Mindful Leadership With Marc Lesser

Stop Giving Away Your Power: Guided Meditation, Talk and Zen Puzzler

In this Practice episode, Marc begins with a short guided meditation on ways to cultivate a sense of awe, wonder, and warmheartedness as the path of finding your authentic power. He then gives a short talk on power as an expression of the heart, of compassion, and as a way of being clear and effective, while also identifying ways that we give our personal power away.
 
Today's Zen puzzler comes from a famous Zen question: "What is the teaching of a lifetime?"

Awake at Work with Norman Fischer

Norman and Marc talk about work as a spiritual practice, and as a Zen practice. They discuss how to shift from fear, anxiety, and burnout to approaching work as a means to make an offering, and to help and benefit others.
 
They address the practice of confidence and humility, and the lack of distinction between benefitting others and our own wellbeing. And they touch on meditation as a way of not fooling yourself, at work and in all parts of your life.

Appreciate Your Life: Guided Meditation, Talk and Zen Puzzler

In this practice episode, Marc begins with a short guided meditation with the theme of impermanence and appreciation, followed by a short talk on the practice of cultivating appreciation. The Zen puzzler is based on a short dialogue from Dogen, the 13th century founder of Zen in Japan, in which Dogen refers to his years of study in China as a lesson in how to appreciate everything life has to offer.

Transforming Pain to Possibility with Joan Halifax

Joan Halifax is known as one of today's most important Zen teachers, especially through her activism or what she refers to as "engaged Buddhism" and from her work in prisons, her programs on grief, death and dying, and much more.
 
Joan and Marc explore the way of the modern Bodhisattva, someone who maintains presence with compassion in the face of extraordinary challenges. Joan shares how her compassion for all beings is her secret for avoiding burnout, along with recognizing and shifting from the idea of “helping” or “fixing” so we instead recognize our work as an act of “service.”

Frustration Is Optional: Guided Meditation, Talk and Zen Puzzler

There is no shortage of frustration in our daily lives. In this episode, we begin with a short meditation, followed by a short talk about effective ways to shift from frustration to acceptance and appreciation. Marc shares one of his favorite poems by Tony Hoagland. Today's Zen puzzler comes from the teachings of Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki. Marc helps the listener unpack various ways to consider and answer the question: What is the most important point for you right now?

Growing a Sustainable Business, and Life with Joel Makower

Joel Makower is a world leader in the field of sustainable business and its relation to climate change. Marc and Joel share a heartening conversation about how sustainability gives Joel hope, and how to shift from overwhelm and despair to committed and engaged activism. Joel invites young leaders and entrepreneurs to not settle for vague answers and to truly believe and work toward a better future. He highlights the power of community during these times and affirms how there are more of us who care about the health of this planet than those who do not.
Joel Makower is chairman and co-founder of GreenBiz Group, a media and events company focusing at the intersection of business, technology and sustainability. For more than 30 years, through his writing, speaking and leadership, he has helped companies alig pressing environmental and social issues with business success.Makower has written more than a dozen books, including Strategies for the Green Economy, The Green Consumer, The E-Factor: The Bottom Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business and Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World. In 2010, Makower was awarded the Hutchens Medal by the American Society for Quality, and in 2014, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Society of Sustainability Professionals.

Why Must It Be This Way: Guided Meditation, Talk and Zen Puzzler

This episode begins with a short guided meditation, then Marc gives a short talk based on a famous Zen dialogue in which a student asks, "Why must it be this way?" referring to a crow eating a dead frog. The Zen teacher responds "It's for your benefit. And you caused it." Marc addresses and unpacks this mysterious and practical dialogue that is meant to open our hearts and minds. For this episode's Zen Puzzler, Marc plays with the question, "What is Zen?" and goes deeper into the question of why things must be a particular way.

Finding Wholeness in a Challenging World with Parker Palmer

Parker J. Palmer is a writer, speaker, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality, and social change. In this episode of the Zen Bones Podcast, Marc and Parker explore the creative tension between what is and what is possible, the art of perspective taking, and how to find wholeness in a challenging world. Parker shares how his hard experience with depression gave birth to several books, what he aspires to now, how his experiences in a Quaker intentional community showed him a way to transform economic inequality, and how creating safe spaces and tapping into your inner wisdom is a key component in enabling social change.

Design Your Life: Guided Meditation, Talk, and Zen Puzzler

How are you designing, and living your life? In this episode Marc begins with a short guided meditation. Then he unpacks the teachings of Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki who says "The more you practice meditation, the more you will be interested in your everyday life." and "You will discover what is necessary and what is not; what part to correct and what part to emphasize more." Marc reads and comments on a poem by William Stafford called Just thinking. This episode's Zen puzzler is Ordinary Mind Is the Way. How to design your life - with your ordinary, extraordinary mind.

Say Yes To Everything with Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield is one of the world's most celebrated poets. The New York Times describes her as "among the modern masters." Jane and Marc have been friends since their days as young Zen students living at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. During this intimate and enlightening conversation, Jane describes what brought her to Zen practice and her life-long ourney to poetry. They discuss and Jane reads her poetry about optimism, surprise, and embracing the fullness of the world.
Jane Hirshfield's writing is “some of the most important poetry in the world today,” according to the New York Times, and described as "among the modern masters" by The Washington Post, is one of American poetry's central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere. Lay-ordained in Soto Zen in 1979 during her eight years spent in full-time residential practice, including three years of monastic practice at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California's Ventana Wilderness, she explores transience and interconnection, shared fate and interiority, with equal allegiance. A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the founder in 2017 of the online and traveling installation Poets For Science, Hirshfield is the author of nine collections of poetry, including most recently Ledger (Knopf, 2020).