Talks by Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee | Podcast en RSS.com

Talks by Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee

Talks by Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee

por I & A Publishing

Superación personal Budismo

Temporada 4

The Wisdom of Ikkyu. Delivered Sep 28, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, reflects on the universal reality of death and the transition of consciousness, illustrated by the historical encounter between the legendary Zen master Ikkyu and his dying disciple Ninagawa. When Ninagawa attempts to take comfort in traditional phrases about coming and going alone, Ikkyu challenges him, pointing to the path of no coming and no going. Lola explains that at death, the physical senses and brain cortex are left behind, halting new sensory input into the psyche. Without fresh input, the mind loops over existing psychological contents. True preparation through meditation allows a seeker to bypass unconsciousness and recognize that life and consciousness are an eternal continuum, whereas the ego remains the true source of bondage and illusion. Lola delves deeply into the life and character of Ikkyu, describing him as a revolutionary, nonconformist Roshi, the illegitimate son of the emperor, disowned due to political friction between northern and southern Japanese factions. Despite early struggles with depression and an attempted suicide, Ikkyu transformed into a wandering monk who carried a seven-note flute, championing humaneness over the deceitful obligations of the feudal elite. The father of wabi aesthetics, Ikkyu taught the beauty of poverty, simplicity, and spiritual independence. Lola contrasts Hinayana strictness, which demands the absolute destruction of desires and avoidance of women, with Mahayana and Zen perspectives. Zen views passions and Bodhi (wisdom) as identical. Ikkyu embodied this through his "Red Thread Zen," famously declaring that human existence is inextricably linked to women through a red thread, viewing them as the flowers of humanity. Lola recounts several colorful anecdotes illustrating Ikkyu's radical iconoclasm—such as burning wooden Buddha statues in a freezing temple to warm the living Buddha within, and later worshipping a common stone with flowers. Outward forms and scriptures are merely symbols, while true spiritual alignment depends entirely on the inner state of consciousness rather than adherence to dogma. Lola examines Ikkyu's profound enlightenment experience at age 26, triggered simply by hearing the piercing cry of a crow in the evening silence. In that instant, the illusion of the separate individual dissolved completely, merging his innermost being with non-being and the heartbeat of nature. For Ikkyu, the void became plenitude, and life and death merged into a single joyous continuum. Delivered Sep 28, 1986

The positive and the negative paths to enlightenment. Delivered Sep 21, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, contrasts the "positive" and "negative" paths to enlightenment. Drawing upon ancient Chinese Taoist, Li Tzu, she begins by questioning the value of emptiness. Because emptiness cannot be quantified, traded, or manufactured—unlike the walls of a house or the clay of a cup—it possesses an absolute value that transcends human commerce. To abide in this emptiness one must embrace stillness and let go of the transactional nature of human existence. She characterizes the positive path, often associated with asceticism and orthodox religious traditions, as one of accumulation. It involves specific techniques, incremental progress, and explainable methodologies. While this path is valid, its primary danger is the subtle inflation of the ego, wherein a practitioner might proudly claim, "I am That," mistaking hallucination for realization. In contrast, the negative path (via negativa) is the path of the mystic. It is sudden, unexplainable, and requires surrendering the ego-life. It involves taking a leap into the unknown without the comfort of gradual steps. However, this path also has its pitfalls, most notably the temptation of lethargy. Lola distinguishes between "aloneness" and "loneliness." She describes aloneness as a majestic, essential state of being—a direct confrontation with oneself and the ultimate reality. Loneliness, on the other hand, is an accidental, worldly state born of seeking oneself in others. By embracing true aloneness, the practitioner sheds ceaseless stream of thoughts and touches the core of one’s being. Lola describes how different traditions map onto these paths: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity largely follow the affirmative route of prayer and contemplation, while Buddhism and Taoism follow the negative route of silent meditation. Lola discusses the human tendency toward spiritual bargaining. Using a lighthearted allegory of an inventor who creates a "psychoscope" (a mind mirror), she shows how desperately people cling to their idealizations and self-projections. We prefer rose-tinted versions of ourselves to the unvarnished reality. To enter emptiness, one must drop all masks, both the beautiful delusions and the hidden guilts. True discipline, she argues, is not imposed by teachers or rules, but arises from within as a sense of deep responsibility and a joie de vivre. The ultimate realization is not a reward for a bargain struck with the universe, but a free gift accepted in the profound, cloudless silence of meditation. Delivered Sep 21, 1986

The Silent Night, the Holy Night Within. Delivered December, 1986

Zen Roshi and Christian minister, Lola McDowell Lee, illustrates the many harmonies between Eastern spiritual practices and Western mystical traditions. Lola looks at the traditional nativity story and Christian parables and urges us to look beyond literal interpretations to uncover deeply transformative inner meanings within scripture. She introduces the concept of the "subsistence of existence," the invisible ground or foundation of all being. While humans live outwardly, navigating the world through the cortex of the brain and accumulated societal roles, there remains a deeper, unspoken root consciousness. Maturing spiritually requires shifting our point of view, evolving beyond the literal, childlike understanding of parables to form an internal realization of the divine power that operates through us. We are like a seed that must break open and undergo a death in order to truly grow into what it is destined to be. She draws on the teachings of Meister Eckhart and St. Paul. To be "born of the Father," one must cultivate a spiritual hunger, embarking on a difficult journey of letting go of past conditioning, attachments, and sensory distractions. Lola explores the notion of Bethlehem as not just an historical town but as a symbol of the boundless kingdom of God within each of us. In this metaphor, the manger is the resting place of our animal instincts. It is within this internal, sacred space that a divine procreative force gives birth to the newborn king within us. She likens the three wise men bringing gifts to the unfolding of wisdom, understanding, and bliss that accompanies this internal spiritual awakening. Lola suggests a practice of meditation and via negativa—the negative way or neti neti. Because human consciousness is habitually fragmented across the five senses, we need to purposefully silence the memory, and arrive at a state of pure unknowing, making room for the divine light. St. Augustine warned against the tragic irony of searching endlessly in the external world for a truth that only exists within. Lola distinguishes between seeing, which is an outward action, and true listening, which draws us inward into profound stillness. Like the carol "Silent Night," true spiritual birth happens only in this reverent inner silence, where the unencumbered soul can finally hear the secret, transformative word of the divine. Delivered December 1986

The Tao of Ordinary Being. Delivered August 24, 1986

The Taoist approach to existence is much different from our usual rigid, goal-oriented conditioning. Lin-Li, a man nearly a hundred years old, lives in profound simplicity. To many, his life seems marked by poverty, loneliness, and the absence of family, a life of failure. Yet to others’ surprise, Lin-Li maintains an inexplicable happiness. He sings while laboring for meager grains in the fields. Lin-Li highlights a critical divide between the Confucian quest for status, behavioral perfection, and learning, and the Taoist path, which champions unlearning. Human misery is largely rooted in our desperate, ego-driven attempt to make sense of the world through our intellects rather than direct experience. We believe that life is a series of problems to be solved or a set of goals to be attained, but in doing so, we bypass the very essence of being. We have a tendency to picture the unknown and then mistake these mental constructs for reality. These inferences are barriers of our own making. By clinging to these concepts, we deceive ourselves into believing we possess knowledge that we do not actually have. Lola emphasizes the necessity of radical honesty in our self-inquiry. The most liberating step one can take is to sincerely admit, "I don't know." When we stop trying to maintain a facade of understanding, we move closer to the immeasurable reality of existence. Only then can we begin to see what is already present, what was there before our birth, and what will remain after our departure. Lola makes a distinction between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is framed as a symptom of a mind that is constantly reaching outward to fill a perceived void with external validation, circumstances, or relationships. In contrast, aloneness is a beautiful, luminous state of solitude where one is entirely self-contained. The metaphor of an individual’s internal wedding: the individual (the bride) waiting for the true self (the bridegroom). This is not an external event to be awaited, but a profound internal transformation. By setting aside the ego and embracing the pathless path, one moves into harmony with existence itself. We must step out of the, "as if we know" mentality and into a more direct, unconditioned, and deeply peaceful experience of living. Delivered August 24, 1986

Freedom from preferences. Delivered Aug 31, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explores our tendency to confuse changes in external conditions with genuine inner liberation. Lola recounts the classic Taoist parable by Chuang Tzu, "Three in the Morning," about a monkey trainer whose monkeys revolted. The wise individual perceives both sides of dualism without partiality, viewing all phenomena in the unifying light of the Tao. Why are we so easily tricked by these superficial arrangements? Lola examines the "monkeyish" mind. For most of us, the mind leaps wildly from thought to thought. She compares this to a person holding a cracker in a river: thoughts flow through us continuously, and when one is partial to a specific thought, associated ideas and memories rush in like hungry fish, attaching themselves to it until the mental energy dissipates. This mechanical cycle, repeated countless times daily, makes up our subjective worldview—a reality rooted entirely in discrimination (like vs. dislike, pleasure vs. pain). Lola explains that as self-consciousness emerges from the unconscious in early development, a sharp divide is created between the observer and the observed. This separation conceals a third factor—a foundational, unexamined state of ignorance. Far from meaning stupidity, this spiritual ignorance refers to acting without direct knowledge, or noesis. Trapped within this subject-object dichotomy, human beings mistake relative dualities for absolutes. Spiritual understanding recognizes that all dualities are relative and grounded in a singular, non-dual source—whether designated as God in Christian theology, the Tao in Chinese philosophy, or Emptiness in Zen. Lola clarifies the concept of karma. Drawing from its Sanskrit root kri (meaning "to act"), she equates karma with samskara—the condition of living under the domination of bodily sensations and psychological conditioning. Most human beings live under the delusion that they are independent, free-willed agents. In reality, however, they are managed by their sensory reactions and emotional reflexes, swept about like leaves in the wind. When people attempt to "purify their karma"—they remain caught in the same monkeyish trap of manipulating details, neglecting the root cause of their suffering. Lola illustrates the futility of theoretical fixes the story of an abstract-minded doctor who observed a pneumonia-stricken tailor recover after eating 32 potato pancakes. When the doctor prescribed the exact same regimen to a dying shoemaker, the shoemaker died, prompting the doctor to foolishly note that potato pancakes cure tailors but kill shoemakers. This rigid approach to life ignores the nature of things. True transformation requires addressing the interior ground of consciousness. The resolution to this human dilemma lies in the practice of Zazen, silent meditation and cultivation of non-dual awareness. By sitting in total stillness, the gushing fountain of reactive thoughts and feelings settles, giving rise to subjective perception—seeing with the eye of the mind. In this state of quietude, the illusion of dualism vanishes. Transcendence is not an escape. It’s the full integration of the absolute and the relative. When a person acts out of this realization, daily activities like walking or eating lose their ego-centered division (foot vs. floor, subject vs. object) and become total, seamless expressions of life. The Perfect Way requires freedom from preferences. When the mind moves serenely alongside the 10,000 things without taking sides, it abides in an undisturbed peace that transcends joy and sorrow. Delivered Aug 31, 1986

Where Taoism, Christianity and Zen meet. Delivered August 17, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee explores the interplay between ego, consciousness, and the spiritual path, drawing on Taoist, Buddhist, and Christian traditions. She explores the Taoist message of flowing with existence, free from effort or resistance. By aligning oneself with the totality of life, one can move beyond fear and obstruction. Lola recounts the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve and the loss of innocence and the rise of the ego. If the Garden of Eden is a state of unconditioned innocence, then the Fall represents the emergence of self-consciousness, discrimination, and dualistic thinking. Naming things acts as a barrier between humans and direct experience. By labeling the world, we create an illusion of knowledge, often losing sight of the underlying reality that exists beyond these labels. One needs to move past this reliance on names and differentiation, which keeps us trapped in our egos. She explains how the practice of the Zen koan is not to find rational answers but to exhaust the thinking mind. Through persistent meditation, the practitioner eventually reaches a point of mental fatigue, where language and dualistic logic dissolve, allowing for a non-linguistic experience of truth. This collapse of the ego allows one to experience reality as it is, unobstructed by concepts or names. Lola explains that Zen is not about withdrawal from the world, but rather about cultivating an inner emptiness that supports one's engagement with daily life without being identified with the ego. Wu Wei (non-action) is not passive inaction but a state of conscious alertness where one flows with life's natural rhythms. Letting go of the ego allows one to experience the joy and serenity of being truly awake. Delivered August 17, 1986

Unlearning and existential trust. Delivered Aug 10, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explores the concepts of unlearning, existential trust, and the structural dynamics of the ego. Lola describes the state of an enlightened individual as one whose nature has completely sunk back into its roots in the One. True spiritual power, she argues, is not achieved through cleverness, daring, or accumulated knowledge, but rather through an intense process of unlearning. Within every person exists this pristine, unconditioned reality—the true man of no rank. An obstacle to realizing this wisdom is the modern obsession with cleverness and interpersonal strategy. Individuals constantly construct internal scripts, planning how they will speak or act based on anticipated reactions (if I do this, they will do that). They even include their spiritual development as part of their ambitions for the future. It is an exercise in delusion for an individual ego to attempt to outsmart the source from which it emerged—and to which it must inevitably return. It’s like a tiny ocean wave attempting to outwit the vast sea, or an individual leaf plotting against its parent tree. True liberation demands that these mental structures be abandoned in favor of self-understanding and self-acceptance, which renders cunning obsolete. To dissolve the artificial armor of the intellect, we must acknowledge: I don't know. Strip away conceptual hand-me-downs, leaving an unclouded personal trueness, enabling an individual to walk through existence with the unvarnished trust of a small child holding a parent’s hand. Lola distinguishes between two dimensions of human capability: phenomenal intelligence, which governs analytical, academic operations—and numinal intelligence, which manifests as an innate, structural wisdom born into all living things. Numinal intelligence is not characterized by cunning or calculation. It manifests as a profound trust in reality. The simple act of lying back and falling asleep is a marvelous expression of our underlying trust in and connection to the totality of life. Lola tells a story of an eighty-year-old sword-master and an ambitious disciple. Despite his high technical proficiency and physical power, the disciple remained trapped within his own ego, constantly demanding a duel to claim the master's lineage. The aging master instructed the disciple to first defeat the master's former disciple who had long since discarded his sword to become a contemplative monk. The aggressive disciple angrily found this monk and demanded a duel with him. The monk calmly declined to pick up a weapon, stating that he would simply allow the disciple to attack him. Upon standing, the monk effectively transformed into a terrifying, slightly swaying pillar of energy. The disciple panicked, discarded his sword and fled. By provoking anger in the disciple, the monk instantly exposed vulnerabilities in the student's being. Lola quotes the biblical passage, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom.” Spiritual poverty is the absence of a grasping, possessing ego-self. When an individual is dominated by pride, jealousy, or desires, their vital energy is continually fragmented and leaked away. But when an individual achieves true desirelessness, their energy ceases to scatter outward. Instead instead, they move inward, compacting the consciousness into an unassailable, solid field—a pillar of strength, light, and focused meditation. It’s what Plotinus meant when he called it the "flight of the alone to the alone.” The seeker must strip away personal trappings, cultural embellishments, and egoic self-beautifications. Delivered Aug 10, 1986

The Trap of Words - Delivered August 3, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, recounts Chuang Tzu’s advice: the purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and once the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. So too with words — once an idea is truly grasped, the words that carried it should be released. Yet we find this nearly impossible. Words stick. They cling to the mind and take on a life of their own, trapping the very people who use them. She illustrates with two ancient stories. In Egyptian lore, a god wished to thank humanity for its devotion and decided to give people the gift of words — only to be warned by the great god Ra that this would put them in bondage. And the Buddha’s tale of five men who crossed a flooded river in a small boat. So grateful were they that the boat had saved their lives, they would not leave it behind. And so they hoisted the boat onto their heads and pointlessly carried it for the rest of their journey. Lola asks how many boats, ladders, and paths are we still carrying in our heads? Lola points to silence as the source of truly alive communication. When the mind is not churning with its stored content, heart can speak to heart--unlike ordinary social chatter, which acts as a relief valve for inner disturbance rather than genuinely meeting another person. Lola tells a humorous story of a Zen monk who calls a bartender repeatedly in the middle of the night asking when the bar will open. When the exasperated bartender finally shouts that he will have to wait until nine for a drink, the monk replies that he does not want a drink — he is locked in the barn and wants to get out. We are locked inside and mistakenly reaching outward. The real movement is inward. Lola describes the uncreated mind through the image of a polished mirror or a crystal ball. The mirror is originally clear and unblemished; our likes, dislikes, prejudices, envies and graspings settle on it like dust, obscuring it. Yet the mirror itself is never changed by what it reflects. But actually, the uncreated mind from the very beginning has not been anything else but pure. The created mind has accumulated so much authority that it has mistaken itself for the master of the house — when in truth it is only the manager, meant to serve something deeper. Glimpses of no-mind do arise in meditation, in a sudden beauty, in an unguarded moment with a butterfly or a ray of sunlight — but the moment the created mind rushes in saying “look what I’ve done, give me more of this,” the contact is lost. The appropriate response to such glimpses, she says, is simply gratitude. Delivered August 3, 1986

Zen is not an intellectual exercise. Delivered Jun 20, 1986

(Note on the recording: Thank you for your patience. Many of the remaining cassettes of Lola’s talks have substantial noise and echo issues. To overcome that, I’m trying out a different software to clean the audio. This software removes the noises, but it also sounds slightly clipped. Just so you know...if this sounds a little different from what you're used to. For those of you that follow her talks, I’m curious if you can accept these changes to improve the audio. Your comments are welcome. Thank you. – Bob) *** Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explores the dilemma of human life: the internal division caused by human desire, and the pursuit of external validation. Chuang Tzu tells of an archer who possesses perfect skill when shooting for the simple joy of the act. However, the moment an external prize is introduced the archer grows nervous, develops double vision, and goes out of his mind. Roshi Lee points out that while the archer's physical skill remains entirely unchanged, the introduction of a prize divides him against his own nature. He becomes obsessed with winning rather than the immediate, physical act of shooting. The need to achieve a specific outcome drains him of his innate power. Lola contrasts this fractured modern state with the consciousness of early human beings, whom she describes as children of the earth. Early humans viewed nature directly, and naturally concluded that the divine was immanent within everything—living inside trees, the sun, and so on. Because they lived without complex intellectual frameworks, their world was simple. In contrast, modern human beings, burdened by education and the knowledge of good and evil, find themselves alienated. Lola explains the tragic irony of this search: the divine cannot be uncovered intellectually. It is the very subjective ground where we stand. We need to unify the heart and mind, bringing an end to this exhausting external search and returning us to our natural wholeness. Lola shares the tale of an inebriated monk who staggers home, knocks repeatedly at his own front door, and asks his wife who he is and where he lives. This, she notes, is the universal state of humanity—staggering through life and begging the external world to tell us our identity. This identity confusion stems directly from desire, which creates idealized mental images that pull us away from immediate reality. We form a false ego-image by collecting the opinions of others in a basket and calling it "ourselves." Trying to prove we are "somebody" is an endless, suffering-filled trap because there will always be someone greater to compare against. True liberation is the realization that you are actually "nobody." To be nobody is to be free of the constant need to prove your worth. In this sweet spot of non-clinging, you paradoxically realize your identity as the totality of existence. Lola describes how ancient Chinese masters structured this text into a beautiful four-fold vision of reality based on the terms Li (Absolute Reality or Emptiness) and Shi (Particular Events or Forms). In a fully awakened state, Li and Shi are completely interfused and unified. Like a golden lion in an imperial palace, she explains that the lion (the form/event) has no reality without the gold (the substance/absolute), and the gold cannot be expressed without the lion. They are structurally inseparable (interdependent). To see the world as it truly is means letting go of the false dichotomy. Zen is not an intellectual exercise. It is a hundred-foot pole that requires a final leap. Let the arrow release itself without ego involvement. We need to recognize that the door to the spiritual world is not something we need to pound on frantically from the outside; rather, we have been safely inside the sanctuary all along. Jun 20, 1986

Temporada 3

Emptiness is not nothingness. Jul 14, 1986

Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, discusses the concept of the "Unborn," the central teaching of Master Bankei. Lola recounts the story of an arrogant Abbot trying to challenge Bankei. The Abbot told his congregation, “If I put a difficult question to him, I can stymie him with just one word. So saying this, he went off to see this supposed master. And here in this large crowd, in the middle of the talk, the Abbot shouted in his booming voice, “Everyone here accepts your sermon and believes it. But someone educated like myself doesn't accept. If a person doesn't accept, how are you going to save him?” And Bankei raised his fan and says, “Come forward.” So the Abbot went forward to stand before him. And then Bankei says, come a little closer. So the abbot shuffled forward again. And Bankei looks at him and says, “See how well you accept what I say?” Indian patriarch Nagarjuna’s doctrine of Shunyata, or emptiness. This emptiness is not a nihilistic nothingness or an absence, but rather an absolute state where relativity disappears. The Prajñāpāramitā represents a noetic leap across the abyss of contradiction. To explain, Lola uses the metaphor of passing through a chain-link fence into a garden that the mind could never have previously imagined. One should not waste time speculating about what is on the other side, as the mental process is inherently dualistic and incapable of grasping the Absolute. Lola discusses the human condition through the lens of the Five Aggregates. Everything in the phenomenal world—cells, organs, and thoughts —is a temporary aggregation of elements. By examining the body, one realizes there is no permanent, self-existing entity to be found. This leads to the practice of the via negativa, or the path of negation. Through non-attachment and non-judgment, the practitioner learns to perceive the formless within form. She tells Zen story of Basso, who sat in meditation for hours hoping to become a Buddha. Frustrasted, he looked to his master who began scrubbing a brick. When asked what he was doing, the master said, like you, I’m trying to polish this brick into a mirror. The Threefold Truth—the Real (emptiness), the Unreal (the empirical world), and the Synthesis (the Middle Way). Lola explains how the Middle Way transcends and embraces both the absolute and the relative. This synthesis grants the practitioner three eyes: the Dharma eye to see interdependency, the Wisdom eye to see unchanging silence, and the Buddha eye to see the union of both. Lola ends a week-long Sesshin with a reminder that even small enlightenments are worth our gratitude. The speaker reinforces that the market of spiritual truth provides exactly what the seeker demands. If one asks for childish toys, one receives them; if one asks for gold, one receives gold. This puts the agency of spiritual growth squarely on the shoulders of the individual. The teacher cannot eat or be enlightened for the student. By turning one's light inward, the root of false thinking can be dug out, leading eventually to the Golden Wind, where the leaves of the ego have fallen and the trees are bare, yet reality remains vibrant and full. Jul 14, 1986

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