You’re invited to explore written Dharma talks on our fellowship website, Everyday Nembutsu. We’ve included links to several core teachings by our founding practice leader, Christopher Kakuyo Sensei. These talks express the spirit of our community, simple, honest, and grounded in daily life. Our lineage draws from the modern Way of Oneness Buddhist teachings of Rev. Gyomay Kubose, Koyo Kubose, and the Shin teachings of Nobuo Haneda, who help us see the Nembutsu as a natural, everyday expression of awakening.
Ordinary Awakening
In Ordinary Awakening, Christopher Kakuyo Sensei explores how true awakening isn’t something distant or extraordinary, but right here in our everyday lives. Drawing on the Buddha’s teaching of dependent arising and the wisdom of Shin Buddhist thought, Sensei invites us to see that when we drop the stories we tell about ourselves and others, we begin to recognize the luminous, interdependent nature of our ordinary existence, where each moment of simple awareness is itself awakening.
Not Knowing The Most Intimate
In this Dharma talk Not knowing is the most intimate, Christopher Kakuyo Sensei invites us into a deeper way of engaging with life—not by clinging to certainty, but by opening to the unknown. Drawing from a classic Zen koan in which Master Dizang affirms, “Not knowing is the most intimate,” Sensei explores how our habitual desire to know can actually limit our connection to ourselves, others, and the world. Through this teaching, we’re encouraged to embrace “not knowing” not as confusion, but as a gateway to curiosity, vulnerability, and true intimacy with life as it unfolds.
On Humility: The Path of Studentship
n On Humility: The Path of Studentship, Christopher Kakuyo Sensei reflects on a foundational teaching from Nobuo Haneda and the Shin Buddhist tradition: that the heart of practice is not perfection but humility. Through Shinran’s encounter with his teacher Honen — in which he saw a Buddha not as a distant holy figure but as a humble student — Sensei invites us to reconsider what it means to be a Buddhist. This talk explores how letting go of our stories of knowing and becoming, and stepping onto the path with a beginner’s heart, opens us to deeper gratitude, reverence, and connection with life as it is.
Kintsugi: The Beauty of Imperfection
In Kintsugi: The Beauty of Imperfection, Christopher Kakuyo Sensei uses the Japanese art of kintsugi as a powerful metaphor for our spiritual lives, showing how what is broken and scarred can become even more beautiful and meaningful when embraced with care. Drawing on Buddhist teachings and the wisdom of Rev. Gyomay Kubose, Sensei invites us to let go of perfectionism and see our imperfections not as flaws to hide, but as the very places where light, connection, and compassion can shine.
Mono No Aware: Embracing Impermanence
Life moves, changes, appears, and disappears, and we are asked to love it anyway. In this talk on mono no aware, Kakuyo Sensei reflects on the emotional wisdom of impermanence, how seeing things as transient can deepen our compassion, expand our gratitude, and help us live more fully in each precious moment.
The Way if the Foolish Being
This talk explores the beautiful paradox of being a “foolish being”, not in the sense of foolishness as failure, but as a humble acknowledgment of our imperfection, conditioning, and shared humanity. Sensei reminds us that letting go of the need to be special or in control creates space for genuine awakening to arise right in the midst of everyday life.
The Gray Parrot and the Bodhisattva Vows
In The Gray Parrot & The Bodhisattva Vows, Sensei retells the parable of a tiny parrot of the Jataka Tales and the Hummingbird Story of the Quechua people of Ecuador, carrying water to a burning forest; an act that appears hopeless, yet arises from a heart that cannot ignore suffering. This talk reminds us that the path isn’t about guaranteeing outcomes, but about doing what we can, where we are, even when the task seems impossible.