Zen and Ecodharma Talks by Kritee Kanko

Boundless in Motion
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Buddhism
  • Updated Monthly

Kritee Kanko, Ph.D., is a climate scientist, educator-activist, grief-ritual leader, and a Buddhist Zen priest who lives in Colorado (United States) and Rajasthan (India). This podcast offers her teishoes/talks that were given during residential retreats as well as half-day sits. She addresses how we can prepare ourselves spiritually and psychologically to confront the societal challenges of our times, how do contemplative practices need to change to be able to offer a “non-dual” response to our socio-ecological predicament and what will it take to create a spiritually rooted movement.

  1. 2d ago

    Moshan's Mountain Summit — Hidden Lamp 25 (September 2019)

    With scandals and power misuse being common in Zen, Tibetan and other sanghas, what could a healthy teacher-student relationship look like? Can a rock, a river, or a fellow retreatant be your teacher? And what does it take to put down our hats and trust the universe?  This talk, one of earlier teishos Sensei Kanko gave in her teaching career, falls roughly into two parts. In the first, she offers detailed practical instruction on breathing technique and koan practice in her lineage. In the second part, roughly 17 minutes in, she turns to the koan itself: the monk Guanxi arrives at Moshan's mountain and refuses to bow or remove his traveling hat, demanding that this woman teacher transform herself into a man. Sensei Kanko uses the story in this koan to address what Buddhist practitioners face when meeting a new teacher (such as a less experienced one, like she was at the time), a new sangha, or a new practice place, and to offer her own vision of a less hierarchical and warmer student-teacher relationship. She speaks candidly about the power embedded in a spiritual teacher's role, why that power must be held skillfully, and why she asks her students to be her mirror. The story in the koan also shows a student who challenges his teacher rudely and is still received — and the unskillful challenge becomes a learning point for both. In these times when many practitioners are shaken by scandals or doubting the spiritual traditions altogether, Sensei Kanko offers a path that holds firm to the gifts of tradition and rigorous meditation practice while fully acknowledging its limitations and the need for humility and openness to feedback. She closes with instructions for nature practice — posing a question to a river or a tree, and reading the patterns in the natural world — as a way of recognizing that teachers abound: trees, moose, rocks, creeks, clouds, lichen, sunlight, and each other. Sensei Kanko gave this talk on the third day of a Zen retreat (sesshin) in September 2019. Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to boundlessinmotion.org or kriteekanko.com

  2. Aug 15

    Ukyu's Unfair Blows – Hekiganroku 75 (May 2026)

    Why do we need silent meditation retreats in these times of polycrisis? Is it normal for painful memories or emotions — or resistance to spiritual practice — to arise at the very beginning of a retreat, and how should we work with that? What is the purpose of our "weird" Japanese chants? What did the early Western Buddhist teachers leave out when they brought Buddhist teachings from the East? And how should we relate to the unfair blows we receive in life? In this talk, Sensei Kanko addresses the common questions and challenges that arise for new practitioners in Zen tradition, but fills them with vibrant stories, new and old, from her own life. Drawing on the koan's strange exchange of blows between a traveling monk and the teacher Ukyu, she invites us to excavate the unfair blows we carry from our closest relationships, our ancestors, and our lands — and to consider whether we can meet them with something deeper than the urge to strike back. Along the way she offers concrete, trauma-informed instructions for working with exhaustion and pain on the cushion, from extending the out-breath into the lower belly to scanning the body for the sensations that are simply okay. A talk for both long-time practitioners and those new to this path, the result is an excellent collage of Kanko’s teaching, which uniquely integrates the rigorous Rinzai Zen lineage with a trauma-informed, gentle and loving approach that weaves reindigenizing and traditional Buddhist ideas into a polycrisis-informed, modern, engaged Buddhist path. Sensei Kanko gave this talk on the first full day of a Zen retreat (sesshin) in May 2026. Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to boundlessinmotion.org or kriteekanko.com

  3. Jun 13

    Ryonen Scars Her Face — Hidden Lamp 31

    Why did the 17th century Zen practitioner Ryonen Genso burn her face to enter a Zen temple? What is this path worth? In this talk, Sensei Kanko challenges us to think what is possible when we move past healing alone and ask the most fundamental spiritual question: who am I? Naming the shadow of patriarchy in Buddhism but refusing to let Ryonen's story end there, she asks what burning question made this Japanese woman willing to scar herself. Using an infinity symbol, Kanko distinguishes the Western project of building a "healthy ego" from the non-dual path of dropping ego altogether — and points beyond both to Mu, the ground of being, asking what we are willing to let go of to touch that source. Sensei Kanko gave this talk on the second-to-last day of a Zen retreat in May 2026. Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to www.boundlessinmotion.org or www.kriteekanko.com.

  4. Apr 25

    Goso's Buffalo Passes Through the Moon Gate — Mumonkan 38

    How can you become fully enlightened like a Buddha? If you were a Buffalo, how can you be enlightened from head to tail? Or is that a delusional goal? In this talk, Sensei Kanko (Dr. Kritee) explores the koan of a buffalo passing through the window ( or a in Chinese architecture). In the koan, Buffalo’s head, horns, and four legs all make it through the window, but the tail cannot. What is this stubborn little tail that nags at us after years, even decades, of practice, therapy, and healing? Which patterns of unlovability, shame or inadequacy do we keep circling around or trying to hide from others? Drawing on personal stories — her arrival in the U.S. a week before 9/11, her early depression, and a recent health scare with her mother — Sensei Kanko offers a trauma-informed reading of this koan. She suggests we replace the word "ego" with "trauma," and invites us to hold the tail with tenderness rather than trying to eliminate it. She also gestures toward a deeper, absolute dimension of the koan, where the distinction between tail and enlightenment begins to dissolve — pointing, as Dogen did, to how the very sense that "something is missing" can itself be a mark of Dharma filling body and mind. Sensei Kanko gave this talk during a recent half-day sit (Zazenkai) in April 2026. If this talk speaks to you, consider joining Sensei Kanko and Imtiaz Rangwala for the upcoming Zen sesshin at Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center from May 11–17, 2026, which includes a "Solo" day of practice in nature. Details and registration are available at www.boundlessinmotion.org. Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to www.boundlessinmotion.org or www.kriteekanko.com.

  5. Mar 28

    Mailey Scott Meets Loneliness - Hidden Lamp 39

    Why might cuddling, hugging and belonging be important in our spiritual paths? In this talk, Sensei Kanko explores the tension between the koan's spiritual teaching on an “absolute” or “ultimate” plane, i.e., nothing in life is out of place, and what she sees as a deeper historical truth: that loneliness is out of place. We are mammals. Mammals experience safety, learning, and healing through touch, play, and physical closeness. Yet the epidemic of loneliness in modern life has severed us from ways to meet this basic evolutionary need. Drawing on stories from her own life and from a powerful experiment in one of her community "pods," Sensei Kanko makes the case that spiritual practice alone cannot substitute for what we need as mammals. While emphasizing the importance of developing ways to feel safe and to heal the wound of loneliness, she also explores the “absolute” spiritual truth: from the perspective of emptiness (called Shunyata or Mu in Asian languages), no wave in the ocean is out of place — not loneliness, not fear, not even death. The worst, she reminds us, is already baked into every human life. How do we relax into that impossible truth while also honoring our mammalian need to be held?  Sensei Kanko gave this talk during a half-day sit (Zazenkai) in late March 2026.  Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to www.boundlessinmotion.org or www.kriteekanko.com

  6. Feb 26

    My Return from Pilgrimage in Indian Forests – Emperor Wu Asked Bodhidharma, Hekiganroku Case 1

    Sensei Kanko ventured into Indian forests frequently visited by predators such as leopards, tigers, sloth bears, venomous snakes, and wild elephants. Why did she do this? What does fear held in trust look like? And why does she feel more hopeful and alive now than she has ever felt in her life?  In this talk, Sensei Kanko shares what motivated her to make this trip to India and reconnect with her ancient ancestral roots and ecosystems in India. She shared what happened during one part of her 2.5 month long journey. And she describes how does this journey relates to the first koan of the legendary Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record), in which Bodhidharma — the teacher who carried Buddhism from the Indian subcontinent to China — answered an emperor's questions about morality and goodness with "Emptiness, No Holiness" and "Not Knowing". Sensei doesn't give any direct answers but offers hints and examples of what it might mean to follow a path uniquely meant for you.  Sensei Kanko gave this talk upon her return from India in early 2026.  Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to www.boundlessinmotion.org or www.kriteekanko.com

  7. Jan 31

    Chen's Mountain Flowers - Hidden Lamp 13

    How does spiritual communication with plants and microbes happen? Are nature kinning practices essential in a spiritual path? Should you treat plants and microbes as equal or more intelligent than you? In this talk, Sensei Kanko explores a rare koan that directly addresses our relationship with the natural world, in order to inspire and give a rationale for nature kinning practices. Drawing on the ancient Chinese teacher Chen's verse and contemporary herbalist Stephen Buhner's thought provoking teachings, she gives no direct answers but invites us to consider: How can woodcutters with the "spirit of the knife and axe" ever see mountain flowers reflected in water, glorious and red? What does it mean to truly perceive plants and trees? Do only outlaws and troublemakers see plants truly? Can we cultivate the stillness and humbleness needed to hear "the quiet ones, the polite ones" who have been here for 700 million years—long before humans arrived half a million years ago? The talk offers both scientific insights and spiritual wisdom on balancing the necessary rigor of indoor concentration practice with opening our hearts to the wildness that shaped our very senses.  Sensei Kanko gave this talk on the second day of a Fall 2025 Zen retreat. Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to www.boundlessinmotion.org or www.kriteekanko.com

  8. 12/27/2025

    Jō Jōza Stands Still - Hekiganroku 32

    .Why are both hardship and gentleness invaluable in the spiritual path? Why is it sometimes helpful to be slapped and pushed away by the circumstances and the world around us? And how can it be also pivotal to treat ourselves gently like our best buddy or kind deity like Gyanyin would treat us? In this tender and powerful talk given on the first day of the Fall 2025 Zen retreat, Sensei Kanko addresses these questions through a classical koan about standing still in the face of life slapping and battering us. Many people our community knows are going through profound changes—breakups, cancer diagnoses, workplace abuse, or maybe deep health crises. The larger world is collapsing around us. How do we not collapse with these challenges? Using the story of Jō Jōza who "stands still" after being seized, slapped, and pushed by his teacher Rinzai, Sensei Kanko reveals the profound gift of Rinzai Zen to the world: the capacity to find your rooted core in the middle of intense storms. But she adds what traditional Zen often misses—a trauma-informed understanding that we must "go soft before we go still." For those whose relationship with breath practices causes them anxiety, for those who have been pushing too hard, the instruction is revolutionary: speak to yourself with profound kindness first. Tell yourself how precious you are, how hard what you've been through has been, how your medicine is needed in this world. Only from this softness can we access the stillness that allows us to belong—to ourselves, to the human community, to our natural ecosystems, and to what Kanko calls invisible realms. This is not about mastering meditation techniques or experiencing enlightenment experiences. This is about cultivating a heart overflowing with love for yourself, so you can watch life's waves from the perspective of the deep still ocean within. Sensei Kanko gave this talk during the Fall 2025 Zen retreat (sesshin). Thank you for listening to the Boundless in Motion podcast. You can access more information about our programs and retreats by going to www.boundlessinmotion.org or www.kriteekanko.com

See All (32)

About

Kritee Kanko, Ph.D., is a climate scientist, educator-activist, grief-ritual leader, and a Buddhist Zen priest who lives in Colorado (United States) and Rajasthan (India). This podcast offers her teishoes/talks that were given during residential retreats as well as half-day sits. She addresses how we can prepare ourselves spiritually and psychologically to confront the societal challenges of our times, how do contemplative practices need to change to be able to offer a “non-dual” response to our socio-ecological predicament and what will it take to create a spiritually rooted movement.

Information