Practicing the Diamond Sutra
In this class, Ken McLeod invites students into a direct and sometimes disorienting encounter with the Diamond Sutra, using daily aloud recitation and in-person dialogue to shift attention from conceptual understanding to lived experience. Rather than explaining the sutra, Ken helps participants feel how its repetitive contradictions interrupt habitual mind and open a different kind of knowing. Over time, students discover the sutra isn’t something to figure out—it’s something that works on you.
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1. Entering the Path through Confusion
In this first talk of a six-week series, Ken invites participants to explore the Diamond Sutra not as a sacred text to be decoded, but as a living path revealed through personal engagement and practice. “The shocker, the really surprising thing, is that you find that knowing in the very heart of your confusion.” Topics covered include intention versus attention in spiritual practice, learning to read a sutra through felt experience, how awareness limits control, and the dynamics of the teacher-student relationship.
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2. Letting Go of Control
In this second session, Ken continues guiding students into direct engagement with the Diamond Sutra, inviting them to recite it aloud as a form of practice that bypasses the conceptual mind. “The illusion of control is an indication of a lack of freedom,” he says, encouraging students to stop digging and rest in the groundless, alive quality of awareness. Topics covered include the experience of refuge, the ten meanings of dharma, Buddhist and Western metaphysics, how to practice attention in daily life, and the radical compassion embedded in the sutra's message.
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3. Awakening Through Reactivity
Ken deepens the exploration of the Diamond Sutra by helping students experience its teachings beyond the conceptual mind. Through personal stories, poetic resonance, and collective insight, participants begin to grasp how practice transforms when we stop resisting experience. “Every one of our reactions is not only a door to experience—it is a path to an awakening.” Topics covered include the four great vows, verb-based translation issues, the sutra’s poetic logic, non-conceptual understanding, and the bodhisattva vow as compassionate response beyond self.
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4. The Union of Emptiness and Compassion
In this partially recorded session, Ken draws students into the heart of Mahayana practice through a reflection on lojong as a vehicle for transformation under any condition. “Most of us are biased one way or another ... It’s very, very important to be balanced in the practice.” He stresses the importance of whole-life application and explores how generosity, compassion, and emptiness work together in both formal practice and daily life. Topics covered include the bodhisattva vow, the balance required in tonglen, chapter 4’s view of giving without reference, and the Buddha’s body as something beyond concept.
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5. Understanding Beyond Understanding
In this rich and wide-ranging session, Ken invites students to speak directly from their experience with the Diamond Sutra, highlighting how transformation unfolds when we move beyond the conceptual mind. “You, as you are ordinarily configured, cannot understand this.” With humor and depth, Ken encourages a way of knowing grounded in presence rather than ideas. Topics covered include distinctions between experience and transaction, the pitfalls of practicing results, non-self as openness, and the relationship between love, pain, and shared presence.
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6. The Knowing that Needs no Explanation
In this final session, Ken revisits the sutra’s central themes through student questions, interactive teaching, and a focus on lived experience rather than interpretation. “When everything is known, there’s nothing to understand.” From the deep pauses that open the heart, to the invisible transmissions between teacher and student, this talk offers a living demonstration of the sutra’s poetic, paradoxical spirit. Topics covered include the five kinds of sight, domains of awakening, the value of physical presence with a teacher, the role of balance in practice, and the transformation of knowing beyond the conceptual mind.