In this episode, I engage with author and Soto Zen priest Ben Connelly about his new book, Vasubandhu’s Three Natures: A Practitioner’s Guide for Liberation. Ben offers a clearly written, illuminating and practical commentary on this fourth-century Indian scholar’s profound teaching the Treatise on the Three Natures. Using examples from his own life as a social activist, Ben illustrates how this ancient wisdom into the imaginary, dependent, and complete, realized nature of all conditioned phenomena can heal our hearts, transform our relationships, and help all beings know peace.
Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen teacher and Dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage. He also teaches mindfulness in a wide variety of secular contexts, including police and corporate training, correctional facilities, and addiction-recovery and wellness groups. Ben is based at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center and travels to teach across the United States. He’s the author of Inside the Grass Hut: Living Shitou’s Classic Zen Poem, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara: A Practitioner’s Guide, and Mindfulness and Intimacy.
"The Impact of What We Do Is Infinite"