I would like to thank my original teacher and teacher of my heart Jana Drakka, her teacher ZenKei Blanche Hartman, my current teacher Doug Jacobson, and all the ancestors in my lineage.


I’m no stranger to pain, I’ve had a torn A.C.L. in my knee, I have MS which causes me to twitch in pain at any time of day, every day. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) I have not experienced the knee pain so many advanced students have from sitting. On the other hand, just as with aging, I am experiencing the loss of basic functions: causing emotional and physical pain I was not expecting nor was prepared for.  


Although pain occurs quite regularly, even in innocuous ways - like meditating - it does not have to lead to suffering unless you let it. Embracing pain is a very difficult but productive way to deal with it while making strides towards the eightfold path and Buddhism. 


Pain is everywhere but it shouldn’t dictate our lives. My teacher at the heart used to give pain meditation where she asked the individual to identify a pain with a color, then give it a shape, give it a smell, give it a size, give it a funny haircut, give it a location, and then realized that you’re just thinking of pain as an object with no power, not pain anymore.


Identifying our pains help demystify them as a way to estrange pain for a moment. Join me in exploring life with pain we can approach.


This talk is the original written words and the generated A.I. voice of one that has been called a Bodhisattva and has taken the Bodhisattva vows. 


I hope that I have seen you as a being in your infinite glory.


I hope that I have helped dissolve delusion with these deluded words. 


I hope that I have opened new learning gates for you.


To me, the Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I hope you become what you find unsurpassable