Welcome back everybody to the Denver Zochen Podcast.
I'm very excited today to not only have Joe Wagner with us as
per usual, but we also have our dear friend Ricky Coffin, who
you haven't met yet but has acted as the producer for this
show behind the scenes, putting together all those awesome
videos, making sure they're on YouTube, make sure they have all
the tags and all of that techie stuff that we don't know how to
do. So we really appreciate Ricky.
And today Ricky's going to introduce himself and tell us a
little bit about his Dharma path and how he came to Denver.
Zoke Chen. It'll be super fun to get into
it. Welcome, Ricky.
Great to see you. Welcome.
Thank you, Joe and Damian. It's great to be here with you
all. Thanks for the invitation.
And yeah, so my, my entryway into Buddhism, aside from
reading some books, maybe my late teens about Buddhism, I, I
didn't really get into it until about 20 years ago or so.
I was into yoga quite a bit. I anger yoga specifically like
kind of hatha yoga and learning about all the different type of
yoga philosophy and kind of that whole world.
And I was doing a weekend workshop with a teacher.
Her name is Deborah Ann Robinson and I didn't know much about her
at the time. She was just one of the more
kind of senior level high Yangar teachers who was travelling
through Denver. And I think it was on Sunday
morning for one of the sessions, she offered a meditation class,
which it seemed to be a little bit different than the other
types of meditation offerings that the other teachers or the
studio offered. And some years later, I came to
find that she's a Tibetan Buddhist.
Trongo Rinpoche was her. You know her, her root llama and
she actually is the director of his organization that he
founded, the Himalayan Children's Fund Foundation as
well. So really a lovely person, a
great teacher and that I think maybe planted some seeds.
And over the years, like since then I was exploring different
types of Buddhism, like Zen Buddhism, Theravada, you know,
going to retreats like a lot of us have done, like the passing,
the retreats and and so on. And then it was probably maybe
in like 2018 or so, I came across a quote by this person
above my head, Toko Arjun Richer.
And it's his well known quote about how basically everyone has
the same Buddha nature. Like the only difference between
the Buddha and everyone else is that the Buddha Buddha has
realized their, their true nature.
And when I, I still remember when I was reading through that,
that, that text and I read that it was like a, like, I've seen
the world differently since then, you know, And that was
kind of my entryway into being more interested in, in Tibetan
Buddhism. And it took, it took a little
while, but I started, I live in, I lived in Denver at the time.
I live pretty close to Denver now, but I, I was searching
online for local Tibetan Buddhist centers and I did find
Denver's ocean at at the time, but it took me a while to
actually reach out. And, and then of course, when
when I did reach out, it was like 2020 when all the COVID
shutdown was happening. So the group switched to Zoom at
the time. And but yeah, that's how
basically I like to think Toko urgent Ricochet kind of
connected me with Joe and then Denver's Ochen.
So yeah. And it's been just absolutely
great since then. Yeah, it's, it's coming up on
six years since I've been practicing with you.
That's. Great.
Yeah, I totally think that there's something real to what
you're saying that that there's this connection to Total Origin
that people have who find Denver's Ochen.
I definitely think he's got his blessing is coming through Joe
and and leading the people who find this group who especially
the ones who really stick around often have a strong connection
to Total Origin even if they didn't before they do
afterwards. So I think that that's an
amazing glue for our group. So once you connected, how did
you find yourself approaching this path and, and really taking
it on because you know, it can be so daunting.
The Tibetan tradition is like massive.
And how did the group help you kind of follow that path?
Sure. Well, yeah, I think in the once
I was connected and I also during our first Tuesday night
session, I totally had my mind blown by the way and I was
quickly all in. It was kind of like drinking
from the the fire hydrant, the fire hose and you know how we
can go through these phases in our practice.
What, you know, I was like buying lots of books and trying
to, you know, practice with other, you know, offerings,
other teachers when they're offering stuff, whether it was
on Zoom or if they're traveling through.
And really just trying to kind of gain a better understanding
of like kind of the basics and the preliminaries.
And that, that led me to, I think it was maybe maybe like
four or five months into the practice, I, I started to ask
Joe about Nundro, you know, and then shortly thereafter started
to do it. So yeah.
And that was more or less my, my main practice for a while.
It took me a little while. You know, my wife and I had our
first child and we bought our first house during the time and
I work full time jobs. So took me maybe a few years to,
to do it. But you know, that that was also
a, a transformative undertaking as well, which is still kind of
like coming to fruition or unraveling at this point.
And and you know, I want to I want to say I was thinking
about, you know, talking about Nundro.
And I also want to give some thanks to Joe because he makes
himself like very available not only to me, but to everyone in
the sangha. And at certain points in the
sangha, I was checking in with him everyday about my progress.
And that really helped me kind of keep, you know, my
accumulations going. And it helped me like, you know,
things could get kind of bumpy when you're doing these big
practices and it's not all smooth sailing.
So, so thank you Joe for that as well.
I thought it was very fun that that time when you and your wife
Dana received your guys requested the transmission for
the Dundra. We did it outside because it was
COVID. They didn't do it in your
backyard, in your garden. I thought that was a unique
experience in my life too and seemed to take so good.
Well, and, and also it was like it was in June, it was like a
Colorado blue sky day. And when you when you came over,
like it rained for like a couple of minutes.
I don't know if you remember that, but that was auspicious as
well. Yeah.
Yeah, it was a it's good, good connection.
It's been a good connection to have you in the group.
If I can ask you a question, I know that you were even
authorized to teach in the Theravada tradition before you
found our our group. I'd be curious just any
lightweight reflections you might have about the difference
between your involvement in Theravada path and then in the
Vajayana path? I'm just curious because I was
never involved in Theravada in any any serious way.
So I'm just curious when you look back like what you brought
with you, what you left behind, whatever, anything like that.
Sure. Yeah, a lot of my focus had
been, or my practice had focused on like meta, you know, like
cultivating that compassion. It's in some ways it's similar,
you know, to certain aspects of our practice, but different and
slightly different in other ways.
But lots of that kind of like, you know, becoming familiar with
the the sutras or the sutras, things like that.
And there can be a type of the, the possum that kind of like
body scanning exercise and a lot of sitting also for long
periods. Maybe like with, I mean
sometimes with focus, sometimes with not focus.
But well, I guess there is probably a lot of focus on the
breath. You know, if you weren't like
thinking about anything else, it was, it was usually like coming
back to the breath. So I, I do think that like in
one of the, the retreats I did at the center in Idaho, I was
sharing a tent with a guy who was a farmer.
And I was so glad in hindsight to have like a farmer as a
tentmate because he woke up really early every day and, and
he had like a very hard work ethic.
And, you know, before the retreat, like officially
started, we could talk to each other.
And then it was a violent vow of silence afterward, you know,
after like the first night. And he was like, you know what,
I'm, I'm all in. Like, I'm going to like, wake up
as early as I can and stay in the meditation hall as late as I
can. You know, I'm here.
I might as well like do that and I was like, that sounds good.
And I kind of copied, you know, he motivated me to do that.
So we were sitting for like 16 hours a day and it was like a 10
day thing. And you know, when you do that,
at least my, in my experience, like ice, you kind of go into
these different States and I, and then after that retreat, I
brought that practice home. I wasn't doing it for like 16
hours, but still like 4 hours a day of just sitting and doing
breath focus. And I do feel like that's helped
my practice like moving forward in one way or another, like
everything, you know, we do kind of leads to the next thing.
And you could find wisdom in it, but just having that steady mind
and being comfortable with pain or even like just observing it.
And yeah, that also like the, the meta meta practice that I
mentioned, you know, I've, I've really been drawn to like the
practices of a Bodhi Safa as well.
And that's something we've done with the Bodhi with the Denver's
Ocean Group as well, like in our kind of subgroup.
But I think that also kind of laid the the groundwork or
planted some seeds for me as well.
Yeah, yeah, So yeah. And when I mean when, when one
of my teachers like basically encouraged me to lean meditation
for others. It was during a retreat and I
was having an interview with her and she said something to the
effect that, you know, she noticed how well I was sitting
and, you know, for long periods. And with the questions I was
asking her, she was like, well, I her sense was that other
people had those questions, you know?
So like she was trying to encourage me, you know, to kind
of have get out there with others and, you know, kind of
yeah, keep it, keep it going, you know?
Yeah. I was just wondering because
that's that's a pretty advanced level to get to.
You know, obviously your teacher saw in you the qualities were
rising. And then I'm just curious how
that related to what you found in the Vajrayana tradition,
since at least from outside for many people, they seem very,
very different. Yeah, yeah.
I mean it is quite different in lots of ways as well.
Like now, you know, we can do different types of
visualizations and I don't know, I don't want to.
I definitely feel like I resonate, resonate very closely
with with our path in the vibe. Rihanna, you know, sometimes we
talk about it like an accelerated path.
And yeah, I don't want to come off as like sounding negative
about any other traditions or anything.
But for me, it's like how I mentioned, even just reading
that quote by Tockel, Arjen and Perche was like a transformative
moment for me. And there's been multiple
instances of that, you know, in the practices that either we've
done in our group or with other llamas all along the way.
I want to say that I think this is such a, it's such a great
foundation, right? Like I also came from hatha yoga
and Vipassana before I got into Vajriana.
And I think that some of my success in this path really had
to do with having had that, having had time just sitting,
having had time working with the body.
These are important parts of the ground, even in the Tibetan
tradition, but they're often skipped over as that the way
it's presented in the West. So, you know, and Joe, you had
the Zen background of just sitting before you got into
Vajriana. I think there's probably
something to doing a little bit of that first before you really
get into the complex visualization and all of these
practices that just gaining that stability of mind and some
Shamita and Vipassana can really make it stick in a way that it
maybe wouldn't without it. Because you can, I've heard so
many people maybe even practicing Fadriana for 15
years. Like I can't visualize right.
Like I'll still say these sorts of things.
And I wonder if there isn't some link between not having had a
foundation and Shamita that can really, you know, lead to some
problems later on. And so I think that there's a
real natural kind of progression from the Theravada or Hiniana
vehicle to these upper vehicles of Mahayana and Vajriana and
Zokchen that it really is a perfect trajectory.
Yeah, I think it's also worth saying that everybody's
different and everybody that you know, they say they're 84,000
Dharma doors, one door for every type of person.
So some people might do the exact opposite.
And I remember reading this, Stephen Bachelor, he was a monk
in the Vajriana tradition for a long time, and then he got
heavily into Theravada. I don't know where he is right
now, but I think, you know, we have to keep our eyes open as
practitioners. It's nice to hear Ricky say it
for those flags from the ultimate that are that are being
waved in our face. So we know where to go next, you
know, because there's no, you know, of course you could have a
teacher and your teacher will tell you, but the teacher is
also within the tradition. And we're, you know, in the
West, we're open to many things. We've, many of us came from a
Christian background when we grew up And, and I know I
studied a lot of Taoism and a lot of Tai chi and energy
practices. And there's just so many things
out there. You want to keep your, your
field open because you never know.
For you, Ricky, it was a quote by Tulka Woods.
And for somebody else, it might be something from the Poly
cannon that is like, Oh my God, that's the way to go.
And, and you know, we, we want to follow the bent of our own
genius, like Thoreau said. So I appreciate you bringing
that up, Ricky, because not, you know, we say, oh, yeah, and the
Tibetans frame it that Terravada Mahayana Vajriana.
But it doesn't have to be that way for everyone, right?
It might be that you start with Vajriana that didn't ring true
for you. And so then, you know, when I
got into the pasta, then it really went great for me or
whatever. So I wouldn't, we're not just
selling vajriana, even though of course it is the best.
Oh wait, what? I say.
When I got an experience like you did, Joe, I'm also a bit of
a heretic. And This is why I really
appreciate Joe's that I encountered Ramana Maharshi and
it was his teachings on The Who am I that like blew my shamata
open because I started to like open my field of awareness.
So there's so many Dharma doors, even maybe outside of what might
be considered quote UN quote Dharma.
Absolutely. That's well said.
So Ricky, you've been involved now six years.
It's incredible that that's, it's been that it's gone by
really quickly, at least from my perspective.
And, and in fact, you're even sitting in the dark retreat
facility that we built. So like lots of different things
have happened. What's going on with Denver's
ocean from your perspective right now?
Like what are you involved in? What are the what are the things
that are interesting that are happening right now?
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of great momentum happening with
the group right now. We have our, you know, for folks
tuning in that maybe you're just listening, there's, we have our
weekly sessions on Tuesday night via Zoom.
And yeah, there's always great practice, great discussion going
on. Lots of, yeah, lots of active
members going happening right now in in our sangha, which is
really great. And you know, we, we have lots
of projects going on as well. And we've had some podcast
episodes about that, like the not a discs and and so on.
You know, one thing I'm working on kind of behind the scenes is
putting together a documentary on our prostration.
Pilgrimage that we we've done twice so far and I think we're
planning to do it again next year.
So and Joe and I, we were talking about this idea, you
know, to try to try to prostate, you know, to a, a holy or
auspicious place. You know and like they do in in
Tibet and Nepal and Crestone Colorado came to mind as like,
you know, maybe the best place in the country out here to do it
because of all the centers and there's two well, there's a
number of stupas there, but we, we chose to star that the Toko
urgent Ruperchet stupa and prostate straight to the 16th
cars come off with stupa. So I think the, the first year
we did it was 2023, right? Yeah.
And we did it again in 2024. And we, we have some, you know,
some footage from that. So yeah, we're planning on
putting out a documentary about it, you know, to, to get it out
there and really to try to psych people up, which is, you know,
what we love doing to motivate them.
I know they're maybe even before I did the Nundro, I had like a
little bit of aversion to doing prostrations, but now I'm like,
I know why they do it, you know? I know why they do these trips,
you know, and even what we do, it's like, I don't know, just
under 5 miles or something like that.
Joe, is that? Right.
Yeah, a little. Bit and it takes about half a
day or so to do it. And and that's been another one
of those big transformative experiences that I've had and
it's nice because some members of our song and come and it's a
you know, well, we'll spend a couple nights out there and have
meals together and so on visit the different centers in the
area as well. So that's yeah, that's been a a
great thing. Maybe one of the things I look
forward most to, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Well, would you? Talk a little bit more about
this element of Sanga that we we've been recently discussing
this part of the the sutras where the Buddha says that the
whole of the path is our spiritual friendships, right?
That these that, you know, like you guys are my friends and we
hardly have ever met in person. Ricky and I have never met in
person, but we have this like daily sanga support in a way
that that that's the missing piece I think in the Western
Sangas. Is this really like actually if
you want it every day we get to talk and support each other on
our path. As you were saying with Joe,
when you're doing Nundro, because it is so hard to
maintain your motivation if you're just like grinding away
at prostrations alone, that can be really difficult.
But we have really such a good community of people supporting
each other, all with different llamas and centers all over the
country or even the world. But we come together and then
actually have this support on a level that's more Western, you
know, with the accessibility of WhatsApp or or podcast or Zoom
meetings that really facilitate something like a real Sanga.
And so maybe you could share a little bit how Sanga has been
like an important part of your path.
Sure. Yeah, Yeah.
It's been, you know, a kind of a critical crucial part and
another great aspect of this group.
And, you know, I, I'll get together with Joe, you know, we
might have tea and talk about practice and Dharma and planning
and stuff like that as often as we can, you know, whether that's
like once a month or three times a month.
But a lot of the interaction I have with song is like through
WhatsApp, like you mentioned, Damian, and it's extremely
convenient. And yeah, I have to say, like I
mentioned before, you know, Joe is very gracious with his time.
If I ever have a question about something like a certain kind of
aspect of a practice, that's like not in the text, the
teacher didn't mention it, It's not in the commentary.
You can't Google it. Like you have to know, you know,
from just being a part of this world.
And probably 9 times out of 10 or even more than 9 times, you
know, Joe typically knows the answer or knows who to ask, you
know, So that's been, you know, I don't know, I, I'd be missing
out on that, you know, without this group.
And Damien, you know a lot about Dharma through all of your
practice and diligence. And you are also very available
as well. So thank you too.
You know, you can definitely tell this is like one of the
most important, if not most important things in your life.
So. So yeah, I have.
And there's other people like that in the group, you know,
varying levels of practice, you know, from like decades and
decades to maybe less than than a year.
And a lot of people also have experience in other traditions
like like we've been talking about.
So it's really interesting to have access to to those types of
people. And you know, if someone might
say something during one of our group sessions and whether it's
something I bring up, you know, they might reach out to me
one-on-one to talk about why I'm experiencing this or vice versa.
You know, and I think there's a lot of those kind of individual
or one-on-one, you know, conversations going on as well.
We have different like subgroups as well.
So, yeah, it's been, it's been great.
And, you know, I'm thinking of a quote that one of my terrible
teachers said, you know, song is like, you know, if you think of
Buddha kind of like trailblazing, you know, with the
Dharma And then like our job or, you know, part of our path as
part of the song, it is to like kind of keep on going on the
trail, you know, to, to keep the the trail open so that those who
come after us can still hike on it, you know, So it's kind of
like that, yeah. When we have such a deep, like I
was mentioning earlier about total origin, it's not just
total origin, it's lineage, right?
Like there's really a feeling of lineage.
That's one of the really magical things I think of Denver's oak
chin is that you feel like, I don't know if about you, but I
feel connected to Chukchurlingpa and his Terema lineage and
obviously Gur Rinpoche that that that the blessing are there.
And if you just tap into that through Sangha, then you really
have like a magnetic force that can really help you along the
path. And that's one of the special
features of the Vajriana, right? Like in Theravada, they don't
need to focus on that as much the kind of living aspect of the
lineage. And that is just really, I think
huge part of this group. And you know, the different
teramas and teachings that Joe teaches to our group keep us
connected to this living thing that that, like you said, this
trailblazed thing, we're getting pulled right into it and it
really makes it fun and easy and keeps us going.
Yeah, the psych up aspect of song goes really good.
Sometimes they say that Buddhism, to be a Buddhist, you
have to think there's a goal, you have to think there's a path
to get to that goal, and you have to have friends on the
path. Well, this is the friends aspect
and I'm happy to count you guys as some of my closest friends.
It's really a treat, you know, it's not like I'm in charge,
nothing like that. We're all working together to
keep the song going, to grow it through these podcasts or
various projects. Ricky's being all humble about
the documentary, but he also produces this podcast every two
weeks and gives US ideas for new things and gets people to join
us. And he's making another movie
about our Bay Yule that we have in the mountains.
And it's just really, he's been a major factor in this group
continuing to grow. So we, I want to say thank you
so much Ricky for being both on the podcast and for being such a
strong member of our saga. And I, I have the privilege of
living only a few miles from Ricky, so I get to see him more
frequently than other people. And it's a very, very good part
of my path, a good support for me as well.
So we appreciate you being here, really.
Yeah, so we're coming up on 1/2 an hour, Ricky.
Oh, there's some closing thoughts you'd like to share
about, you know, what what this group is and and how you'd like
to see its future go. And you know how you see new
people playing a part in that. Everything you're having to do
with our Sanga. Sure.
Yeah, yeah, I, I see, you know, just US continuing to, you know,
make progress on the path and welcome new members and, you
know, continue to do the prostration pilgrimage.
So hopefully more of our group members can come along with
that. And if anyone listening to this
is interested, you know, if it kind of piques your interest at
all, feel free to to reach out, you know, to to get more info
about that. You know, sometimes people even
just walk it because it is pretty physical or you can do a
prostration every once in a while and walk it.
Or we also need support as well for that.
So, yeah, thinking up like thinking big, you know, and
coming up with these different projects that we're doing.
So I'm sure we're going to be doing more projects that like we
haven't even thought about yet. So yeah, when I think about it,
it's just kind of exciting. Like there's lots of potential,
you know, in the air in for for the group.
And and yeah, we also, we haven't, I don't think we
mentioned there's a Wednesday night in town group that where
we have in person meditation at my wife and I's yoga studio in
Denver and we have a kind of a different song and there's a
little blending of those. So I think I see that group
growing as well. So yeah, I just see lots of
potential and furthering of practice and spreading of of
their Dahmer. Thank you so much, Ricky, for
all that you do for making this podcast.
We've been doing this for over a year now, which is amazing.
And and we continue to have stuff to talk about, which is
also amazing. And it's just great that we have
your support for that technological side because
there's a lot of, it takes a lot of work to put this out.
You know, it seems like a simple thing, but it really is.
So thank you so much and thank you for being part of this
sangha and glad to call you one of my closest Vaja brothers.
And yeah, I I look forward to the future activities of
Denver's Ocean. And I'm sure we'll have you back
on sometime when we have these new projects, the documentary,
etcetera to talk about these things.
So thank you very much and thank you to all you listeners who
watch this show. We really appreciate you slowly
growing to see more views and comments all the time.
I really appreciate all of that. That helps other people also see
this who might fit the tendril of our group.
And thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.