Infinite Smile

Zen centers itself around questioning. In this talk Michael suggests that we get past ego’s habitual inertia by recognizing its tendency to “fortify itself against vulnerability”. From here we allow …

Dainin Katagiri Roshi speaks eloquently about authentic stillness in his work Returning to Silence. In this talk Michael, and his students, add commentary to the idea that even in great activity we c…

Recognizing that Awareness is not thought is one of the key steps that all practitioners must take on the Path to Awakening. In this talk Michael suggests that shifting our approach to day-to-day liv…

Whenever the Infinite brushes up against that in us which is contracted we are given an opportunity to Awaken. Realigning our relationship with these “run ins” with the Infinite can bring about consc…

Like all things, we have a limited amount of time. Or, as the African proverb says, “Two people shouldn’t argue when their house is on fire”. With this in mind, how should we use our time wisely? In …

Do authentic spiritual paths leave us without passion? And what does surrender feel like anyway? In this talk Michael suggests practices that support a deeper way of living where life’s joys are cele…

So what does it mean to have a felt sense of our True Nature? What does it mean to cut through the veils of delusion and have a felt sense of the Radiant Clarity of Emptiness? In this talk Michael su…

How exactly do we cut through delusion and have a direct experience of the Truth beyond name and form? We begin by studying our resistance so that we can uncover the source of delusion, then we pract…

The great sage Bodhidharma tells us that “the wise among us” don’t attach, and therefore wake up. This Awakening is nothing less than play infused with, and spawned from, the Divine. In this talk Mic…

Eihei Dogen asks us if we can’t “find Truth where we are where do we expect to find it”. Yet this is difficult to practically apply since usually we live our lives from a position of lack. In this ta…

Negativity is merely the resistance to what is happening in this very moment. Despite this, in whatever its form negativity points us toward Awakening. Even in the face of horror and tragedy this tea…

The words of the Buddhist sage Nagarjuna can suggest that the only way for the Ultimate Truth to become significant to us is if we take great care to know the conventional truth. In this talk, Michae…

So what does it really mean to live in just this very moment? Rumi says that “Past and future veil God from our site”, but how do we cut through this veil as we lead contemporary lives? In this talk,…

Despite the fact that the present moment is all that we ever have, we build lives around past wrongs and future wants. In this talk, Michael points toward ways that we can recognize the difference be…

Ken Wilber has written beautifully on the issue of egoic translation being mistaken for Spiritual transformation. In this talk, Michael suggests a path for each of us that supports transformation. Wh…

Sometimes it can help to look at egoic moves in one of four directions: toward acquisition, toward aversion, toward the past, or toward the future. In this talk, Michael suggests that instead of livi…

What is the “experiencer”, the “seer”, or the “Witness” of our experience? In this talk, Michael explains how our attention to our experience, if offered fully, allows for a profound expansion in our…

Why meditate? Really. Can’t we awaken without stillness? In this talk, Michael suggests that awakening can only happen through stillness because it is only in the still spaces between our thoughts th…

What does it mean to have a life oriented around a radical honesty? This occurs spontaneously as we incorporate stillness into our awareness of what is happening in each moment. Michael uses Rainer M…