Developing Embodiment
Self-Paced Practice Course
with Zenki Dillo Roshi
About This Course
This course explores the importance of embodiment on the path of practice and awakening.
You will be guided through practices that help develop and deepen embodied presence. You will also explore how embodiment supports your journey toward a life of freedom from suffering, wisdom, and compassion.
There can seem to be a paradox in the Buddhist view of the body. While traditional teachings encourage you not to identify with the body, they also present breathing and bodily sensations as essential elements of mindfulness practice. This paradox begins to dissolve when you recognize that the body is a doorway to the present moment, and the present moment is a doorway to the timeless quality of awareness.
The original live course took place over a 6-week period from Oct 18-Nov 22, 2025, led by Zenki Roshi, at the Boulder Zen Center.
What You Will Learn
- Understand why embodiment is central to Zen practice: the fruition of the path is to embody Buddha, not merely to understand Buddhist teachings intellectually
- Distinguish between mindfulness (attending to the body) and bodyfulness (attending with the body), and learn to let sensation lead rather than override it with concepts
- Recognize the bodily gesture of contraction—the root of dissociation and suffering—and practice opening to experience rather than pulling away from it
- Experience liberation not as escape from difficult circumstances but as freedom within them, by transforming resistance into the capacity to receive what is
- Discover how complexity is known through the body as a felt sense ("implexity"), and learn to trust embodied knowing when situations cannot be grasped analytically
- Understand compassion not as a moral obligation but as resonance—the body's natural capacity to be moved by others
- Develop the ability to hold focused attention within the wider field of awareness, rather than collapsing into narrow focus and losing the whole
- Relate to contemporary challenges—including technological overwhelm and the rise of AI—from an embodied center, trusting your own capacity as a human being
What You Get
This course consists of 6 modules (see curriculum below), each consisting of a video dharma talk, several practice suggestions, and written materials to deepen your study. Altogether you will receive:
6 Dharma talks originally given to a live audience
18 practice suggestions, as well as a guided meditation, to integrate the content of the talks into your daily life
All Dharma talks and practice suggestions in audio format for easy download, so you can use the recordings while on the go
A combined PDF file of all practice suggestions to download
Lifetime access to course
Plus:1 free practice meeting with Zenki Roshi to discuss questions about your practice
