Zen priest Sensei Michael Brunner explores the profound difference between "all over the body" and "throughout the body" compassion, rooted in the ancient Ungan’s Great Compassionate One koan.

Find out how this teaching manifests in the community missions of One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois. Learn why real practice isn't about being a "perfect Buddhist," but about the instant, unhesitating response of reaching for your pillow in the dark.

When every movement of the heart leans toward desire or resistance, how do we know what direction is true?
In this Dharma talk, Sensei Sōen Michael Brunner, Abbot of One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois, turns to the final case of the Book of Equanimity — Rōya’s Mountains and Rivers — to explore what it means to live from original nature rather than from the push and pull of the egoic self.
Drawing unlikely parallels between Aleister Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt” and John the Baptist’s “He must increase, I must decrease,” Sensei Sōen shows how Zen cuts through both self-assertion and self-erasure to reveal the clear and boundless life that gives rise to mountains, rivers, and this very breath.

During the 2025 Ango at One River Zen, Shuso Genpo Seth Myers opened our four-week Heart Sutra study by returning us to the basics — not as beginners in knowledge, but as beginners in seeing. Rather than analyzing the Sutra as philosophy, this first class turns us back toward direct experience: what remains when the grasping mind falls silent.

In this morning talk, Sensei Michael Brunner of One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois, takes up Case 17 of the Shōyōroku, where a single “hair’s-breadth” is enough to split Heaven and Earth. What begins as a brief exchange between two Zen masters becomes a mirror for the way we create distance from our own lives — every time we compare, resist, or try to understand rather than meet just this.

Chisō Robb Hasty — a student at One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois and the current Mayor of Ottawa — reflects on a brief koan in which the Zen master Ikkyū visits the dying monk Ninakawa. What unfolds in just a few lines dismantles one of our most unquestioned convictions: that we come into life alone and leave it alone. With the clarity of a single sentence, Ikkyū reveals a path where there is no coming and no going — a reality already present beneath the stories we tell about ourselves.

As sesshin closed, we turned to Case 6 of the Shōyōroku—Baso’s “White and Black.” What begins as a monk’s search for meaning becomes a living exchange of silence, headache, and not-knowing. Baso’s answer isn’t spoken; it’s embodied. White and black—two gestures of one mind—point to the truth that never stops walking.

In this final talk from sesshin, Sensei Michael Brunner concludes the four-part series on Sekitō Kisen’s Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage with the closing verse: “Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.” Having built the hut, opened it to vastness, and settled into stillness, the hermit now comes home to what was never apart. This is the return beyond attainment — the simplicity of being lived by the Way itself.

Here, Sekitō Kisen speaks of stability, embodiment, and the luminous ordinariness of awakening. We return to the hut not to escape the world, but to live freely within it. The wind, the rain, the aching knees of zazen — all are part of the same song.

In this second talk from the 2025 Ango Opening Sesshin, Sensei Michael Brunner continues his four-part exploration of Sekitō Kisen’s Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage. What began as a fragile ten-foot hut now opens to include the entire world. The hermit who once sought refuge discovers that his dwelling has no boundaries — and that the “original master” who abides within is unborn, undying, and ever-present.