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Living Zen

Buddhist Talk

Spontaneous Zen talks given in the Rinzai tradition by Ven. Eshu Martin, abbot of the Victoria Zen Centre in Victoria, BC, Canada. www.zenwest.ca If you enjoy this podcast, rate it,review it, and share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook and face to face. www.zenwest.ca Check out the Living Zen Podcast app on the iTunes app store!

Location:

United States

Description:

Spontaneous Zen talks given in the Rinzai tradition by Ven. Eshu Martin, abbot of the Victoria Zen Centre in Victoria, BC, Canada. www.zenwest.ca If you enjoy this podcast, rate it,review it, and share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook and face to face. www.zenwest.ca Check out the Living Zen Podcast app on the iTunes app store!

Twitter:

@zenwest1

Language:

English


Episodes
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Moving Towards a Gift Economy

10/13/2024
I've made some big changes at Monarch Trancework, and within my approach to doing my work in the world. I hope you'll join me.

Duration:00:07:41

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Healthy Boundaries - Trancework Session

6/1/2024
In today’s episode, I’ll be sharing an active Trancework session that will provide resources for your subconscious mind to more quickly discern, clarify, express, and sustain healthy boundaries with others and with yourself. Almost everyone, at one time or another is going to run into challenges around the issue of boundaries – it might be one of the most important subconscious thought patterns to address well... and in this session, I’ve pulled out all the stops, and I’m confident this session won’t just transform your awareness and expression of healthy boundaries, but that you’ll genuinely enjoy it too! This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:39:42

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Exploring Boundaries - Preparation Session

5/30/2024
Almost everyone, at some point, runs into challenges, obstacles, or problems in their family, work, or intimate personal relationships - that at their root, involve issues around boundaries. Today’s session will provide you with the framework you need to be ready to start clarifying, expressing, and maintaining healthy boundaries! This preparation session will give you the framework to go forward with the active Trancework session, called “Healthy Boundaries” which I’ll be posting on the podcast later this week. You can download the mp3 of this session here. Find out more at www.monarchtrancework.com

Duration:00:19:26

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Clearly in Control - Trancework Session

5/5/2024
In today’s episode, I’ll be sharing an active Trancework session will attune your subconscious mind to easily discern what is within your sphere of control, and what is not in your control; and to more effectively enjoy your life by making new choices, and creating new possibilities. Today’s episode is paired with the previous episode – which is a preparation session called “A question of Control”, so I’d recommend that if you haven’t already, you might want to start there so that this session is as impactful as it is intended to be. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:34:03

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A Question of Control - Preparation Session

5/1/2024
Today I’ll be sharing the preparation session for the next installment of the Thought Process Trancework Series which I’ve called “A Question of Control”, in which you’ll learn about how subconscious patterns that begin as natural survival responses become rigid, and overly-general rules that begin to be universally applied in our daily experiences, and can cause our lives to become increasingly smaller, and more anxious. I’m going to offer some understanding about two simple but serious errors that we can make in our thought processes that lead us to feel increasingly out of control, and gain insight into a new approach through which you can transform your thinking, behaviour, and as a result - your life - in incredible, and much more enjoyable ways! This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:23:00

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Choosing the Change - Trancework Session

4/28/2024
Today’s episode is an active Trancework session called “Choosing the Change”. Most people become aware when they are repeatedly doing something ineffective, or things that are creating misery or suffering in their lives. They might even plan to do something different next time... but when the next time comes... it’s like they just slip into the old ruts, and do the same old thing... and they get the same old results! In this Trancework Session, I use various techniques to offer your subconscious mind some new possibilities and perspectives that will open the doors to perceiving, and choosing to create new opportunities to move forward in your life in new, and different ways. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:28:50

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Understanding Patterns - Preparation Session

4/24/2024
Today I'm sharing the preparation session for the next installment of the Thought Process Trancework Series which I’ve called “Understanding Patterns”, in which we’ll be doing a deeper exploration into how subconscious thought patterns first come about often when we are really young, how they become established and essentially automatic – our default way of reacting – and how, often in spite of being aware of an unhelpful pattern, we can still find ourselves repeating the same mistake over and over. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:16:52

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Foresight and Vision - Trancework Session

4/20/2024
Today’s episode is an active Trancework session called “Foresight and Vision”. If this is your first time listening to Living Zen or this Thought Process Trancework series, I’d highly recommend that you go back to the beginning and start there, as each session builds on, and complements the last. Of course, each session is still highly effective on its own, but if you really want to enhance the impact of the sessions, do yourself a favour and take it from the top! In this Trancework Session, we’ll be reorienting the perspective of your subconscious mind to be more future oriented, and supporting you in clarifying and cultivating your vision... for your future. Naturally we all want “good things” to happen, and you likely want to “succeed” in the ways that are important to you... but have you ever really clarified what that actually means? What does that look like, in practical terms? If you were really successful, what would you be doing... and feeling... that you just aren’t doing now? In this session we’ll be setting your subconscious mind into motion on the task of clarifying where you want to be going, and beginning the step-by-step journey that takes you from where you are right now, to where you want to be. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:27:27

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The Value of Foresight - Preparation Session

4/16/2024
In this prep session, building on the last session, “Facing the Unkown”, we’ll explore and unpack our subconscious patterns around how and why we project negative past experiences forward, and how you can begin to transform this pattern into something much more beneficial, and satisfying. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:11:53

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Facing the Unknown - Trancework Session

4/13/2024
Today’s session is an active Trancework session that I’ve called “Facing the Unknown” that addresses problematic subconscious thought patterns that arise when we face circumstances, situations, environments, people... anything really... where the causes or outcomes or both... are unknown to us. Often our own minds prevent us from moving forward in our lives by projecting “worst case scenarios” from the shadows of our subconscious into any and every kind of ambiguity that we might face in our life, work, or relationships. This pattern does tend to preserve the known and familiar status quo, but far more often it obstructs us from moving forward, making needed changes, or taking reasonable risks as we pursue goals, aspirations, and even our deepest souls purpose. In this session, I’ll be offering your subconscious mind an entirely new way to approach the unknown that will open the doors to possibility and transformation in your life, your work, and your relationships. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:27:03

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Thought Process Trancework - Introduction Session

4/9/2024
This Thought Process Trancework series explores subconscious thought patterns that we’ve all experienced at times. Generally, these patterns start out as efficiencies created by the subconscious mind to ensure survival, but as our environment and developmental stages change, these patterns often become far more problematic than beneficial, and at times can lead to deep or pervasive cycles of suffering. Originally, the core of these sessions came out of my exploration into Trancework processes in order to address issues like insomnia, chronic pain, addiction, anxiety and depression – and what I found was that there are a handful of specific thought patterns, almost like subconscious software, that in various combinations, underpin the vast majority of these issues. As I incorporated them into my practice, I came to see that everyone, including myself struggles with at least some of these patterns from time to time – particularly during periods of increased stress. I’ve structured the series in paired sessions; first a preface session where I outline the pattern that may be creating challenges, and then an active Trancework session which uses various techniques to shift the subconscious mind into more adaptive approaches. You’ll be able to tell the difference, because the Trancework sessions have a backing sound track that helps to facilitate access to deeper states of consciousness. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:22:37

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Unburdening Trancework

4/4/2024
As we go about living our lives, we have all kinds of experiences, both good and bad, and often our focus is on moving through challenges and adverse experiences as quickly as possible... and once we’ve done that, we seldom look back! Now... this isn’t necessarily a bad thing... it’s just that sometimes it results in us mentally or emotionally carrying around bits of unfinished business that are often years... or even decades old. The kinds of things that pop up into our awareness at the most inconvenient times... like when things are quiet at home... or when we’re finally able to lay down in bed... or when we’re trying to focus on that task that we really need to get done. This session will help you clarify the nature of the stuff that’s been lingering around in the shadows of your subconscious mind... and weighing you down. You can release what’s no longer needed, and bring into focus anything that might need a little more intention to unpack and process so that you can move forward on your journey. This session includes a prep session as well as an integration session, so you’ll need about 90 minutes to give yourself the time and space to get the most out of it. The integration session will also help you to better understand how your subconscious mind prefers to communicate, which will become very important as you move forward with Trancework. This session, and many others are also available to download, for FREE from the downloads page of my website. If you enjoy what I'm offering on the Living Zen Podcast, please let me know by commenting, and you can like, subscribe, and I'd love it if you share Living Zen with anyone you think will enjoy and appreciate it!

Duration:00:58:58

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An Introduction to Trancework - Full Session with Integration

3/27/2024
To download this session (and others) visit the downloads page of my website. You can contact me with comments at eshu@monarchtrancework.com I thought I'd begin with an experiential sample of what I offer in my practice at Monarch Trancework. In this episode, you'll hear a preparatory session, and active Trancework session, and an integration session afterwards. Doing the integration session immediately after the Trancework session is recommended, so you may want to be prepared with a pen or pencil, and some paper to write on. Enjoy! - Eshu

Duration:01:13:02

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Getting on With Living Zen - Podcast Pivot

3/25/2024
Breathing new life into the Living Zen podcast. A lot has happened since I posted the last episode in 2017! Check out what I've been up to, and get ready to step into the new world with Living Zen. I love hearing from listeners. If you'd like to contact me, you can email me at: eshu@monarchtrancework.com You can also visit the Monarch Trancework Website for more information about the work that I do, and how you can engage with me directly.

Duration:00:04:09

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Letter to Sangha and Supporters - June 2017

6/26/2017
To: Zenwest members, associates, patrons, and donors From: Eshu Osho, Zenwest Board, and members of the Zenwest strategic planning group Dear friends and supporters of Zenwest, In our global community, locally, and within our Sangha, the past 3 years have been filled with change. We are writing to talk with you about the changes we have been discussing over the past eight months as part of the 2017 strategic planning process. Some of you are already familiar with Zenwest’s current model, while for others this is new information. To ensure that everyone has access to the background information to help you understand the history and context for our proposed changes, we have included as an appendix to this letter an overview of the developments in Zenwest that led to the current model, written by Eshu Osho who provides his perspective from 22 years of practicing with Zenwest and 13 years as Abbot. The model that Zenwest has been operating under since 2005 served Zenwest well for many years. Unfortunately, as a result of multiple factors (discussed in detail in the Appendix) we have come to the difficult conclusion that under the current circumstances the strategic model we have been running is not sustainable, and Zenwest needs to make significant changes going forward. Our collective recommendation is that Zenwest undergo a transition over the next 12 months to: (a) gradually phase out financial compensation for Eshu Osho, (b) undertake a review of all aspects of our programming, and (c) engage in deep community discussions to determine how to go forward in revitalizing and renewing our community. These are very significant, serious changes that we are suggesting and we need to know whether the sangha is supportive of this proposed direction. We want to be clear that the recommendation to end Eshu Osho’s employment with Zenwest is in no way a comment on Eshu’s performance as Abbot. Rather it is a reflection that our membership has shrunk (as discussed in the Appendix) and it is no longer financially sustainable to support a paid position. Throughout the extended and at times painful discussions that led to this recommendation, we have held two core principles: First, that we are responsible to treat all of the Zenwest relationships with integrity and care. This includes the relationships between Zenwest and Eshu Osho and the Martin family, between sangha members, and relationships with external bodies such as the University of Victoria Multifaith Services where we have a chaplaincy. Second, we all remain committed to Zen practice and creating spaces for people to practice in community. However, it is unclear at this time what that might look like. We see the need to create space for organizational transformation, where we individually and collectively deeply consider what we want to do, what brings us joy, and how we want to practice. What we are proposing for the next year is a three-phase transition. Phase 1: June-September 2017 Eshu Osho continue to work 0.4 FTE at Zenwest (the current arrangement). All Sunday and Tuesday practice opportunities remain the same. Begin community discussions about the future of Zenwest. Phase 2: October 2017-March 2018 Eliminate cash salary from Eshu Osho’s compensation arrangement. Zenwest will continue to provide a residence and amenities to the Abbot and his family at the temple in Sooke as compensation for Eshu’s continuing work (hours to be negotiated between Eshu and the Zenwest Board). Sunday and Tuesday sits will continue. Continue community discussions about the future of Zenwest. Phase 3: April-June 2018 All compensation will be eliminated from the relationship between Eshu Osho and Zenwest, and Eshu Osho will cease to be an employee of Zenwest Buddhist Society. This is conceptualized as a “pause” to allow our sangha and Eshu to reflect and consider what we want going forward. It is not yet clear what member-led practice opportunities might...

Duration:00:19:58

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Gateless Barrier 38 Wuzu: A Buffalo Passes Through the Window - Kosen Eshu, Osho - Sunday May 29, 2016

3/29/2017
The Zenwest Buddhist Society is a federally registered charity in Canada that provides training and education in Zen Buddhism. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate it, review it, and share it with a friend that you think will enjoy it as much as you did. Please consider purchasing the Living Zen-podcast app on the iTunes app store! www.zenwest.ca If you are interested in getting started in Zen Practice, check out our Online Orientation to Zen Practice Program http://www.zenwest.ca/online-zen/84-online-orientation-to-zen

Duration:00:39:35

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Exhortation on Form and Gateless Barrier 37 Wuzu: Zhaozhou: The Oak Tree in the Courtyard - Kosen Eshu, Osho - Sunday May 15, 2016

3/22/2017
The Zenwest Buddhist Society is a federally registered charity in Canada that provides training and education in Zen Buddhism. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate it, review it, and share it with a friend that you think will enjoy it as much as you did. Please consider purchasing the Living Zen-podcast app on the iTunes app store! www.zenwest.ca If you are interested in getting started in Zen Practice, check out our Online Orientation to Zen Practice Program http://www.zenwest.ca/online-zen/84-online-orientation-to-zen

Duration:00:50:07

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What Happens When We Engage in Zen - Kosen Eshu, Osho - Tuesday May 10, 2016

3/17/2017
The Zenwest Buddhist Society is a federally registered charity in Canada that provides training and education in Zen Buddhism. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate it, review it, and share it with a friend that you think will enjoy it as much as you did. Please consider purchasing the Living Zen-podcast app on the iTunes app store! www.zenwest.ca If you are interested in getting started in Zen Practice, check out our Online Orientation to Zen Practice Program http://www.zenwest.ca/online-zen/84-online-orientation-to-zen

Duration:00:28:20

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Practice and our Sangha - Kosen Eshu, Osho - Sunday May 1, 2016

3/12/2017
The Zenwest Buddhist Society is a federally registered charity in Canada that provides training and education in Zen Buddhism. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate it, review it, and share it with a friend that you think will enjoy it as much as you did. Please consider purchasing the Living Zen-podcast app on the iTunes app store! www.zenwest.ca If you are interested in getting started in Zen Practice, check out our Online Orientation to Zen Practice Program http://www.zenwest.ca/online-zen/84-online-orientation-to-zen

Duration:00:40:36

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Q&R Butsudan and Dharma Names - Kosen Eshu, Osho - Tuesday April 19, 2016

3/7/2017
The Zenwest Buddhist Society is a federally registered charity in Canada that provides training and education in Zen Buddhism. If you enjoy this podcast, please rate it, review it, and share it with a friend that you think will enjoy it as much as you did. Please consider purchasing the Living Zen-podcast app on the iTunes app store! www.zenwest.ca If you are interested in getting started in Zen Practice, check out our Online Orientation to Zen Practice Program http://www.zenwest.ca/online-zen/84-online-orientation-to-zen

Duration:00:15:06