Kosho McCall's video

[Taigu]

Hi all,

Once you go through the introduction and put up with the editing and fake laughs of this poor and kind-sweet-idealistic lady...Well, that's a pretty good vid.
Kosho is a great guy and has a wonderful sense of humour.
A good window into the Suzuki Roshi lineage style of practice.

Enjoy!

gassho


Taigu


PS: one more thing though, even these clouds eventually are seen as the Dharma kaya, perfectly part of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRv10VMhYZM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrcCb1C0mdg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJxFs5iUpoI

[Hans]

Hello Taigu,

thank you for sharing this. I'll watch the whole bunch of them tomorrow.....it's a bit of a culture clash in a funny and very interesting way

Gassho,

Hans Chudo Mongen

[Bids]

Thanks so much.
Deep bow, Nadi

[RichardH]

Thank you Taigu. That lays things out in a really grounded and straightforward way.

Gassho, kojip

...BTW ..the interviewer is distracting, but I don't think her laugh is a put-on. It's that nervous, over-enthused, Dharma talk laugh I've heard at retreats and talks. The teacher makes a mildly amusing comment, and everybody over-laughs.... because he said it.

..or so it sounds to me.

[Hoyu]

Thank you for sharing these videos Taigu. Prior to these I had not heard of Kosho before. He truly has a great way about him!! The description in the videos state that he is the head teacher at the Austin Zen Center. Wishing to encounter more of this man, I searched iTunes to see if AZC has a podcast. They do, and I'm downloading some of their talks as I write this. What a great lead!

Gassho,
Hoyu

[Mp]

Thank you for this share Taigu.

Gassho
Michael

[Rich]

Thanks Taigu. Well to listen to.

[Jiken]

McCall says, "Ego exists to protect us from being vulnerable. It is supposed to work but it doesn't" These were important words for me to hear. Vulnerability is a huge fear of mine that I need to embrace. Even writing this is difficult. I can honestly say that I have spent an immense amount of time "protecting myself" when there was nothing to be protected from. Just the contingency.

Gassho,

Daido

[Shujin]

McCall says, "Ego exists to protect us from being vulnerable. It is supposed to work but it doesn't" These were important words for me to hear. Vulnerability is a huge fear of mine that I need to embrace. Even writing this is difficult. I can honestly say that I have spent an immense amount of time "protecting myself" when there was nothing to be protected from. Just the contingency.

Gassho,

Daido

Gassho.

[Risho]

Thank you Taigu

Gassho,

Risho

[Myozan Kodo]

Thanks Taigu, for this clear voice.
Gassho,
Myozan

[Myoshin]

Great Taigu,

Some sentences ring in me, to be remembered.

Tank you

Gassho

Yang Hsin

[Daitetsu]

...BTW ..the interviewer is distracting, but I don't think her laugh is a put-on. It's that nervous, over-enthused, Dharma talk laugh I've heard at retreats and talks. The teacher makes a mildly amusing comment, and everybody over-laughs.... because he said it.

..or so it sounds to me.

I agree with you, Kojip. I think her laugh is over-enthused, but honest.
IMHO her questions were not too bad and Kosho managed to answer in a way that didn't cause unnecessary confusion (which could have happened easily at several moments).

Liked this interview a lot!

Gassho,

Timo

[Jigetsu]

I wish I could speak as softly as he does!

[Jinyo]

I wonder what the flow of this would have been without the editing?

The middle part didn't gell for me. The initial question was about the difficulty of dealing with emotions around losing one's home, the suffering of a family member,etc. Somehow this got turned into a dialogue about AA, addictions and false perceptions.

Perception then became equated with 'taste' - on the level of 'do I like chocolate cake' etc.

I also have a bit of unease regarding the term ego addiction. Does being upset about losing one's home etc equate with ego addiction? Trying to obviate normal human responses seems to defeat the goaless attitude of Zazen IMHO. I'm also not sure about the notion that one has to hit rock bottom in order to change/grow. There's an element of truth in it - but it isn't necessarily the case.

Sorry to be critical - Kosho McCall seems a really good person - and a lot of what he says rings true - but that was a difficult interview and he looked positively pained at times.

Gassho

Willow