About Awakening Streams: The One River Zen Podcast
Awakening Streams features Dharma talks and Zen reflections from Sensei Michael Brunner of One River Zen Center in Ottawa, Illinois.
Each episode explores the living practice of Zen Buddhism through classic Zen koans, teachings from the Shōyōroku and Mumonkan, and direct encounters with everyday life.
Discover how awakening flows through every obstacle, every act of compassion, and every moment of wonder.
🌐 Learn more: https://www.oneriverzen.org
The One Who Is Not Sick: Tōzan’s Illness — Book of Serenity (Shōyōroku), Case 94
In this episode of **Awakening Streams**, Sensei Michael Brunner takes up **Case 94 of the Book of Serenity (Shōyōroku), “Tōzan’s Illness.”** When a monk asks the seriously ill Tōzan whether there is “someone who is not sick,” Tōzan answers yes—and then turns the question toward care, presence, and the limits of identity.
The talk explores how easily we confuse our diagnoses, fears, judgments, and personal narratives with the whole of who we are. Illness may be real, anxiety may be real, suffering may be real—but none of them fully define the person experiencing them.
Sensei Michael reflects on the difference between receiving care and becoming imprisoned by the identity of suffering, and on what it means to meet difficult circumstances from a place deeper than the small self. Tōzan’s response, **“This old monk is able to look after others,”** becomes a teaching on remaining fully alive, responsive, and available to the world even in the midst of illness.
The invitation is not to deny suffering, but to stop making it the boundary of our being—and to discover the freedom to act with compassion from whatever circumstances are present.
13 Sept 2026
Dōgen’s Uji: Stop Waiting to Practice
Sensei Michael Brunner explores Eihei Dōgen’s Uji (Being-Time) and the subtle ways we postpone our lives by waiting for better conditions, a quieter mind, a finished project, or some imagined future moment when practice will finally become possible. Drawing on Dōgen, Søren Kierkegaard’s image of the chess piece that “cannot be moved,” and the very real experience of building a new zendo, Brunner shows how longing, aversion, and karmic conjecture keep us negotiating with reality instead of inhabiting it.
The talk turns Uji from abstract philosophy into a direct practice imperative: witness what is here, include what is here, take responsibility for what is being created, and allow compassionate activity to arise from the actual circumstances of this moment. The unfinished zendo, fear, anger, uncertainty, work, and relationship are not obstacles to practice. They are the Dharma positions through which practice is already alive
29 Aug 2026
Stop Trying to Fix Yourself | A Zen Teaching on Not Knowing | Book of Equanimity 45
In this episode of Awakening Streams, Sensei Michael Brunner explores Case 45 of the Book of Equanimity, “The Sutra of Complete Awakening,” and the Zen practice of meeting life without demanding certainty.
We often assume practice should help us eliminate difficult thoughts, overcome uncertainty, and finally understand what is happening. But this koan points in another direction: do not suppress what arises, do not add another layer of explanation, and do not turn reality itself into something to grasp. Through teachings on Great Doubt, the ancient story of Chaos, and the image of an axman cutting mud from a man’s nose, Michael asks what becomes possible when we stop trying to fix ourselves, put down the ax, and maintain wonder.
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Apple Podcasts (US)
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Spotify
3.9 / 5
7 ratings
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