What We’re Listening To

VIDEO

“Buddhist Emptiness Explained,” Seeker to Seeker

Emptiness is one of the most difficult and misunderstood Buddhist teachings, regardless of your level of practice. Nagarjuna warned, “When it is wrongly seen, emptiness destroys the dull-witted, like a snake wrongly grasped.” An offshoot of his blog, Simeon Mihaylov’s Seeker to Seeker YouTube channel tackles the hardest Buddhist concepts with clarity and helpful visuals. Explore the empty nature of existence in this insightful presentation of a core Buddhist teaching.

DHARMA TALK

“Entangling Vines Case 68: Nansen’s Fried Dumplings” by Chigan Roshi

Found on the Zen Studies Society YouTube channel, these weekly dharma talks from Dai Bosatsu’s abbot and other teachers are freely available. In this talk, the new abbot, Chigan Roshi, delivers an engaging discussion of Case 68 from the koan collection Shumon kattoshu (Entangling Vines), one of the few compiled in Japan. Chigan brings a traditional Rinzai Zen dharma talk on koans into the present, making their wisdom directly applicable to our lived experience.

PODCAST EPISODE

“The Workshop Is in the Mind” by Venerable Robina Courtin

A nun in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, Robina Courtin has been an engaged Buddhist for many decades. Her podcast series contains short, emphatic teachings alternating with longer dharma talks, in which she conveys the urgency of the dharma: “What drives the people on the bodhisattva path is—they’re fanatics,” she said on a recent episode. “People talk in Buddhism about getting a nice balance. Forget balance, I’m sorry. Look at Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He is, I promise you, a fanatic, day and night practicing, he doesn’t bother to sleep.”

ALBUM

Konguroi (Sixty Horses in My Herd) by Huun-Huur-Tu

Rooted in a culture of horsemanship and shamanism, this Tuvan quartet uses traditional throat-singing and folk instruments to create a listening experience imbued with the spirituality and beauty of the Central Asian steppe. The group’s name roughly translates to “sunbeam” and denotes the time of day just after sunrise or before sunset, when refracted rays of light shimmer across the Tuvan countryside. Huun-Huur-Tu’s rich sound imitates their lived environment: a running stream, birdsong, the gallop of a horse. Transporting listeners to this pastoral soundscape, the group’s first album is a must-listen.