurse, member of the Zenways sangha and trainee Zen teacher.
Mel talks about her realisation that in many troublesome situations in her life, she’s realised she’s the common denominator - that she’s the troublesome influence! She very honestly discusses dealing with difficulties that arise within her marital relationship, and how her husband so patiently gives her the time and space to regulate her emotions, reflect, and figure out how to respond. She also discusses a pivotal point in her understanding of dealing with difficult relationships that came during a visit home to see family in Australia, where she learned to let go of wanting her family to be a certain way.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Transforming anger into compassion - with Scott Snibbe
00:34:18
Scott Snibbe is an interactive media artist, entrepreneur, and meditation instructor. He’s been a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism for many years and is host of the popular “A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment” podcast.
In this episode, Scott discusses the very troublesome situation that arose after his grandfather’s death, when he was sued by a distant relative who’d hoped for an inheritance and thought Scott had embezzled his grandfather’s savings. Scott very honestly describes the pain and anger that arose from being accused of theft and the ensuing 3-year law suit, and discusses how his Buddhist practice helped and what he learnt. In doing so, he explores the more analytical Tibetan Buddhist approach to dealing with difficult people, how that meshes with the mindfulness approach, and the interplay between awareness of what’s going on and knowing what actions to take. Scott also talks about the unintentional conflicts that arise between him and the closest person in his life - his wife - and how this partnership has also taught him a great deal.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
When you recognise that you enjoy the feeling of getting angry - with Pete Cherry
00:33:39
Pete Cherry joined the Zenways sangha in 2012 after having already been a yoga teacher for many years. He is now a trainee Zen teacher and regular in the community. He lives with his wife and son in London.
In this episode, Pete discusses how jealousy and envy have always been his biggest troublesome sticking points. He’s learnt how the need to ‘get even’ or ‘prove yourself right’ can so easily highjack you and take over your actions through the strong magnetic pull of emotion. After realising he often spends hours beating himself up about the way he’s reacted, he explores how getting some perspective, and seeing his actions through the eyes of his son, can reveal new ways of dealing with troublesome people. He also strongly emphasises how important it is to become familiar with your bodily sensations, as they can become sensitive indicators that give you the power to redirect the outcome of a situation.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Surrendering to the physicality of the experience - with Jason Christopher
00:39:44
Jason Christopher is a London-based member of the Zenways sangha. He came to Zen through Christianity after he started meditating with a group run by a Christian minister with a long-time interest in Zen.
In this episode, he discusses the effects of his upbringing, the emotionally dependent relationship he’s had with his parents, and his journey through psychotherapy and meditation. He describes a dramatic shift some years ago where he was able to drop out of the world of thoughts and storylines and bring attention wholly to the present moment physicality of his experience. After that, the particular strong physical sensation he discovered has become his troublesome buddha from which he has learnt a great deal. Along the way, he talks very openly about his visceral realisation that pain comes from resistance, and the only real path is to let go and surrender.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Bhante Vannyapamsa grew up in Sri Lanka in a Catholic family. He was drawn to Buddhism in his teens after a poignant encounter with an enlightened monk. After becoming a monk himself in Burma, he moved to the UK to study for his masters in cognitive science and has since founded the Dhamma Center in Colchester, Essex.
In this episode he talks very lucidly about his personal experience with working with prisoners in India, Burma and the UK. He candidly discusses the difficult time he had when he first became a Buddhist monk, and how his Catholic upbringing caused some conflict in expectations since it was very different to the background of the other monks. He goes on to talk about the importance of not taking on or absorbing other peoples energy, especially when interacting with difficult or troubled people. And he also gives some very sound advice about self-reflection and realisation, coming to terms with the self, and living in the present moment.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Suddenly a lifetime of resentment shows up - with Wendy Shinyo Haylett
00:35:58
Wendy Shinyo is a long-time Buddhist practitioner and lay minister with The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness. She is also the host of the podcast, "Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better", and works as a life coach, meditation teacher, and spiritual companion.
In this episode Wendy talks very honestly about how her practice was turned upside down during the pandemic after she started to feel anger and act irrationally with people close to her. She experienced these people as very ‘other’ despite years of Buddhist practice and ‘knowing’ no one is really separate. This led her to seek a talking therapist who helped her to recognise she had become very good at pushing away the trauma that arose from the after-effects of coming out as gay in the 1960s. As a result her body had accumulated years of unresolved resentment. She very openly and affably discusses the confluence of psychotherapy and Buddhist practice and the importance of somatic-based meditation when coming to terms with your troublesome buddhas.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
The importance of being truly heard - with Dr. Russell Razzaque
00:34:30
Russell Razzaque is a consultant psychiatrist working within the NHS, and author of “Breaking Down is Waking Up” (Watkins, 2014), a book that explores the relationship between psychological breakdown and spiritual awakening. His work involves research around creating systems of care based on mindfulness, embodied listening and giving patients agency in the decisions made around their treatment. For a number of years he’s been involved in bringing a revolutionary new psychiatric treatment modality called Peer Supported Open Dialogue to the England and is currently the project lead, overseeing a major country-wide clinical trial.
In this episode he talks about how his first experience of a silent meditation retreat taught him more about his mind than all his years of psychiatric training. He talks openly and lucidly about examples of difficult situations in his personal and professional life, and discusses the importance of creating a safe space in which to articulate our suffering, and how compassion and deep listening (both with yourself and others) are essential.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Don't distract me from my important spiritual practice! - with Matt Shinkai Kane
00:30:04
Matt Shinkai Kane Roshi is head of the Blue Cliff Zen Centre in Eugene, Oregon, USA. Before that he spent 7 years as a monk in Japan under Zen master Shinzan Miyamae in Gyokuryiji, becoming a teacher in 2012 and given transmission in 2017. He’s also a Zen Yoga teacher and is on the faculty in the University of Oregon’s PE mind-body department.
In this interview, Shinkai talks about his time as a young monk in Japan training under Shinzan Roshi. He describes how Shinzan had a special knack of creating a temple environment full of difficult people and situations and discusses how he dealt with that. In particular he talks very honestly how he got caught up in perceiving these difficulties as “distracting from his important spiritual practice” and how long it took for him to realise how trapped he had got in that mindset. Also goes on to discuss how he works to bring some of Shinzan Roshi’s teachings about dealing with difficult people into his own sangha and teaching.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Troublesome politicians and climate activism - with Satya Robyn
00:33:35
Satya Robyn is a Pure Land Buddhist teacher and co-runs the Bright Earth Pure Land temple in Malvern, UK with her husband. She’s also a a psychotherapist and author – her latest books are 'Dear Earth: Love Grief and Activism' and 'Coming Home: Refuge in Pureland Buddhism'.
In this interview Satya talks about her involvement in climate activism and her acts of civil disobedience taken in conjunction with XR Buddhists and other inter-faith groups. She tenderly describes how her practice creates the ground that supports her and allows her to follow through on the actions she intuitively feels are important. She also explores the thorny issue of how to deal with difficult politics and politicians when choices are made that you don’t agree with. Within the discussion, she lists a highly pragmatic set of action points to take if you don’t agree with a political direction.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Birgitte Dosanjh is a physiotherapist and pilates teacher, and mother of two: Iona, 5 and Oskar, 2. Although it’s a slight departure for this podcast to speak to someone who doesn’t identify as a Buddhist or have a regular meditation practice, Birgitte has resonated a great deal with my book “Zen and the Art of Dealing with Difficult People” and wanted to share some of her own amazing insights here around dealing with her children. (Full disclosure: Birgitte is one of my wife’s oldest friends).
In this interview, Birgitte describes the difficult backdrop into which her second child was born and how, as a result, she ended up with post-natal depression and having to seek professional help. She talks about how her journey through this has taught her many things about what it is to be a parent, including the importance of letting go, honesty and acceptance. As she says, she’s realised the truth of the phrase “smooth seas never make a good sailor,” and has come to value those rougher seas. She also talks about dealing with meltdowns and the value of understanding what happens when we “flip our lid” (referencing the analogy of what happens in the brain when we lose emotional regulation as described by Professor of Psychiatry Daniel Siegel and in my book). Of interest to many parents will be how she describes the importance she’s found in allowing her children to feel what they feel without dismissing or overreacting to those feelings.
Credit for phrase “magnetising to another’s emotional state” goes to “Why Mutual Face Watching Matters” by Keena Cummins.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Spending time with family over Christmas - with Mark Westmoquette
00:35:25
My podcast has been going now for a year! Thank you so much to everyone who has listened over this time. I’ve had the amazing opportunity to share with you interviews with some very inspiring people, which I hope you’ve enjoyed and got a lot out of. And we’ve got some great people lined up for next year…
In this episode I thought it would be nice to do a Christmas special and talk, myself, about a particularly thorny area of practice: spending time with family – which for many of us sums up the Christmas period quite succinctly! Or for some it's not spending time with family, which can be equally troublesome.
It comes as no surprise that certain family members can be our biggest troublesome Buddhas. And since Christmas is often a time when we see a lot of family (or perhaps avoid seeing family), there may be many potentially wonderful opportunities to learn and grow from those encounters. While it may be difficult to keep our regular practices going over the Christmas period, when things are busy and our normal routines go out the window, that is by no means a reason to think our spiritual work must come to a dead stop. Working with difficult people, challenging relationships and troublesome encounters ought to be as much part of our practice as silent meditation.
In this discussion, I talk about my own experience of family Christmasses growing up and how I've reflected on how I habitually cut myself off from feeling, and struggled with accepting the limitations of my mother's disability. Then, after talking more generally, I offer six things that might help – or at least might be worth bearing in mind – before plunging into our family festivities. Then I finish with describing a couple of the Buddha's troublesome family members and how he dealt with them.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Accepting everyone, wherever they are - with Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum
00:36:02
Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum is a Lay Minister with the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness and is based in New Jersey, USA. He is a social worker with a background in addiction and substance abuse and currently works in a hospice. His journey into Buddhism began when a colleague brought up the role of spirituality in mental health treatment and addiction recovery, and it occurred to him he had never included this important dimension in his own work, or indeed in his own life. After searching around and doing a lot of reading, he came across the Bright Dawn Center and it’s unique blend of Zen and Pureland Buddhism
In this interview, Bradley talks about his father’s illness with Alzheimers Disease and eventual death, and how, through the period of his illness, his mother became one of his most important troublesome buddhas. We discuss how working through difficult times such as this is often not pretty, and how making mistakes and messing up is part and parcel of the learning process. He also talks about dealing with difficulty within his marriage and also in his professional life as a social worker.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Fostering a safe space for creativity - with Shelley Albrich
00:38:50
Shelley Albrich is a high school art teacher based in Eugene, Oregon and a member of the Blue Cliff Zen group led by Shinkai Roshi (who I interviewed a few episodes back). She encountered Zen and Buddhism via a yoga class that Shinkai was teaching, when he invited the class to come on Zen retreat with him.
In this interview, we talk about how her Buddhist practice influences her creativity - both in her personal work and teaching. She describes how she sees part of her practice as fostering a safe space in her art classes for the kids, many of which have difficulties in their lives, to explore their emotions and express them creatively. She also discusses the ripples of difficult feelings and thoughts that arose when she was ‘involuntarily transferred’ from one school to another. Her meditation practice helped her to recognise this as a gift that highlighted her natural tendency to maintain the status quo and an opportunity to practice being less reactive. Towards the end of the episode we explore how sitting with difficult feelings is an act of deep self-love. Furthermore, she describes how the feelings of safety and being held when sitting in the presence of a caring community has helped her touch into painful emotions that might otherwise have felt too overwhelming by herself.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Releasing ourselves from the prisons of our own making - with Sandy Rinko-an Chubb
00:31:48
Sandy Rinko-an Chubb is the guiding teacher at the Oxford Zen Centre, UK, in the Sanbo Zen lineage. She began Zen practice with Master Yamata Hogen in 1987, then continued her study with Sister Elaine MacInnes (founder of the Oxford Zen Centre) and John Eiun-ken Gaynor, and was appointed Zen Teacher in 2013. For ten years, Sandy was director of the Prison Phoenix Trust, an organisation that offers meditation and yoga to prisoners and prison officers in the UK and Ireland.
In our interview, she shares her delightful warmth and illuminating wisdom on dealing with troublesome buddhas, gleaned from years of working with prisoners and zen students of every shape and size. She emphasises the Buddha’s first noble truth that everyone suffers, and that, in the end, “if you let it bother you, you’ll go mad!” She makes the parallel between prison inmates and those who may be on the outside but put themselves in prisons of our own making by desperately wanting things to be different (i.e. the Buddha’s 2nd noble truth that we suffer because we cling). She describes the wisdom of just sitting, facing yourself, coming to know yourself (even like yourself!), and tasting the sweet and bitter equally. This acceptance, she says, is the key to finding the stillness and peace beneath the noisy, busy, uncomfortable, difficult environments and interactions we face every day. Not only that, but it shows us how to find the utter perfection of every moment, just as it is.
Towards the end of the interview she cites part of the great Zen master Torei’s Bodhisattva Vow, which I commented was an excellent summary of the essence of a troublesome buddha: “Who can be ungrateful or not respectful to each and every thing, as well as to human beings! Even though someone may be a fool, be warm and compassionate. If by any chance such a person should turn against us, become a sworn enemy and abuse and persecute us, we should sincerely bow down with humble language, in reverent belief that he or she is the merciful avatar of Buddha, who uses devices to emancipate us from sinful karma that has been produced and accumulated upon ourselves by our own egoistic delusion and attachment through countless cycles of kalpas.”
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
The importance of practising loving kindness - with Frank Cooke
00:36:08
Zenways sangha member Frank Cook has worked in finance as a stock broker until his retirement a few years ago. He first got into meditation in the 1990s as a way of helping him deal with the stresses of work and having a young family, and has, over the years, primarily practised mindfulness of breathing and metta (loving kindness).
In our interview, Frank describes how he’s found the breath-focused meditation of more immediate benefit - helping him to “dial down the noise”and step back from the busyness of daily life. But in more recent years, he’s begun to realise the - perhaps more subtle – but deep, long-term benefits of loving kindness practice. He’s come to realise how much loving kindness practice has benefitted his interactions in work and family by helping him love and forgive himself, see others more kindly, and understand why he finds certain people so difficult.
He talks about having a healthy disrespect for authority, which has helped him deal with certain spiritual teachers over the years as well as difficult bosses at work. He honestly discusses how he himself has often been his own troublesome person when, for example, his conviction in his own opinions has become too strong, or when he’s felt envious of other people’s good fortunes. In dealing with envy in particular, he describes how important letting go is - recognising that the pain of holding on is greater than pain of letting go.
As an accompaniment to this episode, I’ve recorded a Zen-style loving kindness meditation. I wanted to offer this because I totally agree with Frank that this kind of practice can be of great benefit in helping us deal with our difficult people (ourselves included!).
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Generating the intention or wish that all beings feel well and happy.
The meditation starts by encouraging you to wish loving kindness to yourself. Then it asks you to intensify and expand that feeling to the point where it feels like it's overflowing. Then we bring a friend/loved one, a neutral person and finally a difficult person to mind and send them our loving kindness. The practice finishes by encouraging this loving kindness to grow like an expanding bubble to embrace the whole, infinite universe.
This meditation was recorded to go along with Ep2-4 with Frank Cooke. It's an excellent practice to do to help us deal with our difficult people.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Troublesome auditions, conductors and orchestras - with Evan Williams
00:29:02
Evan Williams is a professional French Horn player in an operatic orchestra in Germany and part of the Zenways sangha. Aside his concert appearances, Evan is also a music therapist and passionate about influencing people’s health in positive way through music. He came to meditation after being inspired by his brother to stop reading about it and actually do it! His first serious encounter was on a 10-day Vipassana retreat where he found a sense of contentment arising from within for the first time.
In this interview, Evan talks about how the time spent in his early career doing auditions for months on end taught him the value of staying in the present moment and maintaining a ‘beginners mind’. He goes on to discuss how troublesome auditions, conductors, composers, children and traffic have combined in various ways to produce many fantastic opportunities to practice mindfulness and Zen.
At one point, Evan talks about the effectiveness of a Zen energy practice called ‘ah-un breathing’ at helping him pause, centre and focus before performing after a particularly blustery journey to a concert. As an accompaniment to this episode, I’ve recorded the ah-un breathing practice for you to try (click here). It’s a very powerful way of energising what’s known in Japanese as the hara (the guts) as a way of grounding and generating a kind of centred, focused power.
Evan mentions the book “Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond” by Julian Daizan Skinner (where the ah-un mediation is described), which can be purchased here (or on Amazon).
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
The ah-un meditation comes from the Rinzai Zen tradition and is a powerful practice for waking up, centering our awareness and energising the hara (belly). It may feel a bit weird at first (and sound strange), but the proof is in the pudding...! Try it and see how you feel.
The more familiar you get with this practice, the less physical movements and sounds you'll need. These are helpful in the beginning to create this energising quality, but over time you might find you only need only one breath, and then no sounds, and then just you might be able to do it simply with your intention. You'll find you naturally start to live more of your life remaining centred in your hara.
This meditation was recorded to go along with Ep2-5 with Evan Williams. Evan has found it to be a great practice to do before a performance (or equivalently a talk, interview, etc.) to encourage a body-centred focus and a strong sense of grounding and power.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Storylines, identity, race and transformation - with Rehena Harilall
00:42:21
Rehena was born in South Africa to a Buddhist family of Indian origin, who had been brought to South Africa during colonial times as indentured labour (her ancestors are originally from Bodh Gaya, the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment). She grew up in heart of the apartheid movement in a racially segregated area with many other families of Asian descent, and had an education in activism from an early age, with her parents being heavily involved in the anti-apartheid movement. After the apartheid was abolished she worked in various reconstruction and development roles, which ultimately brought her to the UK. Here she connected with the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village community, and more recently with the Tibetan and Insight Traditions. Her work as a management consultant together with her engaged Buddhist practice and racial activism creates an environment full of troublesome buddhas!
In this episode she discusses the difficult issue of creating and using labels and identity - when Buddhist practice asks us to let these go. She talks about how encounters with challenging people can become catalysts for examining the storylines we hold about ourselves and the situation in general. But she cautions that real transformation always comes with a level of discomfort - which we need to be ready to face. She emphasises that dealing with difficult people is not about retaliation (as in “an eye for an eye”) or passivity, but about realising the interdependent nature of universe and acting from that broad perspective.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
How to avoid being emotionally highjacked - with Geshe Namdak
00:41:13
Born in Netherlands, Geshe Namdak completed his university studies in Hydrology and went on to work as an environmental researcher. He found Buddhism via a martial arts practice and a general leaning towards a spiritual perspective on life. On a work visit to Tibet, he encountered the Tibetan style of Buddhism and felt drawn in that direction. He decided to become a monk and commit to the 20-year programme of becoming a Geshe in the Nalanda tradition at the remote at Sera Jey monastery in India, and is now one of just a handful of Westerners to have completed the comprehensive Geshe curriculum. In 2019 he was asked to become the resident teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London, UK.
In this interview Geshe-la (as he is known) brings his deep wisdom and experience to the discussion of how to deal with difficult people and situations. He describes 4 steps that are critical if we’re to transform our impulsive actions into constructive ones: awareness, gaining distance, acceptance, and reflection. In order that we bring these steps to bear in real-life situations, he emphasises the need for cultivating a calm mind. The challenge, of course, is maintaining that clarity when our afflictions (anger, hate, etc) are triggered. The danger is that if we don’t, we may become “emotionally hijacked” - as he puts it - and lose control of our actions leading to potentially dire consequences. But, he repeatedly emphasised, having a clear, accepting mind is not about rolling over and being a doormat. We can still be very direct and assertive even when we’re coming from a place of awareness, calmness and reason.
He described a lovely analogy from his time in India: He observed that when a new dog came towards the pack of stray dogs that lived near his monastery, most often the dogs became fearful and started to bark and growl. On one occasion, a new dog approached but, instead of barking, remained calm and started playing. Initially the pack didn’t know what to do, but within a few minutes they were all playing together. The lesson is that if we can alter our attitude and approach to a difficult situation, the outcome can totally change.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Coming face-to-face with money, wealth and finances - with Spencer Sherman
00:45:14
Spencer Sherman’s journey started in the late 80s when he had a panic attack and ran into his burning office building to retrieve his client files, sparking a realisation that he had valued money higher than his own life. This inspired him to begin a journey into meditation which brought him face-to-face with his issues around money. In the years that followed, he learned how to befriend his pains and tightly held beliefs and to transform his understanding of identity and wealth. Now based in California, Spencer devotes much of his time to sharing his mindfulness-based approach to money through his Fearless Finance program. He is the author of “The Cure for Money Madness” and founder of a Abacus Wealth, a successful, values-driven financial consulting firm.
In this episode, Spencer begins by talking openly about his experiences of certain difficult people at work, his habitual way of recoil and avoiding them, and how he has come to understand how important it is to take the risk of stepping out of our comfortable, habitual response patterns in order to find freedom to say what needs to be said. With honesty and humour, he also discusses his long journey of coming to understand his own relationship with money, and laments how the discussion of this central topic is so taboo in our society and leads to so much suffering. He goes on to discuss his work with those facing the pain of bankruptcy or major financial loss, and how he’s found so many of those people are deeply identified with their financial situation, believing that “net worth = self worth”. In exploring these topics, we talk about how encountering difficult people and facing our finances equally bring us face-to-face with impermanence and the realisation that there’s nothing to hold onto, and hence towards freedom.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Everyone is essentially a troublesome buddha! - with Matt
00:40:41
Matt has asked that I use only his first name to preserve his anonymity. Matt has been a member of the Zenways sangha for some years. He came to meditation originally through an interest in Asian martial arts and is now an authorised teacher of the Jhana practice method taught by Leigh Brassington.
Matt has high functioning autism (Aspergers Syndrome). In this interview, he explores his unique perspective on the intricate world of human interactions, where everyone he meets is essentially a troublesome buddha! In a fascinating discussion of the differences in social skills and awareness capabilities between neurotypical people and his own experience, he highlights how much his meditation practice has been of benefit - a practice that has become a source of tremendous growth and empowerment. First he’s come to face his “psychological material” on a deep level and learnt to accept himself just as he is. Secondly, he’s found difficult situations have got easier as a kind of side-effect of practice. Unlike many people who find cultivating present-moment body awareness and self-reflection helpful, this just doesn’t work for him. Instead, he’s found the deeply grooved sense of equanimity and calm that come from his practice has been of the most help when going into difficult situations. Now, as a meditation teacher, he finds deep nourishment from moments of direct, deep connection with his students - like (as the Zen saying goes) one arrow meeting another mid-flight.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Troublesome encounters in the dream world - with Charlie Morley
00:38:30
Charlie Morley is a bestselling author and teacher of lucid dreaming, shadow integration and Mindfulness of Dream & Sleep. Since early childhood, Charlie has been fascinated by lucid dreaming. His interest in Buddhism was piqued after reading “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama on a long flight when he was just 16, and just a few years later he took refuge in Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. After being instructed in the Buddhist practice of lucid dreaming by Lama Yeshe Rimpoche, he began giving workshops and teaching widely.
In this interview, Charlie discusses in depth the encounters he’s had with the most difficult person in his life - himself! In a lucid dream, he explains, you literally meet personified versions of your own psychological states. The negative (wounded, suffering) aspects are known as your shadow self. The lucid dreaming practice he teaches takes the view that meeting these so-called ‘demons’ offers you the opportunity of transforming them - for turning them into helpers or angels (i.e. troublesome buddhas). Charlie describes that when we recognise that, within a dream, all is pure potentiality and empty of inherent existence, all fear dissolves. We can then learn to face our deepest pain demons in the dream state and come to terms with them, hug them - and eventually let ourselves be eaten by them… This lays down the neural pathways that help us do that in waking life - to deal with the troublesome buddhas of our daily life.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Steve grew up in a Christian family on the Shetland Islands (off the northern coast of Scotland) and was very involved in church growing up. This provided the foundation for a life-long interest in spiritual investigation, philosophy, world mysticism, and body-awareness realms of practice. He has an interest in extreme outdoor survival, and works closely with the well-known therapist Michaela Boehm. Steve teaches a wide range of movement and meditation practices and works with leading figures to develop their performance and interpersonal skills. He also presents the popular Guru Viking Podcast, specialising in in-depth interviews with leaders and teachers in the world of meditation, spirituality, and self development.
In this interview touching on Steve’s broad experience and wisdom for dealing with difficult people, he highlights the Buddha’s teaching on the ‘Eight Worldly Winds’ (pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute). The Buddha taught that we suffer because we cling to the positive ‘winds’ (pleasure, gain, etc) and resist the negative ones. In dealing with challenging situations, Steve has found these to serve as a very helpful antidote to sense of shock or injustice of a difficult encounter. He has observed that wise people don’t celebrate a given situation, but instead take a more equanimous attitude. One such example is a story relating to the famous Zen master Hakuin that Steve has often meditated on and draws deep inspiration from:
Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life. A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child. This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin. In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else he needed.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket. The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back. Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"
– “Is that so?”, from “Zen Flesh Zen Bones” translated by Paul Reps
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Non-violent communication - with Claralynn Nunamaker
00:42:51
Claralynn Nunamaker grew up in Chicago. She first encountered Chinese philosophy when at university and particularly resonated with the Dao De Jing. She studied Chinese and spent some time in China before moving to moving to Ukiah, California, home of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas Chan Buddhist monastery. It’s there that she became a practising Buddhist. Soon she became involved in the Theravada Forest sangha in northern California and her interest moved her to learn the Pali language in order to read the early Buddhist sutras in their original language. Over the years she has extensively studied and taught Marshall Rosenberg’s system of non-violent communication, which she sees as the embodied practice of right speech. Today she aligns with early Buddhist teachings and is deeply influenced by Ayya Khema and her main teacher, Leigh Brasington. Claralynn serves as Director for the Scottish charity Friends of Early Buddhist Teachings and chair of Sakyadhita UK. Her website is crnunamaker.com.
In this interview, Claralynn insightfully explains the practice of non-violent communication (NVC) and its foundation in the universal attitudes of kindness, compassion, and empathy. Her view is that NVC gives us the tools to transform the aspiration of right speech into reality through clear learnable techniques and principles. Something we all need I’d say! The concept of a troublesome buddha finds its equivalent in the ‘enemy image’ in NVC. Through various personal examples, she explores the power of avoiding falling into the trap of simply describing the enemy image (ahh wasn’t that a big scary dog?) - thus giving it power - to identifying and describing our feelings and needs (I can see you’re scared and want to feel safe). This shift into connecting to the need that’s not being met, she says, allows us to draw alongside the difficult people we meet and see their Buddha nature.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
What are 'troublesome buddhas'? – with Zen master Daizan Skinner
00:29:24
To kick off this podcast I talk a bit about when I first came across the phrase 'troublesome buddhas' and how my encounters with various difficult people over the years formed the inspiration for my book "Zen and the Art of Dealing with Difficult People'.
Then I speak with my Zen teacher, Daizan Skinner Roshi. Daizan studied Zen for 15 years at a Soto Zen monastery in northern England before moving to Japan and studying for a further 6 years with the Rinzai Zen master Shinzan Miyamae. I met Daizan not long after he first got back from Japan in 2007 and have been studying with him ever since.
Daizan talks about the meaning of the phrase 'troublesome buddha' and discusses some examples of difficult people in his own life and what he's learnt from them. He also discusses how he encourages his Zen students to work with challenging relationships.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
All the Earth is Our Medicine - with Penny Seizan Clay
00:31:11
In this episode I speak with Penny Seizan Clay - a fellow member of the Zenways sangha, trainee zen teacher, certified mountain leader and yoga teacher (and founder of Mountain Yoga Kinlochleven).
Penny talks about her evolving relationship with her mother and what she's learned from this particularly challenging troublesome buddha. She also talks about getting caught up behind slow drivers and how these everyday encounters have taught her a great deal about her anger and frustration, and how to just enjoy the moment.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Having the Tools Ready in Your Toolkit - with Chris Owen
00:33:00
In this episode I talk to Chris Owen, a Zen practitioner of over 10 yrs experience. He recalls the time we both went to see the Dalai Lama speak in London as a moment that precipitated a big change in how he related to the troublesome, "hate figures" in his life. These days, Chris jokingly talks about how he can smell a troublesome buddha coming in the distance!
He goes on to talk about dealing with troublesome people in a the context of leadership and committee work, and how important it is to have the tools for dealing with difficult people ready in your toolkit.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Learning from our family - with Sophie Barraclough
00:26:08
In this episode I spoke to Zenways sangha member, Sophie Barraclough. Sophie first trained as a mindfulness teacher in 2015, and since then has found herself being drawn more and more towards Zen. She talks about how her husband and children in particular have been wonderful troublesome buddhas for her, teaching her a great deal about how to loosen up, let go and compromise.
She describes how, over time, she's become more aware of the difference between her and her reactions, and the positive effect of taking a mindful pause. She also observes how changes in her own behaviour have positively affected the behaviour and responses from others.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
Learning to step back and offer love - with Jon Murphy
00:34:55
In this episode I speak to Jon Murphy, member of the Zenways sangha, yoga, qigong and meditation teacher and brand consultant.
Jon speaks openly, honestly and very lucidly about his troublesome relationship with his family, and particularly his sister who's a drug addict. He discusses the family habit of trying to help and "fix" her. But as his Zen practice had developed, Jon has seen more clearly how she makes her own choices (even if she doesn't think she has a choice), and this has meant he's been able to let go more and get less caught up. He has realised that instead of interventions, it's love and support that she really needs.
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded - An online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk
This podcast is sponsored by Zen Minded – an online lifestyle store offering you the very best of Japanese craft, incense & other Zen-inspired home-goods. Check it out at www.zenminded.uk We’re also sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers convenient and affordable therapy online, helping match you with the right therapist from their network. They’ve extended an offer of 10% off your first month of therapy if you sign up via https://betterhelp.com/zenatthesharpend
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