Thought Process Trancework - Introduction Session
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
Release Date: 04/09/2024
“Kōzen Daitō Kokushi Yuikai” - December 2, 2025 - Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
In this episode, I explore one of the most treasured teachings in the Rinzai Zen tradition: Kōzen Daitō Kokushi Yuikai, the “Final Instruction” of National Teacher Daitō, founder of Daitoku-ji. This chant has accompanied my practice since 1995, and over the years its meaning has deepened in ways that continue to surprise me. Together we look at the stories surrounding Daitō’s life, the clarity and fierceness of his teaching, and the very human habits that distract us from the heart of practice — chasing benefits, clinging to forms, or imagining that poverty or ornamentation have...
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Tuning Practice - November 25, 2025 - Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
In this talk, we explore one of the Buddha’s most enduring teachings — the musician Sona and the image of practice as a stringed instrument. Too tight, the strings snap. Too loose, there’s no sound. Somewhere between effort and ease, discipline and kindness, we find the middle way. Drawing on this metaphor, we look at how our lives constantly shift the tuning of our practice: relationships, work, fatigue, weather, emotions. Form helps, but it isn’t the music itself. The music is the living activity of the cosmos flowing through the instrument of your life — and learning to hear it...
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Zen Shout — November 18, 2025 — Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
WARNING - Sudden loud sounds in this podcast. In this episode, we explore the heart of embodied practice — how a single moment of presence can cut through all the noise and return us to the immediacy of our own lives. Zen form, the shout, the bow, the subtle choreography of entering the Zendo… each of these is a doorway back into awakening as a lived, physical reality. If you’d like to dive more deeply into practice, teachings, and community, you’re warmly invited to visit www.zenwest.ca, where you’ll find information about training, membership, and ways to participate. And if...
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Form and Responsibility - November 4, 2025 - Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
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Decolonize the Mind - October 21, 2025 - Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
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Remember the People You Came From — July 20, 2025 — Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
In this episode of Living Zen, Eshū reflects on two guiding phrases: the Zen teaching “To study the self is to forget the self…” and the Gàidhlig seanfhacal “Cuimhnich air na daoine às an tàinig thu” — remember the people you came from. As he returns to regular practice at Zenwest, Eshū speaks candidly about the pitfalls of spiritual bypassing, the power of ritual technologies like zazen and chanting, and the importance of community as a container for awakening. He explores how our practice is rooted not in escaping the past, but in embracing it — recognizing that our lives,...
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On the De-Animation and Re-Animation of Zen — July 13, 2025
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
This week there’s no Dharma talk from the Zendo — UVic was cleaning the carpets on Sunday, so our usual sit was cancelled. But I didn’t want to leave the Sangha hungry. Instead, I’m sharing this reflection on how Zen was “de-animated” when it came west — and how we might begin to re-animate it, in relationship with land, ancestors, and the many seen and unseen beings who share our world. It’s not doctrine; it’s just some thoughts I found worth writing down. May they serve you in some way. If this resonates (or even troubles you), I’d love to hear how. Zen has always been...
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The Buddha's Buffet - July 6, 2025 — Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
In this episode, we explore the long arc of practice — how insight and awakening might come suddenly, but true transformation takes slow, organic time. Like digestion or composting, it can’t be rushed. We reflect on moments of birth and death, on coming back to practice after seasons away, and on learning to pace ourselves at the endless feast of awakening. Whether you’re tasting your first bites or returning after time away, the Buddha’s buffet is always open. It’s good to be here together. I’m Eshū, Abbot of , where we make Zen come alive in contemporary community. At Zenwest we...
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Miraculous Medicine - June 29, 2025 - Dharma Talk
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
In this talk, I explore how practice invites us to return again and again — to breath, posture, intention — dissolving fear and self-criticism, and opening to the quiet miracle of simply being here. When we give ourselves fully to this moment — to a bow, a breath, a meal, a conversation — life itself becomes the miraculous medicine this world so deeply needs. Thank you for listening, and for walking this path alongside me. • Support this work & get early access as a Patron: • Free Orientation to Zen program: • Orientation to Zen Support with Eshū: ...
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The Breath of Solstice
Living Zen Podcast - Red Mountain Way
“The Dharma is being preached in everything." This Dharma talk, offered just after summer solstice, reflects on the rhythms of breath, season, and spirit. It explores the natural arising and dissolving that moves through our practice, our emotions, and our path — and invites us to rest in the still point between. Recorded in the Zenwest zendo and shared here on Living Zen – Red Mountain Way. Support this work and access more teachings at . If this offering supports you, please consider leaving a rating or review on your podcast platform. It really helps others find the path. Thanks...
info_outlineThis 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!