Awakening Streams: The One River Zen Podcast

• The Garuda Trap: How to Master Karmic Momentum and Sustain Presence

  🎧 Episode Notes: The Garuda TrapTitle: The Garuda Trap: How to Master Karmic Momentum and Sustain PresenceSpeaker: Sensei Michael Brunner (Founder, One River Zen, Ottawa, IL)Summary: What happens to your hard-won peace the moment you step off the cushion and back into your life? In this essential Zen talk, Sensei Michael Brunner dives into the perennial struggle of maintaining clarity against the immediate pull of habit energy. Using the compelling imagery of Case 44 of the Shōyōroku (Kōyō’s Garuda Bird), Sensei Michael reveals the Garuda Trap: that instantaneous surge of karmic consciousness that seizes the Dragon (our true, calm nature) the moment it "leaves the ocean" of direct experience. Learn to distinguish between the "imperial order of presence" and the "general's order of strategy," and discover a powerful, non-avoidant method for working skillfully with your reactive patterns. Stop being the "blind turtle pinned under Mount Sumeru" and learn how to make friends with the inner scoundrel to sustain authentic presence in your everyday world.Key Concepts & Metaphors:The Ocean (Dragon King): Your natural domain; the calm, steady depth of your true nature, or original mind. The practice is to stay home in direct experience (body, breath, sensation).The Garuda/Falcon: Karmic Momentum or Karmic Consciousness. The instantaneous surge of thought forms and old habits that seize you. The trap is sprung the moment the "head sticks out"—so drop back in immediately.The Balcony Test: Identifying the edge where your peaceful presence meets your old habits. A place of revelation, not punishment.Blind Turtle under Sumeru: A warning against repeating painful, habitual patterns. Do not repeat the pattern.Imperial Order vs. General's Order: The Imperial Order is the stillness of presence. The General's Order is reaction and strategy. Stay in the Imperial Order; stop chasing the General.Core Insight: Skillful ActionThe practice is not about eliminating karma, but working skillfully with it.Make Friends with the Inner Scoundrel: Meet all facets of yourself (the aloof one, the avoidant one) from presence.The Bullfighter Analogy: Don't avoid the "bull" (karma), and don't run into it. Work nimbly with it.The Practice: If an old pattern surges, look at it carefully. Engage it, but not from your reactive self. Drop back into the body, into the breath, into direct sensation.Connect with One River Zen:Sensei Michael Brunner is the Abbot and founding teacher of One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois.Website: oneriverzen.orgLocation: 121 E Prospect Ave, Ottawa, IL 🪷 Awakening Streams: The One River Zen PodcastTeachings and reflections with Sensei Michael Brunner (Sōen) of One River Zen Center, 121 E Prospect St, Ottawa IL 61350.🌐 Learn more & join practice: https://www.oneriverzen.org🎧 Listen to more episodes: Awakening Streams Podcast🙏 Support the Sangha: https://www.oneriverzen.org/donate#SenseiMichaelBrunner #MichaelBrunnerOttawa #OneRiverZen #ZenKoan #ZenPodcast #OttawaIL #SotoZen

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• The Stream of Unhindered Life: Compassion, Koans, and the Unstoppable Function

  🎧 Awakening Streams Episode NotesTitle: ZEN KOAN: The 2 Secrets of True Compassion | Sensei Michael BrunnerTeacher: Sensei Sōen Michael Brunner, Sōtō Zen Buddhist Priest (Lineage: Dainin Katagiri Roshi through Rev. Dr. Sojun Diane Martin Roshi).Community: One River Zen, Ottawa, Illinois.—CORE TEACHING: Throughout the BodyThis talk, given by Sensei Michael Brunner, challenges the idea that Zen practice is limited to the cushion. He connects the deepest spiritual teachings to the tangible work of One River Zen's community missions, Karuna Pantry and the soon-to-open David’s Clubhouse in Ottawa, Illinois.Dōgen's Teaching: Sensei Brunner grounds the talk in Dōgen's famous quote: "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the ten thousand things." The practice is about being a true person, not a perfected image of a Buddhist.The Koan of Spontaneity: We explore Shōyōroku, Case 54: Ungan’s Great Compassionate One. The Koan uses the image of Avalokiteśvara (Bodhisattva of Great Compassion) to ask how boundless compassion functions.Dōgo’s Pointer: Dōgo likens it to "a man who reaches behind him at night to search for his pillow." This is spontaneous, intuitive action, free of thought or strategy.The Critical Difference: The key is the subtle yet profound difference between two phrases:Ungan's Partial View: "All over the body are hands and eyes." (Implies compassion is something "I" do or applyas a tool—80% there).Dōgo's Complete View: "Throughout the body are hands and eyes." (Implies compassion is what this life is—the unobstructed functioning of original nature. It is not applied; it is simply how life operates when the self-story is not in the way).The Final Invitation: The talk concludes with the understanding that "supernatural" functioning is simply reality without the distortion of the ego. The true Koan for the listener is: "How will you spend the very real currency you possess with your next breath—this currency that is your life?"—Connect with Sensei Michael Brunner:Website: brunnerzen.orgOrganization: oneriverzen.org 🪷 Awakening Streams: The One River Zen PodcastTeachings and reflections with Sensei Michael Brunner (Sōen) of One River Zen Center, 121 E Prospect St, Ottawa IL 61350.🌐 Learn more & join practice: https://www.oneriverzen.org🎧 Listen to more episodes: Awakening Streams Podcast🙏 Support the Sangha: https://www.oneriverzen.org/donate#SenseiMichaelBrunner #MichaelBrunnerOttawa #OneRiverZen #ZenKoan #ZenPodcast #OttawaIL #SotoZen

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• Shōyōroku Case 19 | Ummon’s Mount Sumeru — A Zen Koan on Meeting the Obstacles of Mind

  In this episode, Sensei Michael Brunner of One River Zen Center in Ottawa, Illinois explores Shōyōroku Case 19 — Ummon’s Mount Sumeru, a profound Zen koan on how we meet the obstacles of the mind.When a monk asks, “When not producing a single thought, is there any fault or not?” Ummon replies, “Mount Sumeru.”What does it mean to encounter life’s difficulties as the mountain itself rather than something to climb over or escape?Sensei Michael unpacks this question through the lens of the Three Transformative Touchstones — maintaining wonder, including everything, and transforming suffering. Each offers a way of seeing how awakening arises through, not apart from, the very conditions of our lives.🪷 Taught by: Sensei Michael Brunner 🏯 From: One River Zen Center | 121 E Prospect St, Ottawa IL 61350🌐 Learn more: https://www.oneriverzen.org🙏 Support the Sangha: https://www.oneriverzen.org/donateKeywords / Tags:Sensei Michael Brunner Ottawa | One River Zen | Ummon Mount Sumeru | Shōyōroku 19 | Zen koan | Zen Buddhism | Sōtō Zen | Dharma Talk | Zen Teaching | Sōen Michael Brunner  | Ottawa IL 🪷 Awakening Streams: The One River Zen PodcastTeachings and reflections with Sensei Michael Brunner (Sōen) of One River Zen Center, 121 E Prospect St, Ottawa IL 61350.🌐 Learn more & join practice: https://www.oneriverzen.org🎧 Listen to more episodes: Awakening Streams Podcast🙏 Support the Sangha: https://www.oneriverzen.org/donate#SenseiMichaelBrunner #MichaelBrunnerOttawa #OneRiverZen #ZenKoan #ZenPodcast #OttawaIL #SotoZen

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• Zen Kōan on Ego and Original Nature — Mountains, Rivers, and the True Will

  Zen Kōan on Ego and Original Nature — Mountains, Rivers, and the True Willwith Sensei Sōen Michael Brunner, Abbot of One River Zen (Ottawa, Illinois)When every movement of the heart leans toward I want or I don’t want, how do we know what direction is true? In this Dharma talk, Sensei Sōen Michael Brunner turns to the final case of the Book of Equanimity — Rōya’s Mountains and Rivers — to explore how ego, will, and awakening unfold in daily life.Through the unlikely pairing of Aleister Crowley’s dictum “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and John the Baptist’s “He must increase, I must decrease,” Sensei reveals how Zen transcends both self-assertion and self-erasure. This kōan becomes a living invitation to see the original nature that breathes through mountains, rivers, thoughts, and every ordinary moment.💠 Recorded live at One River Zen, a Soto Zen Buddhist temple rooted in the lineage of Dainin Katagiri Roshi.🎧 Learn more, view upcoming retreats, or join practice at www.oneriverzen.org. 🪷 Awakening Streams: The One River Zen PodcastTeachings and reflections with Sensei Michael Brunner (Sōen) of One River Zen Center, 121 E Prospect St, Ottawa IL 61350.🌐 Learn more & join practice: https://www.oneriverzen.org🎧 Listen to more episodes: Awakening Streams Podcast🙏 Support the Sangha: https://www.oneriverzen.org/donate#SenseiMichaelBrunner #MichaelBrunnerOttawa #OneRiverZen #ZenKoan #ZenPodcast #OttawaIL #SotoZen

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• Hōgen's Hair's-Breadth: Shōyōroku Case 17

  In this talk Sensei Michael Brunner turns to Case 17 of the Shōyōroku — Hōren’s Hair’s-Breadth. The koan pivots on a single line from the Shin Jin Mei: “If there’s even a hair’s-breadth of difference, heaven and earth are clearly separated.” Rather than analyzing the line, Sensei shows how this “hair” is born in the instant we prefer, resist, explain, or try to understand. The moment we step back from what is happening and make an observer, heaven and earth fly apart.The exchange between Hōgen and Shuzan becomes a mirror for our own practice: Hōgen questions, Shuzan repeats, Hōgen presses, Shuzan answers “I am just this,” and the line is spoken again — the same words, but now alive. The closing bow seals their intimacy. Sensei points to how this same movement appears in our zazen, relationships, fear, frustration, and aspiration; how even a fly landing on the scale can tilt the whole heart; and how the work is not to fix the tilt but to see the tilting mind clearly, without measuring or interference.This episode asks the listener to locate the hair’s-breadth in their own life and to entrust the mind before division — allowing heaven and earth to bow together in the very act of seeing. 🪷 Awakening Streams: The One River Zen PodcastTeachings and reflections with Sensei Michael Brunner (Sōen) of One River Zen Center, 121 E Prospect St, Ottawa IL 61350.🌐 Learn more & join practice: https://www.oneriverzen.org🎧 Listen to more episodes: Awakening Streams Podcast🙏 Support the Sangha: https://www.oneriverzen.org/donate#SenseiMichaelBrunner #MichaelBrunnerOttawa #OneRiverZen #ZenKoan #ZenPodcast #OttawaIL #SotoZen

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