Brooke Kaishin Barss: Toward an Enlightened Life

In this uplifting talk, Hoshi Brooke Kaishin Barss beautifully distills Zen practice and encourages us to lean towards enlightenment. “We are Buddhas already […] having a breakthrough is not the point. Rather, the point of our practice is to live enlightened lives.” As we practice wholeheartedly, we experience glimpses of our interconnected nature and we grow to trust our compassionate impulses. Hoshi Brooke shares personal stories of rescuing her dog from a frozen lake and sitting through a tortuous sesshin, pointing us to a practice of letting go of our fears and judgements and allowing compassion to naturally arise for ourselves and others. Like a newborn child, we all have the capacity to embody “just this, just now.”