Dharma Talks
Dr. Neil Soten Theise is a Senior Student, or Shuso, at Village Zendo, a community of people who come together to practice in the Soto Zen tradition. Located in lower Manhattan, Village Zendo strives to offer a place of healing and sanctuary in the midst of one of the world’s busiest and most vital cities. These talks are a personal expression of Zen Dharma and meant to inspire meditation and further inquiry.
Death Bed Visions: Reflections of a Compassionate Universe?
Many people on the brink of death report seeing deceased loved ones. While often dismissed as brain hallucinations, Soten explores the idea that these comforting visions may reflect the innate compassion of a conscious universe, as suggested by Buddhist metaphysics.
Meeting the Moment Without Expectations
Soten relates his rules of the road for living in scary, tough times. Where Complexity theory meets Buddhist thought.
Bodhisattvas in the Brothels
Soten discusses how in his eponymous sutra, the paragon of Buddhist practice, Vimalakirti, is praised for his skillful means of teaching the Way in the usual, but also in the most unusual places - including his city's brothels.
Soten explores the lessons of Vimalakirti and the Village Zendo's roots in the early days of the AIDS era. When he was coming of age as a gay man in New York City, Enkyo Roshi and her dharma brother, Robert Genjin Savage, were already taking the Buddha's teachings to the most feared and rejected of our city's communities: into the gay clubs and the nascent Gay Men's Health Crisis.
Legacies of Susan Ryoko Wetzel
On the 49th day of Ryoko's passing, senior student Soten speaks of the preciousness of Zen friendships - one facet of the Sangha Treasure - and of Ryoko's life of service. When she knew that her death was likely to be sooner than later, she assembled a book of poems, koans, quotes, essays, and letters from Zen and other sources, following an ancient Jewish practice of leaving behind an "ethical will." Soten reads selections from this collection - it is Ryoko's dharma talk, not his.
Pain as Koan
Soten discusses ways in which he has coped with his own acute or chronic physical pains. Master Yunmen said: "Every day is a good day." So did Neil's mom in her elder years when she had her "share of aches and pains." How can every day be a good day if there's constant pain? Are there Zen ways to work with pain? Can we change our relationship to pain and explore how it might illuminate our lives? Is it even possible to "pass" this koan...?
Life is Practice and Practice, Life
Soten discusses how his Zen practice and his expectations of Zen practice have changed during periods of ease or stress, health or "illness." And the difference between doing something and doing nothing!
Layman P’ang and Friends
Most of the stories of the Layman are not of him and his teachers or of him and his students, but of him and his friends. Soten explores how the warmth and intimacy of Zen friendships lights up our third Treasure, the Sangha.
Kaleidoscope of Mystical Insights
Soten reminds us that Zen practice gives us a rich experience of the deepest layers of our mind and of existence, but the questions Zen asks of that Presence are different than those asked by contemplative practices from other cultures. In our interconnected world, how can metaphors and insights from other religions enrich our understanding of Zen? And how might Zen enrich them in return?
The Science of Luminosity
In his Dharma talk, Soten offers thoughts on the architecture of existence from the points of view of complexity theory, quantum physics, formal logic and consciousness studies, pointing us toward the reality of our Ango study text, Koun Ejo Zenji's "The Practice of the Treasury of Luminosity."
The Garuda Bird of Ordinary Mind
Senior student Soten relates Case 44 of the Book of Serenity that describes Enlightenment Mind as a dragon that, peeking its head up out of the tranquil sea, finds itself becoming food for the Garuda bird of Ordinary Mind. Caw caw!! “For over thirty years I have pondered the seriousness of my Zen practice. Am I diligent enough? Do I show up enough?” The dragon of Enlightenment Mind is always there, dependably swimming in the dark tranquil sea, even as the Garuda of Ordinary Mind is ever ready to transform that Awareness into the awakened practice of one’s simple, ordinary life.
Arising and Vanishing: The Way (of the World)
Soten explores experiences of the impermanence of material existence and how deepening Zen practice can reveal them. Can a leopard change its spots? You bet! Find out how!
The Boat of Compassion, Running the Rapids
Soten refers to how the long, complex story of a Zen teacher’s last day (Book of Serenity #41, “Luopu About to Die”) displays the fruits of Zen practice in moment-by-moment everyday life – and a bunch of other things along the way!
Experiencing Time in COVID Times (with guided meditation)
Soten explores the various stages of the pandemic, during which time itself has become a focus of changing experiences - too much time, too little, too fast, too slow, too empty, too full. To bring these experiences to a heightened level of Zen attentiveness, Soten opens up the experience of time passing and uses the experience to illuminate Dogen's Uji ("Being-Time"), this coming Winter Ango's study text.
Beginning Instruction 2.0: Transcending Blind Spots in Zen Practice
Soten explores the question of how to notice our own blind spots -- physical, emotional, sensorial -- even amidst a Zen practice that is stable and steady. He defines blind spots as those edges of our practice that are so long-standing that they seem normal or can't even be seen at all and, thus, limit our movement towards our fullest freedom.
Returning our attention to the basics of posture and emotional responses to practice can be illuminating. Does Zen practice itself contain all the skillful means to fully recognize and work with these blind spots? Or might we benefit in our Zen practice from adjunctive physical or psychotherapeutic work?
The Three Treasures in Times of Crisis
A strategy for what we can do when it seems as if our practice isn't helping us to meet the occasion.
Dasui's Aeonic Fire – Day 1 of the NYC Pandemic Lockdown.
Unexpectedly, Soten’s scheduled dharma talk turned out to be the very start of the pandemic and was addressed, for the first time, to a live, online, completely sequestered sangha. As the fire raging outside consumes the world we knew, can it burn away our attachments, aversions and habits, too? What lies beyond fear? Can we let the three treasures, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha take us there?
The Vairocana of One's Own Body
The verdict in the trial of the murder of George Floyd provokes us instantaneously: the tension of an event that is both good news (an appropriate outcome) and sad news (that we were surprised, because we anticipated the likelier, customary, unfathomable outcome). The monk in Nanyang's Water Pitcher (Book of Serenity case 42) asks, "What is the Vairocana of one's own body"? Can considering this question relieve our anguish and help us navigate our the further societal tensions that lie ahead?
Master Ma is Unwell,
Soten explores the boundaries (or their absence!) between the Absolute and the Relative and what that means for personal practice and practice in the world.