“If you just surrender your life to the dharma, then you no longer have to worry what the future will bring. You will bring forth the future out of your surrender. Just drink tea and the dharma will come to you. You don’t have to chase it. It is chasing you.”
—Sandra Jishu Holmes Roshi
Dai En Friedman, Koshin and Chodo’s dharma teacher for many years, delivers a dharma talk examining the “choiceless choices” that have led us to each moment we find ourselves in. Do we really have a choice in the large and small matters of our lives? Her talk draws from renowned thought leaders, the autonomy of the body, even genealogy tests revealing the complexity of our genetic make-up and in true Dai En fashion, she concludes the gathering with a song on doubt and surrender.
ZenTalk Notes:
Dai En Friedman‘s teachers include Roshi Peter Muryo Matthiessen, Joseph Goldstein, Matt Flickstein, and Maureen Stuart Roshi. Dai-en received Dharma Transmission from Roshi Peter Muryo Mattheissen as a Soto Zen Teacher. She is now a Sensei at Ocean Zendo, located on Eastern Long Island.
Music: Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji – Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.
New York Zen Center Publications:
Get your copy of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up here: https://amzn.to/2JTKF1t
Get your copy of Awake At The Bedside here: https://amzn.to/3aijXdL
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