Podcasts religion Young Urban Zen SF The Dharma Gate of Repose and Bliss? What Zazen is Dogen talking about?

The Dharma Gate of Repose and Bliss? What Zazen is Dogen talking about?

Published: April 27, 2022, 4:25 a.m.

Anshi Zachary Smith delivers a talk that asks, and attempts to address, the eternal question, \u201cThe Dharma Gate of Repose and Bliss? What Zazen is Dogen talking about?\u201d Many practitioners are baffled by the claim, made in Dogen\u2019s Fukanzazengi, that Zazen is not meditation in the traditional sense but simply the doorway to an experience that is translated as above but also as \u201cease and joy\u201d in some version of the liturgy. They might (rightly) ask, \u201cHow is me sitting here with my knees aching and my mind running off like a dog in a dog park \u2018the Dharma Gate of anything?\u201d We\u2019ll get into why, and how it works.

Zachary is a priest at City Center who started practicing here in 1993, was ordained as a priest in 2014 and received Dharma Transmission in 2019. One might reasonably ask what took him so long.

You can find his bio here: https://www.sfzc.org/teachers/anshi-zachary-smith