Summertime Schedule

Friends, For the last few years, I have been taking the month of August off for some personal time. This year, it will be September. I will be in North Carolina from August 25, 2025, through September 28th, 2025. There will be no OZS Practice sessions during this time. Our in-person and Zoom practice sessions will continue in October. I will also be scheduling our yearly fall Silent Retreat at Myakka River State Park on a Saturday in November. I […]

The Interconnected Patterns of Experience

What are you? Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Dharma Talks at the Ordinary Zen Sangha, a Zen Meditation Practice Center located in Sarasota, Florida. Please help us if you can. Our programs and events are only made possible by donations from our supporting members. Donations Link…

Rise Above, Just Be

How to handle the apparent distinctions and differences that divide us, from the Zen perspective.

Wheel-of-suffering and dependent origination

Don’t Ignore It!

Ignoring, denying, or pushing away anything we consider uncomfortable is why we are uncomfortable!

I have no words, a walk down the road of habit

 I have no words. There’s nothing I can give you that you don’t already have. There’s nothing I can add to what you already are. So we use words because we’ve forgotten who we are in our ignorance. We walk down the road of habit energy, it drags us along like a chain, and we struggle. As we go down the path of getting to know ourselves, we discover that there are options for us that we didn’t think we […]