In “Practice” Rev. Clairissa explores some of what it is we actually do that we refer to as our practice of Sōtō Zen Buddhism, as we seek to know our true nature and purpose.

As we near the Festival of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, Rev. Clairissa explores the importance of the aspect of Universal Great Love reflected in every heart, symbolized by the goodhearted elephant bearing the one who sits – the embodiment of our benevolent practice of meditation for the benefit of all beings. In “Great Love” she asks: how…

What does “letting go of the world” really mean, deep within the heart that seeks true peace? Taking the form of a monk is only one way of responding to the call within the heart. As the winter Festival of the Buddha’s Renunciation approaches, Rev. Clairissa invites us to explore “The Value of Renunciation,” whatever…

Rev. Clairissa reflects on the subject of “Habits.” What are my customary thoughts, my ways of speaking, and my usual manner of acting? In this life of mine, ever subject to impermanence, how may my own habitual ways align with the Great Way which leads to liberation from suffering? She begins with a quote from…

In “This Opening Heart” Rev. Clairissa offers reflections on practicing stillness within all conditions, and how our stillness may help heal the world as it helps our own opening heart.

Now, leading into Winter Solstice, Rev. Clairissa beckons us all to follow the turning of the spiritual path as it winds inward, toward the stillness at the center of our being, in “Turning Within.” How may we respond to the inner call to turn within and to open the heart, whatever our outer circumstances? 

Through Dōgen’s example of nodes in bamboo and knots in pine, Rev. Clairissa encourages us all in a compassionate approach to our spiritual work which allows “Room in the Heart” to accept and let go of theories and explanations as they arise. She begins and ends with passages from Great Master Dōgen’s Bendōwa: A Discourse…

How may I deepen my practice? How may I sit like Buddha?  “The more we recognize the sacred in the ordinary, the more we join the Awakened One in the moment of the dawning of the eighth day.” In “Searching the Heart” Rev. Clairissa considers how enlightenment is an ongoing process, for all of us…

“Listening” is an exploration of what may become possible to hear and see as we grow still and turn within, opening as we enter the heart of this liturgical season of Thanksgiving. Rev. Clairissa opens the talk with a single sentence of Great Master Dōgen’s teaching from Chapter 39 of the Shōbōgenzō, “On ‘The Meditative…