Charlie Sensei continues with a teaching based on BZC’s Fall Ango (practice period), “Liberating Response: Engaged Practice in Ourselves and in the World.”

This talk considers the PISAB principle of Learning from History and its relationship to the Zen engagement of studying the self. And how we do this, in practice, both with our personal, unique histories, and the collective histories that shape where we are, where we live and our social conditioning, so that we might liberate systems of suffering.

Recorded on October 10, 2026, at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY

Welcoming the sangha back after the August break, Charlie Korin Pokorny explores Dōgen’s teaching of Buddha nature as a dynamic, impermanent process and awakening as “doing” rather than seeing. Charlie Sensei also introduces BZC’s fall practice period, “Liberating Response,” a 12-week exploration of location, class, race, gender, immigration, and earth justice, framed through the four noble truths as emergent and living.

Sarah Sensei’s dharma talk considers the koan “Dizang Planting the Fields” (The Book of Serenity, Case 12), in which Xiushan asks, “What are you doing in the world?”, and Dizang responds, “What do you call the world?” Sarah reflects on the practices of awareness of, and acceptance of responsibility for, our interconnectedness with all that is our world at each moment, including harm that has occurred. She discusses, in particular, her experience as a trans-racially adoptive parent.

Recorded on June 20, 2026, at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY

In this dharma talk, Charlie brings up BZC involvement with Pride Month and discusses the practice of conversation – being in conversation with others, with our experience, and with everything – as a basis of liberation from suffering. He suggests elements of accountability to keep in mind so that literal conversations can be mutually liberating and help to build a truly inclusive sangha.