Finding the Monastery in Samsara

About this episode

Shoan Sensei discusses practicing within samsara and the potential for transformation through vows.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei - ZMM - 3/27/26 - In this Renewal of Vows (Fusatsu) talk, Shoan Sensei offers the perspective that we are practicing within samsara, exactly where we are. Here we can come very close to the narrow habits and patterns that create suffering—something we cannot do in some imagined fantasy of a Buddha Land. Taking up the place where we find ourselves as the place of our own vows, we can discover ways to bring forward our infinite capacity to leave possessiveness and self-delusion behind, and, with the support of the precepts, learn to be truly free. It is here that transformation can happen.

People in this episode

Guest: Danica Shoan Ankele

Topics covered

• samsara
• vows
• transformation
• Buddhism
• freedom
• suffering

Keywords

• samsara
• vows
• Buddhism
• suffering
• freedom
• transformation
• precepts

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Zen Mountain Monastery

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