Embodied Zen, slowly brought into daily life.
Living Zen is a steady sequence of Dharma talks from Eshu, the abbot of Zen West Buddhist Society. Its teaching moves from the body, the zendo, bells, chants, and sitting practice into questions of time, ancestry, play, effort, and awakening.
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Living Zen is a long-running stream of Dharma talks shaped by the rhythms of Rinzai Zen practice. Its center is not hot commentary or spiritual lifestyle advice. It is the repeated return to sitting, form, breath, attention, and the ordinary body that has to carry the path. Eshu speaks from Zen West Buddhist Society and often situates the talks in shared practice settings such as the zendo, UVic sits, and the wider Zen West Sangha. The episodes treat form as alive. A bell is not just a sound, incense is not just a ritual object, and posture is not just a way to look correct. They become instruments for waking up to relationship. The body is a major teacher here. Shoulder tension, weak backs, sitting on the floor, breathing into the abdomen, and the energetic line from tailbone to crown all become part of the Dharma rather than obstacles to it. The show is also careful about effort. It warns against grim practice while still asking for wholehearted attention, using theater, sport, play, digestion, and composting to describe the slow intelligence of commitment. Ancient teachings are kept close to present life. Daito Kokoshi's final instruction becomes a question about buses, lattes, phone calls, Zoom, and the briefness of time. The story of Sona becomes a way to hear practice as tuning, not too tight and not too loose. A Zen shout becomes a sudden return from planning and worry into embodied life. The talks also return to ancestry, land, conditioning, and the people one comes from. They do not hurry toward a neat takeaway. They circle, clarify, correct, and revisit, letting the teaching accumulate through repeated contact. Living Zen suits listeners who can stay with a slow voice and a serious subject without needing everything polished into slogans. Its strongest moments come when the most traditional material is translated back into something lived: how to sit, how to listen, how to carry awareness into ordinary activity, and how to return again when practice has become too tight, too hungry, or too solemn.
Made for: For listeners drawn to Zen practice, meditation, ritual form, Buddhist teaching, and contemplative talks that move at a patient pace. It especially suits people who want practice described through the body and ordinary life rather than abstract doctrine alone.
What sets it apart: Living Zen stands out for its sustained attention to the physical and relational texture of practice: posture, bells, incense, chanting, breath, land, and community. Traditional Rinzai material is not rushed into explanation; it is patiently translated into lived practice.
Spontaneous Zen talks given in the Rinzai tradition by Ven. Eshu Martin, abbot of the Victoria Zen Centre in Victoria, BC, Canada. www.zenwest.caIf you enjoy this podcast, rate it,review it, and share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook and face to face.www.zenwest.caCheck out the Living Zen Podcast app on the iTunes app store!
This is the show that lets a koan ring the bell on your self-imposed limits.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient Zen teaching on inherited patterns, personal practice, and remembering the people one comes from.
Living Zen's "Remember the People You Came From" follows a question rooted in practice and widened by inheritance: how does a person meet the world through a frame partly received, partly imagined or made, and partly imposed?
A gentle Dharma talk on how clear form can steady attention, movement, and meditation.
The episode centers on how clear form changes the felt experience of practice. A Dharma talk is likened to rain: no one catches every drop, and attention may naturally gather around what is useful without turning that into self-reproach.
A grounded, patient look at koan interview as a discipline of honest attention.
Living Zen turns to koan practice through the Rinzai interview: the charged encounter where a student brings a response, tests whether it carries real resonance, and returns to the cushion when something still feels unfinished.
Eshu turns the search for paternal approval into a Zen inquiry about where belonging is located.
Eshu treats mother and father as two directions within Zen practice. Mother points toward dissolution, true home, and the unconditional embrace of the cosmos; father becomes the figure more easily placed outside oneself, in the longing for approval, recognition, and…
Generous Buddhist conversations without the rush.
On Father's Day, Eshu Martin, abbot of the Victoria Zen Centre, explores the meaning of fatherhood in Zen practice.
Eshu Martin, abbot of Victoria Zen Centre, explains the form and practice of interview in Rinzai Zen.
A Zen teacher discusses Case 28 of the Gateless Barrier, where Daishan's enlightenment is triggered by Lungtan blowing out a candle.
Living Zen’s March 17, 2026 Dharma Talk uses a river metaphor to explain how Zazen helps practitioners observe thoughts without grabbing onto them.
A Zen teacher introduces a Dharma talk on the role of the body in Zen practice, focusing on hand postures and protocols in the Zendo.
A Zen teacher reflects on the living, relational nature of Zen form, emphasizing breath, movement, and play in practice.
A Zen teacher reflects on the interplay of play and seriousness in practice, using the cultural marking of new years as a springboard.
Abbot Eshu introduces and explores the final instruction of National Teacher Daito, a key Rinzai Zen teaching, in a Dharma talk.
A Dharma talk using the story of Sona the musician to explore tuning one's practice not too tight and not too loose, emphasizing listening to the land and the music beneath life.
A Zen teacher introduces a simple, ancient practice of shouting to bring full embodiment and presence into daily life.
"There's no way to avoid relationship" frames Zen practice as a relational discipline, not an escape.
In Living Zen’s “Miraculous Medicine,” Eshu examines how Dharma talks arise from the teacher’s relationship with a particular zendo rather than from a prepared lecture.
Living Zen's preparation session for Understanding Boundaries presents boundaries as the process of defining personal values, preferences, and limits.
Living Zen host Eshu Martin examines “A Question of Control” through survival responses, anxiety, and subconscious rules.
Eshu Martin introduces Living Zen's thought process trance work after the show’s 2017 pause and points listeners to a March 27, 2024 introduction.
Eshu Martin reintroduces the Living Zen podcast, outlining future content on trancework, meditation, decolonization, and storytelling.
A Zen teacher discusses Case 28 of the Gateless Barrier, a koan about Daishan's enlightenment when Lungtan blows out a candle.