150 episodes listed below
Zen practice at the pace of attention.
Rochester Zen Center Teisho presents steady, practice-centered talks rooted in Zen practice. Recent episodes move through thoughts, zazen, koan work, patience, impermanence, no-self, and the difficult art of seeing experience without grasping.
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Rochester Zen Center Teisho is a collection of Zen talks shaped by retreat practice, careful reading, and plain instruction. The tone is calm, but not vague. These episodes speak to people sitting with their own minds: the thoughts that repeat, the effort that tightens, the impatience that turns practice into another project. A recurring theme is that thoughts themselves are not the problem. The trouble begins when attention fuses with them, defends them, or builds a self around them. The talks return often to zazen, breath practice, koan work, and the simple act of looking directly. That simplicity is treated seriously. It is not presented as easy. Several episodes draw from Ajahn Chah's teachings on impermanence and the end of suffering, using everyday examples to show how attachment forms around things that cannot stay. A glass breaks. A mood changes. A body ages. A mind that seems calm becomes agitated, and an agitated mind settles again. The point is not to control the motion, but to see it clearly. Other episodes work with Joko Beck, enlightenment, effort, patience, death, suicide, appreciation, and the habit of looking for rescue in the future. The show is at its strongest when it connects Buddhist language to direct experience: sensations in the body, thoughts passing through awareness, hopes about later, regrets about before. It has little interest in spiritual branding or self-improvement theater. Instead, it keeps returning to the present as the only workable place. Listeners hear teaching that is sparse, sometimes severe, and often tender in its refusal to flatter the ego. The pacing is reflective, with room for repetition and correction. Ideas are tested from several angles until they become practice instructions rather than abstractions. Rochester Zen Center Teisho will suit people who want a disciplined Mahayana Buddhist frame, especially those interested in how attention changes the experience of suffering. It asks for patience. It rewards close listening.
Made for: For listeners interested in serious Zen practice, Sashin talks, zazen, koan work, and Buddhist teachings on impermanence, suffering, and no-self. It best suits those who prefer measured instruction over conversational spirituality.
What sets it apart: The show grounds Buddhist teaching in the mechanics of attention: thoughts, sensations, effort, grasping, and return. Its talks move slowly enough for practice language to become usable rather than merely inspiring.
Dharma talks by senior teachers, including Sensei John Pulleyn, Sensei Donna Kowal, and Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede. The Rochester Zen Center was founded in 1966 by Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of 20th century Zen classic, The Three Pillars of Zen.
A gutter-bound bowling ball becomes your cue to stop steering what you cannot control.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Ajahn Chah's teaching on letting go meets an honest account of how hard it can be to stay present.
On day three of a seven-day retreat, the speaker reads from a book of Ajahn Chah's teachings and turns to the habit of grasping at thoughts and sensations. Worry and regret can pull attention away from what is happening now.
A Zen talk on noticing change and loosening the urge to control it.
On the second day of a seven-day Sashin, the speaker returns to Ajahn Chah's teaching on seeing things as they really are. Impermanence is easy enough to accept in the abstract. It feels different when a calm mind is disturbed or a treasured glass sits close to an elbow.
A sesshin talk uses Ajahn Chah's teaching on impermanence to return to simple awareness.
On the first day of a seven-day sesshin, the speaker reads from Thai forest teacher Ajahn Chah and turns to impermanence in the body and mind. The Buddhist three marks of existence meet an ordinary habit: holding on to what feels good and pushing away what does not.
A Zen talk about finding silence of mind while the world stays loud.
For this speaker, silence in zazen does not depend on a quiet room. It means sitting without chasing thoughts, pulling away from experience or trying to make practice produce a particular result. Anticipated St.
Dharma talks for a tender, troubled world.
Patient Dhamma reflection, close to silence.
Zen practice without spiritual gloss.
Bare readings of Early Buddhist texts.
Patient Dhamma teaching with textual depth.
Patient Dharma talks for reflective practice.
A talk on the meaning of a bodhisattva and how to live up to the bodhisattvic vows in daily practice.
A Chan meditation retreat talk exploring the paradoxical nature of seeking wisdom and the relativity of perspective.
A Zen meditation retreat talk on making every thought the present moment and experiencing time as a continuous present.
A meditation teacher discusses how thoughts are not the problem, but our relationship to them is, in a workshop setting.
A Zen teacher discusses the middle way of effort in practice, balancing between apathy and overexertion.
Rochester Zen Center Teisho examines Joko Beck’s “No Hope” section from Everyday Zen during day six of a March 2026 Seven-Day Sashin.
A Buddhist teacher reflects on Ajahn Chah's teachings about impermanence and the inevitability of birth and death.
A Buddhist teacher reads from Ajahn Chah's book on impermanence, discussing how suffering can lead to contemplation and spiritual growth.
Ajahn Chah’s teaching in Rochester Zen Center’s “Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away #3” centers on impermanence, “not self,” and the repeated phrase “here and now.” The speaker uses examples like an old monk sent “over there,” Saint Augustine’s “not yet,” and a stolen camera to show how grasping keeps moving peace into the future.
Ajahn Chah says the present moment contains both cause and result, and that's where past and future meet.
Rochester Zen Center Teisho's "Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away #1" reads Ajahn Chah's book during a March 2026 seven-day sashin, starting with "Understanding Mind" and "Understanding Phenomena." The speaker links Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Brahm, and Jack Kornfield to a Theravadan Thai forest lineage and keeps returning to "attention," "mindfulness," and the claim that "phenomena are phenomena, mind is mind." The middle of the talk emphasizes the three marks of existence—impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and no-self—through examples like a dirty plate, a shelf mushroom in Vermont, and the five heaps of body, sensation, perception, thought, and consciousness.
Rochester Zen Center Teisho's “A Quiet Mind” argues that zazen depends on mental silence rather than quiet surroundings, using St.
A talk exploring the distinction between focusing on future goals versus being present in the current moment, inspired by the book 'The Molecule of More'.