Zencare Podcast Sitting Zazen with All Beings | Koshin Paley Ellison
Nov 4, 2025
A Zen teacher explores sitting zazen alongside plants and all beings. Reflections touch on practicing with terminal illness, staying open amid fear, and releasing personal stories. Ancient Lotus Sutra teachings and skillful means are woven with tender stories. Practical cues like soft-belly awareness and naming fear invite inclusive, nonjudgmental practice.
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Assistant Gardener Sits Zazen With Plants
- Koshin Paley Ellison became the official "assistant gardener" and was instructed to sit zazen with the roof plants daily.
- The literal role framed practice as service: sitting among moved plants on a rooftop made sitting into a shared practice with all beings.
Sitting In The Middle Means Including Everyone
- The Lotus Sutra's opening assembly includes every being—demons, snakes, all genders—teaching inclusion as a Dharma orientation.
- Koshin equates this universal welcome with "sitting in the middle" of life without excluding anybody.
Friend Faces Death With Curiosity
- Koshin recounts a longtime practitioner friend who, after learning her brain metastases left weeks to live, greeted it as an "adventure" and chose hospice with curiosity.
- Her calm, clear response modeled sitting in the middle of suffering without cutting the world into pieces.
