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“Blessed are the Flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” Flexibility is the essence of purification and Shinzen talks of how to work through fixating tendencies and allow the substance of our senses to become flexible. He talks of three levels of maturity on the spiritual path and how to “love the suffering to death.”

Shinzen speaks about the special kind of “nothing” found in the world — scientifically, mathematically and spiritually. Spiritually, when you have a complete experience of “something” it dissolves into its basic source and that “emptiness” then becomes all the richness that was contained in the something. It’s the “nothing” that can hold everything together.

What is panic and terror like in expanded form? Following the events of September 11, 2001, Shinzen shares his own experiences with these emotions. He even explains how he has set up controlled circumstances by inducing these “huge” emotions to work meditatively with them.

Shinzen gives an interesting history of asceticism (discomfort) as defined in some spiritual traditions and the possible value of using discomfort to initiate a process of purification of consciousness. Whether as a spiritual practice or in our daily living, the question is how to do so skillfully or as paraphrased from Thomas Merton, “…not to suffer more than other people, but…to suffer more effectively.”

This CD contains a brief description and gives a rationale for using the technique of “sweeping” or “scanning” which is a strategy for bringing awareness to body sensations. During a Q&A session Shinzen addresses, in depth, questions regarding the technique of sweeping/scanning, pain and purification, working through extreme sensations and how to “love something to death.”

Shinzen gives a historical overview of the three major training traditions in Buddhism: Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. Describes the various types of insights experienced as a result of mediating. He also discusses loving-kindness and compassion.

Shinzen outlines three graded exercises for calming the mind: 1) Returning the attention to the breath; 2) Watching the rising and fading of thought; and 3) Allowing everything to arise in the mind without any effort to control it and having equanimity with it.

This CD addresses how to carry meditation from retreats and cultivate it mindfully in one’s daily life. Shinzen provides several specific techniques as well as interesting stories from his life as a monk.

Shinzen lays out a meditative path for liberation from compulsive/obsessive disorders. This recording is a veritable primer on approaching the mind through meditation.

In this recording, Shinzen talks on a variety of topics including: Complimentary pairs on this Path including efforting and clarifying, as well as calming and concentrating practices; How the willingness to experience the poignancy of the “Spiritual Human Sacrifice” is a deep purification; How to get a continuous flow of pleasure; How limited identity is created and replaced by a paradoxical identity; Four ways to contact the “Invisible Field of Spirit.”

Shinzen discusses various phenomena that arise during meditation and being on the meditative path such as having pleasant sensations versus icky, creepy ones; feeling confused, scattered and the “don’t know mind”; as well as tips for leaving a retreat.

Shinzen talks about the self and oneness. He explains some sensitizing techniques that either focus on or away from the self while developing concentration — yielding insight and purification. He offers that although it isn’t “bad” to have a sense of self arising, what is bad is not knowing how the sense of self arises or how the sense of oneness arises.

Shinzen discusses an awkward intermediate state in spiritual development during which old motivations are seen as illusory. Everything is the same, so why do anything? He elaborates on how to get through this experience of lack of vitality and continue to grow personally and spiritually.

Shinzen discusses the general formula for working with emotions such as sadness and anger as well as fear and anxiety. He shares techniques on how to separate body sensations and thoughts so that fear doesn’t become so magnified that it overwhelms us. It’s not the thoughts and

Begins with a short, guided meditation instructing you to think about something that makes you angry — to observe what part of that anger involves body sensations and what part involves the thinking process. By keeping track, moment by moment, of the components of rage and/or anger in the mind and body we can have the experience of “enlightened rage” (anger that is a pure flow of energy).

Shinzen talks of the pleasure that can come from meditation and how to create a positive feedback loop, causing increased fulfillment, and thus more motivation to do the work. He also describes different types of bliss and the power of becoming intimate with flavor or body sensations.

The flow of impermanence can also be described as expansion and contraction. Joshu Sasaki, one of Shinzen’s teachers, thinks of God or the creative force as Mother and Father. It takes both activities, expansion and contraction, to create anything. When we fixate our consciousness we see the created forms rather than the activity of the Source of creation.

Shinzen discusses the Buddhist concepts of the Four Noble Truths, Suffering and its cause, The Path, Morality, Concentration, Insight and Compassion.

Beginning this talk with a story of his introduction to a Zen temple with entertaining and specific metaphors, Shinzen talks of the definition of Enlightenment and how to be happy independent of conditions.

Shinzen addresses the frequently asked question, “What technique should I use in my meditation practice in terms of retreats and my daily sitting?” He gives guidelines to help you make choices regarding techniques, shares the one underlying commonality in all techniques and discusses in detail various strategies and techniques in the Vipassana practice. Shinzen also explains the different phenomena that come up while meditating and what to do if experienced and talks about the nature of enlightened consciousness.

Shinzen delivers a detailed explanation of a very useful Vipassana meditation technique.

Using different strategies and helpful metaphors, Shinzen describes in detail how to make mindful distinctions of body sensations — going into 3 sub-categories of heat and 3 emotional reactions to heat. He also gives specific applications to pain and to simply walking down the street as quick paths to enlightenment.

This lecture focuses on the benefits that are gained when we learn to make friends with moments of confusion. Shinzen explains how this leads to both a state of calm and an up-welling of prajna wisdom.

Shinzen describes the origin and method of Vipassana meditation and the results of this practice. This talk is especially well suited for explaining the practice to your non-meditating friends.

Shinzen describes the origin and method of Vipassana meditation and the results of this practice. This talk is especially well suited for explaining the practice to your non-meditating friends.

Shinzen describes the parallels between Buddhism and Jewish Mysticism. He emphasizes the Kabbalistic concepts of bria yesh me’ayn (continuous creation of things from Nothing) and buttul ha-yesh (the annihilation of the somethingness of the self).

The topics which Shinzen discusses in this recording are Transitions are Major Moments of Opportunity; The Process of Digestion (Breaking up into Little Pieces) of Whatever Comes Up; Day to day Life Stirs up Karma Juices; Retroactive Meditation — Making a 5 minute Determination Meditation worth 5 hours; and Turning Daily Activity into Meditation.

A great first CD or first day of retreat CD (no matter how many retreats you’ve done), Shinzen explains how meditation is learning at all levels of the brain simultaneously and how the simplicity of the retreat setting is optimal for rewiring to start to take place at deep levels of the nervous system. He also discusses how mindfulness and equanimity will affect our habits of making judgments and other undesirable behaviors.

When you get tired and sleepy, it digs down into old material which takes you back to an early period associated with the initial formation of ego. There is an objective need (what the body actually requires) and a subjective need (the desire to avoid or have relief from certain unpleasant sensations), which can be transcended. Shinzen discusses a meditative approach for achieving this.

Most of the suffering in day-to-day life comes from minor irritations rather than the major ones of sickness, old age, and death. By focusing on small irritations, we can build the skill necessary to cope with big ones. From time to time the minor ones seem to become major. This occurs just before transcendence. It has to be allowed to inflate fully before the impurity breaks up and consciousness changes permanently.

This recording in which Shinzen tells the stories of Mahakashyapa and Bodhidharma, includes the introduction of Buddhism into China (which later became Zen in Japan) and the influences on our present day practice.

Buddhism is fond of using numerical categories as devices of memorization. The whole path can be conceived of in the Three Fold Training, probably the simplest of these divisions. Shinzen speaks on the concepts of Shila (precepts), the misunderstanding of Samadhi and Prajna (wisdom). Delving back into pre-history and leaping forward into scientific, mathematical and psychological concepts, Shinzen demonstrates the complexities of these simple categories.

Three experiences in meditation often make enlightenment seem unattainable. One is a particular kind of “yucky” sensation that gets worse the more you relax. The second is losing faith in yourself. The third is feeling dehumanized or emotionally flat as a result of meditation. Sninzen describes how to work through each of these obstacles.

Shinzen describes several alternative conceptual models for the process of purifying consciousness and discusses paradigms from morality and theology to psychology and physics.

Shinzen gives a detailed description of the Christian analogue to Vipassana meditation and discusses why most Western Christians are unaware that such a practice exists in their tradition.

When we experience pleasure in a skillful way, blockages to happiness are worked out and our base line of satisfaction deepens — pure pleasure purifies.

Shinzen gives instruction on a variety of subjects including the role of posture in practice; working with sleepiness; paying attention to transitions; meditation as a vaccination against future larger pain; and dealing with discomforts while sitting. He also provides a detailed description of working with pain and physical discomfort; subjective body sensations/flavors of feeling; and discriminating internally generated feeling states associated with urge, desire and will.

Shinzen describes the various cultural regions and language families of native North America and discusses Native American spiritual practices including the sweat lodge, Sundance, vision quest, and pipe ceremony. Shinzen recounts moving stories of his participation in these practices and describes learning to speak Lakota.

Shinzen describes the various cultural regions and language families of native North America and discusses Native American spiritual practices including the sweat lodge, Sundance, vision quest, and pipe ceremony. Shinzen recounts moving stories of his participation in these practices and describes learning to speak Lakota.

Shinzen describes how we can use our intimate relationships as a monastic training ground to undergo the kind of spiritual transformation that monks and nuns experience as a result of their practice.

Shinzen gives his opinion as to why there is uptightness and guilt associated with sexual activity in so many cultures. He explains that what we really want is not erotic pleasure as an object, but rather the fulfillment and purification that comes from having a complete experience of pleasure.

Shinzen provides an overview of why one meditates leads to a discussion of the forces that lead to spirituality, the six senses which reduce to the simplicity of expansion and contraction and zero, an experience of true peace.

During a fascinating Q&A session, Shinzen answers questions on topics including Metta versus Vipassana meditation; consciously evoking material to work on while meditating; strong determination sitting; Kriyas (involuntary movement during sitting) and drivenness.

Considered by many to be one of Shinzen’s most extraordinary public talks, Shinzen describes “The Big Picture” of human existence in terms of two fundamental principles: Love (Eros) and Death (Thanatos). Contains a step-by-step procedure for guiding others through their dying process. Also speaks about using sexual experience as a platform for spiritual growth. At the end of the talk, Shinzen recites Goethe’s “Holy Longing” in German and English as a surprise for his old friend, Nicola Geiger. Nicola reveals that she recited that same poem to her father on his deathbed.

The Paramitas are practices that can be mastered to transport you to enlightenment. They are generosity, morality, patience, energy, concentration and wisdom. “Paramita” in Sanskrit means both perfection and reaching the other shore.

Using the traditional Buddhist point of view, Shinzen talks about the three marks of existence or the three characteristics (Sanskrit, Tri-Laksana) — Impermanence (Anicca), Suffering (Dukkha) and No self (Anatta). To see the world in its true nature is to see these three characteristics inherent within all things.

Shinzen uses examples of effort, intention and grace to understand subjective reality and impermanence. He ends this talk by reciting the poem “The Buddha in Glory” by Rainer Maria Rilke.

One paradigm for describing spiritual growth is as a journey from surface (ordinary) consciousness to the Source of consciousness — when traversing this path we pass through intermediate realms in which some people encounter various archetypes (devils, monsters, sages, saints). Shinzen tells how a person can relate to these visions and hallucinations in order to grow spiritually.

This recording is full of fascinating information and covers how separation leads to oneness among several other topics including the “divide and conquer” strategy; how white (like the limited self) emerges from red, green and blue on our TV screens; and the “nearest exit” strategy in meditation.

Shinzen describes the “side effects” or “reactions” which might occur as a result of having been mindful and equanimous. The phenomena of “afterglow” and “aftershock” are discussed as well as why they happen and what to do about them. Shinzen also tells his brief autobiography and gives a short history of the practice.

Shinzen shares what Vipassana Meditation is the goes into much detail about why we do it or why one should consider doing it.

In a brisk Question and Answer session, Shinzen speaks about: How to work with Distractions; Clarification of 2 ways of Labeling; Q&A about When & How to Evoke Subjective Feeling States; the Human Challenge of Working with Emotional Pain; Honing in on Specific Flavors; How to Never Suffer from Emotional Pain; and Focusing without Fixating.

Shinzen discusses the ‘bete noire’ of meditation — obsessive thoughts. He then gives techniques that could help to deal with our ‘monkey mind’ — ‘thinking voices’ — using mantra, vocal labeling, monitoring the talk as well as discussing obsessive tunes and the driven desires that they represent

With many interesting stories including some about his teacher Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Shinzen describes the spiritual process and how it is described and understood in different spiritual traditions. Ends with Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem The Buddha In Glory.