Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast https://www.upaya.org The Upaya Dharma Podcast features Wednesday evening Dharma Talks and recordings from Upaya’s diverse array of programs. Our podcasts exemplify Upaya’s focus on socially engaged Buddhism, including prison work, end-of-life care, serving the homeless, training in socially engaged practices, peace & nonviolence, compassionate care training, and delivering healthcare in the Himalayas. Tue, 13 Oct 2026 02:55:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.upaya.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/cropped-upaya-favicon-2026-32x32.png Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast https://www.upaya.org 32 32 Joan Halifax | Zen Buddhist Teacher Upaya Abbot false Joan Halifax | Zen Buddhist Teacher Upaya Abbot dharmapodcast@gmail.com Copyright 2006-2018, Upaya Zen Center. All rights reserved. Copyright 2006-2018, Upaya Zen Center. All rights reserved. podcast Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast https://www.upaya.org/images/upaya-dharma-podcasts-1400x1400.jpg https://www.upaya.org TV-G bcbf1f19-8079-5135-90ac-0aea1b44afcf Ancestral Stories: A Dharma Gate of Intimacy with Our Lives https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/kear-ancestral-stories-dharma-gate-intimacy-with-our-lives/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:00:36 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110859 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/kear-ancestral-stories-dharma-gate-intimacy-with-our-lives/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/kear-ancestral-stories-dharma-gate-intimacy-with-our-lives/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear opens up the practice of koans as part of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period devoted to the Chinese master Zhao Zhou. She suggests that the longing that drew practitioners to Zen in ancient China is the same one we carry today: the wish to stop observing our lives from a distance and to live them more intimately. “Thinking about our life is…

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]]> full 46:10 Zhao Zhou’s Mu: The Threshold of Everyday Practice https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/palma-zhao-zhous-mu-threshold-of-everyday-practice/ Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:00:08 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110779 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/palma-zhao-zhous-mu-threshold-of-everyday-practice/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/palma-zhao-zhous-mu-threshold-of-everyday-practice/feed/ 1 In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Shinzan explores the famous koan “Mu” from Zhao Zhou (Joshu in Japanese), leading up to Upaya’s fall practice period devoted to the Chinese master’s teachings. Shinzan sets the scene in Tang-dynasty China, where Chan practitioners turned away from dense scholasticism toward a direct, down-to-earth practice and introduces Zhao Zhou as a humble teacher who…

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]]> full 37:42 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Keeping Close (Part 5B) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-keeping-close-5b/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 23:00:48 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110768 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-keeping-close-5b/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-keeping-close-5b/feed/ 0 This is the second half of the closing session for the Love and Death series: Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on what it means to practice beyond our transactional habits. She points to awakening in the details of everyday life and to presence as “being with, but not being hijacked by.” Drawing on her own recent brush with death, she names the realizations at the heart of love and death: there is no…

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]]> full 47:07 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Keeping Close (Part 5A) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-keeping-close-5a/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 22:45:19 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110764 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-keeping-close-5a/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-keeping-close-5a/feed/ 0 This is the first half of the closing session for the Love and Death series: Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on what it means to practice beyond our transactional habits. She points to awakening in the details of everyday life and to presence as “being with, but not being hijacked by.” Drawing on her own recent brush with death, she names the realizations at the heart of love and death: there is no…

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]]> full 43:28 LOVE and DEATH 2026: The Law of Change and Becoming (Part 4) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-love-death-2026-law-change-becoming-4/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 22:30:46 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110761 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-love-death-2026-law-change-becoming-4/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-love-death-2026-law-change-becoming-4/feed/ 0 In part four of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski brings death into the room through photographs of people he accompanied at the Zen Hospice Project. Inviting participants to keep half their attention in the body, he asks them to notice what draws them in and what makes them pull away. Frank offers his insight on this practice: “I think what we’re seeing is our own hopes and fears.”…

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]]> full 59:56 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Guided by Grief (Part 3B) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-sparks-love-death-2026-guided-by-grief-3b/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 22:10:08 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110751 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-sparks-love-death-2026-guided-by-grief-3b/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-sparks-love-death-2026-guided-by-grief-3b/feed/ 0 In this second half of part three of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski continues with Guest teacher Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks, a poet and former psychologist, who reads from his work on his husband’s recent death, and participants write an imagined dialogue with someone they have lost. At its heart, this session invites us to bring attention to grief and make space for it…

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]]> full 48:16 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Guided by Grief (Part 3A) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-love-death-2026-guided-by-grief-3a/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 22:00:40 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110748 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-love-death-2026-guided-by-grief-3a/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-love-death-2026-guided-by-grief-3a/feed/ 0 This is the first half of part three of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski discusses grief as “the river running through our lives.” Recognizing that grief takes its own journey, sometimes meandering and sometimes pulling us under, he cautions against confusing the map with the territory, turning us toward grief itself rather than our frameworks for it. Frank describes grief as a path from…

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]]> full 1:07:42 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Fearless Love (Part 2B) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-fearless-love-2b/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:50:52 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110745 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-fearless-love-2b/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-fearless-love-2b/feed/ 0 This is the second half of part two of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the fearless nature of love, which meets loss without turning away. Frank presents the four Brahmaviharas (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity) as the “four flavors of love”. He distinguishes them from their near enemies, which imitate them: attachment, pity…

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]]> full 58:54 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Fearless Love (Part 2A) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-fearless-love-2a/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:40:49 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110741 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-fearless-love-2a/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-fearless-love-2a/feed/ 0 This is the first half of part two of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the fearless nature of love, which meets loss without turning away. Frank presents the four Brahmaviharas (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity) as the “four flavors of love”. He distinguishes them from their near enemies, which imitate them: attachment, pity…

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]]> full 1:15:42 LOVE and DEATH 2026: Opening the Great Gifts : Opening Session (Part 1) https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-opening-great-gifts-opening-session-1/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:17:56 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110736 https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-opening-great-gifts-opening-session-1/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/10/ostaseski-halifax-love-death-2026-opening-great-gifts-opening-session-1/feed/ 0 In this opening session of Love and Death, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski return to the line that anchors this annual series: “Love and death are the great gifts that are given to us. Mostly, they are passed on unopened.” Roshi Joan grounds her introduction in zengi, or undivided activity, inviting participants to acknowledge the loves, losses, and illnesses they carry and revealing our…

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]]> full 1:10:04 Ordinary Mind is the Way https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/sparks-ordinary-mind-is-the-way/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 11:00:14 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110609 https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/sparks-ordinary-mind-is-the-way/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/sparks-ordinary-mind-is-the-way/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks explores a simple and radical teaching: our ordinary experience is itself the awakened way. By ordinary, he means not our passing thoughts but the unmanipulated mind that holds them. Many of us come to practice believing that awakening lies somewhere else, in a later time, a better state, or in exceptional people unlike ourselves.

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]]> full 39:20 The Measure of Our Humanity: BELONGING https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/ostaseski-measure-of-our-humanity-belonging/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 01:00:27 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110606 https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/ostaseski-measure-of-our-humanity-belonging/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/ostaseski-measure-of-our-humanity-belonging/feed/ 0 In this session of the ongoing series, The Measure of Our Humanity, Frank Ostaseski along side Roshi Joan explores what it means to truly belong—not as something earned or arrived at, but as a truth we forget and remember. Frank begins with Sivananda’s teaching that the body is our first home and the ground of belonging, then turns to Tara Brach and John O’Donohue on how we grow estranged from our…

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]]> full 1:41:05 Being real https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/ostaseski-being-real/ Mon, 21 Sep 2026 11:00:12 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110357 https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/ostaseski-being-real/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/ostaseski-being-real/feed/ 1 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Frank Ostaseski traces what he learned sitting at the bedside of thousands of dying people: “to sit next to people and not mess with them. Not try and help them have some experience, or meet someone else’s agenda, including their own. Just sit with them.” That same quality of presence, he suggests, is what it means to ‘be real’ — an alignment with reality…

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]]> full 47:41 Grace in Prison https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/lau-grace-in-prison/ Mon, 14 Sep 2026 11:00:15 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110156 https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/lau-grace-in-prison/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/lau-grace-in-prison/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Dainin describes bringing Roshi Joan’s G.R.A.C.E. compassion training into New Mexico’s prison system. Working previously with the correctional cadets, and now with men who are incarcerated, Dainin names how the system pushes both groups into opposition, each side dehumanizing the other by default. Looking for guidance on how to serve well in that…

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]]> full 40:10 The Measure of Our Humanity: POSSIBILITY https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/solnit-measure-of-our-humanity-possibility/ Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:26:13 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110152 https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/solnit-measure-of-our-humanity-possibility/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/solnit-measure-of-our-humanity-possibility/feed/ 0 This session of The Measure of Our Humanity series opens with Roshi Joan Halifax‘s welcome and a grounding meditation led by Dainin, before writer and activist Rebecca Solnit takes the floor. Rebecca nurtures in us the view of possibility, offering it as a path through the false comforts of both optimism and despair. Moving between a 10th-century Zen koan, the deep time of ancient trees…

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]]> full 1:38:45 The Open Gate https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/bristol-open-gate/ Mon, 07 Sep 2026 11:00:23 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=110039 https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/bristol-open-gate/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/09/bristol-open-gate/feed/ 2 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Fushin turns to the first two folds of the Eightfold Path—right view and right intention—the wisdom from which the rest of the path grows. Right view, he suggests, is not a belief we acquire but seeing what is actually here, before we add our story about it. “The eye opens. The heart leans,” he says — one sees, one moves, and they are not two.

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]]> full 43:10 Varela 2026: Closing Q&A (Part 11) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-dunne-crockett-halifax-varela-2026-closing-q-a-11/ Tue, 01 Sep 2026 02:20:29 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109865 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-dunne-crockett-halifax-varela-2026-closing-q-a-11/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-dunne-crockett-halifax-varela-2026-closing-q-a-11/feed/ 0 In Part 11, the closing of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Roshi Joan Halifax, John Dunne, Molly Crockett, and Adam Frank address questions from the participants. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here.

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]]> full 52:38 Varela 2026: Panel Discussion – AI, Experience, and Ethics (Part 10) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-panel-discussion-ai-experience-ethics-10/ Tue, 01 Sep 2026 02:00:30 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109862 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-panel-discussion-ai-experience-ethics-10/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-panel-discussion-ai-experience-ethics-10/feed/ 0 In Part 10 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Roshi Joan Halifax, John Dunne, Molly Crockett, and Adam Frank gather as a panel to open questions on AI before circling back through the retreat’s full arc. The AI discussion ranges widely: LLM “personas” and sycophancy, the ethics of a technology built without consent (likened to asbestos — useful, but harmful in ways not yet fully known)…

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]]> full 55:29 Varela 2026: A Conversation with Michael Pollan (Part 9) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/halifax-pollan-varela-2026-a-conversation-with-michael-9/ Tue, 01 Sep 2026 01:45:40 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109859 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/halifax-pollan-varela-2026-a-conversation-with-michael-9/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/halifax-pollan-varela-2026-a-conversation-with-michael-9/feed/ 0 In Part 9 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Roshi Joan Halifax introduces a pre-recorded conversation with author Michael Pollan on the value and limits of mystical experience. Drawing on William James’s pragmatic test — treat mystical insight as a hypothesis, not proof — Pollan traces what these states teach us: chiefly, that self and consciousness can be disaggregated.

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]]> full 1:03:50 Varela 2026: Ethical Considerations in an Age of AI – Panel Discussion (Part 8) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-ethical-considerations-age-ai-panel-8/ Tue, 01 Sep 2026 01:30:20 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109856 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-ethical-considerations-age-ai-panel-8/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-ethical-considerations-age-ai-panel-8/feed/ 0 In Part 8 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Adam, Molly, John, and Roshi Joan open the floor to important questions of our time. Following Molly’s session on AI and Buddhist ethics, she is asked whether AI models that claim consciousness deserve moral consideration. Molly cautions against the language itself: “There’s no reason that it’s necessary to use words that we use to describe…

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]]> full 32:57 The Metta Sutta: What’s Love Got to Do with It? https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/sparks-metta-sutta-whats-love-got-to-do-with-it/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:00:14 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109802 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/sparks-metta-sutta-whats-love-got-to-do-with-it/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/sparks-metta-sutta-whats-love-got-to-do-with-it/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks explores the Metta Sutta as a practice that asks far more of us than simple sentiment. Quoting two lines of Louise Glück’s poem, Koshin highlights the sharp and sometimes frightening edge of love: “Why love what you will lose? — There’s nothing else to love.” We naturally appreciate the full and sincere love from others…

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]]> full 44:16 Varela 2026: In the Grove of Mortality (Part 7) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/crockett-varela-2026-grove-mortality-7/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 03:30:42 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109794 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/crockett-varela-2026-grove-mortality-7/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/crockett-varela-2026-grove-mortality-7/feed/ 0 In Part 7 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Molly Crockett turns to a question with real stakes in the race of AI development: Can Buddhist ethics be taught to a machine? Drawing on Francisco Varela’s concept of ethical know-how, she distinguishes “knowledge that” — facts and principles a system can represent — from “knowledge how,” the embodied wisdom that “requires embodied experience…

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]]> full 1:10:15 Varela 2026: Kensho, Joriki, and Ordinary Mind in Zen Practice (Part 6) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/halifax-varela-2026-kensho-joriki-ordinary-mind-zen-practice-6/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 03:15:48 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109791 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/halifax-varela-2026-kensho-joriki-ordinary-mind-zen-practice-6/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/halifax-varela-2026-kensho-joriki-ordinary-mind-zen-practice-6/feed/ 0 In Part 6 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Roshi Joan Halifax leads a guided sitting before turning to what she calls the four often-conflated categories of contemplative experience: mystical states, insight, awakening, and realization. Drawing on her own decades of exposure to entheogens and psychedelic research, she distinguishes intensity from accuracy — mystical experience is a…

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]]> full 1:39:50 Varela 2026: Re/cognizing the Mystical (Part 5) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/dunne-varela-2026-re-cognizing-the-mystical-5/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 02:00:18 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109770 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/dunne-varela-2026-re-cognizing-the-mystical-5/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/dunne-varela-2026-re-cognizing-the-mystical-5/feed/ 0 In Part 5 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, John Dunne returns for his second talk of the program, tracing “mystical experience” to its roots as a 19th-century, largely American invention — one with no real equivalent in Buddhist, Hindu, or indigenous traditions. He walks through the influential accounts of William James and W.T. Stace, whose model of a universal, unitive, inward…

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]]> full 1:04:21 Varela 2026: The Blind Spot – Part B (Part 4B) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-varela-2026-the-blind-spot-part-b-4b/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 01:40:07 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109763 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-varela-2026-the-blind-spot-part-b-4b/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-varela-2026-the-blind-spot-part-b-4b/feed/ 0 In Part 4B (the 2nd half of Part 4) of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, astrophysicist Adam Frank, PhD., turns to what comes after: a “new physics of life” built on autonomous agency and the Buddhist concept of śūnyatā — not emptiness as void, but the total absence of independent, self-existing things. As he puts it: “You don’t really have a boundary… this set of processes organizes…

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]]> full 33:01 Varela 2026: The Blind Spot – Part A (Part 4A) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-varela-2026-blind-spot-part-a-4a/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 01:30:35 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109744 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-varela-2026-blind-spot-part-a-4a/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-varela-2026-blind-spot-part-a-4a/feed/ 0 In Part 4A (the first half of Part 4) of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Molly Crockett opens with a guided meditation on the breath, exploring impermanence and boundarilessness to prepare the room for astrophysicist Adam Frank, PhD. Frank lays out “the blind spot” — his term for the philosophical assumptions smuggled into modern science: that only the fundamental and measurable are real…

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]]> full 1:07:19 Varela 2026: Panel Discussion – Time, Perception, and Not-Knowing (Part 3) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-panel-discussion-time-perception-and-not-knowing-3/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 01:30:38 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109741 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-panel-discussion-time-perception-and-not-knowing-3/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/varela-2026-panel-discussion-time-perception-and-not-knowing-3/feed/ 0 In Part 3 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, the faculty explores the nature of experience in this Day 1 panel session — reflexive awareness, the distortions of the “perception box,” and the intimacy of not-knowing. John Dunne frames the core teaching: “we already know what the nature of our experience is. We already have that capacity. We already have non-dual awareness… it’s…

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]]> full 39:07 Varela 2026: Reflexive Awareness and Encountering Reality (Part 2) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/dunne-varela-2026-reflexive-awareness-encountering-reality-2/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 01:15:58 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109738 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/dunne-varela-2026-reflexive-awareness-encountering-reality-2/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/dunne-varela-2026-reflexive-awareness-encountering-reality-2/feed/ 0 In Part 2 of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, John Dunne, PhD, opens with a guided meditation on reflexive, non-dual awareness before turning to a central question of Buddhist epistemology: what is real? Testing the room with a white mug — is its color in the object, the brain, or somewhere else? — he distinguishes a transparent mode of perception, which sees through experience to act in…

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]]> full 1:39:43 Varela Contemplative Science Retreat 2026: Opening Session (Part 1) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-dunne-crockett-halifax-varela-contemplative-science-retreat-2026-opening-1/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 01:00:26 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109735 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-dunne-crockett-halifax-varela-contemplative-science-retreat-2026-opening-1/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-dunne-crockett-halifax-varela-contemplative-science-retreat-2026-opening-1/feed/ 0 In this opening session (Part 1) of the Varela Contemplative Science Retreat, Roshi Joan Halifax welcomes practitioners on-site and online, tracing the retreat’s roots to her decades-long friendship with the late neuroscientist and Buddhist practitioner Francisco Varela and how their conversations from 1981 ultimately seeded what became the Mind and Life Institute. Roshi reminds the room that this…

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]]> full 52:14 Dogen Seminar 2026: Our Care-full Attention (Part 7 of 7) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/fischer-kathie-dogen-seminar-2026-our-care-full-attention-7-7/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:50:56 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109728 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/fischer-kathie-dogen-seminar-2026-our-care-full-attention-7-7/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/fischer-kathie-dogen-seminar-2026-our-care-full-attention-7-7/feed/ 0 In this final session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar 2026, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer takes up Dogen’s Mountains and Waters Sutra, tracing how sustained attention dissolves the boundary between self and world. Drawing on stories from her own practice life, she returns often to the way small, ordinary contact with things — a stone, a teacup, a mountain trail — can either be led by our concepts or…

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]]> full 1:03:16 Dogen Seminar 2026: Faculty Reflections (Part 6) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-godwin-sparks-fischer-norman-kathie-heine-halifax-dogen-seminar-2026-faculty-reflections-part-6/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:40:25 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109725 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-godwin-sparks-fischer-norman-kathie-heine-halifax-dogen-seminar-2026-faculty-reflections-part-6/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-godwin-sparks-fischer-norman-kathie-heine-halifax-dogen-seminar-2026-faculty-reflections-part-6/feed/ 0 In this session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar 2026, Reverend Tenmyo Dojima introduces baika, the Soto Zen tradition of Buddhist hymn-singing, chanting a hymn drawn from one of Dogen’s own poems: “Even upon a high, steep cliff where the rough waves cannot reach, the true Dharma clings and takes firm root, just as oysters cling to the rock.” Roshi Joan introduces the faculty panel of the weekend’s…

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]]> full 1:06:50 Dogen Seminar 2026: The Four Methods of Guidance (Part 5) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/fischer-norman-dogen-seminar-2026-the-four-methods-of-guidance-5/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:30:09 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109722 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/fischer-norman-dogen-seminar-2026-the-four-methods-of-guidance-5/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/fischer-norman-dogen-seminar-2026-the-four-methods-of-guidance-5/feed/ 0 In this session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar 2026, Roshi Norman Fischer takes up Dogen’s fascicle Bodhisattva Shishobo, the Four Methods of Guidance: generosity, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. He frames this text as a departure from Dogen’s earlier work — scholars believe it may reflect a late-life turn in Dogen away from esoteric philosophy and toward plain ethical conduct.

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]]> full 1:00:59 Dogen Seminar 2026: Contemporary Dogen (Part 4) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-dogen-seminar-2026-contemporary-dogen-4/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:20:12 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109719 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-dogen-seminar-2026-contemporary-dogen-4/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-dogen-seminar-2026-contemporary-dogen-4/feed/ 0 In this session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar 2026, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi traces Dogen’s contemporary journey from a Zen ancestor barely mentioned by D.T. Suzuki — whose paradigm of sudden awakening had little room for Dogen’s teaching — to a figure now studied in more than two hundred English-language publications and translated into other languages across the world. He recounts his own thirty-three…

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]]> full 47:42 Dogen Seminar 2026: Dongshan and the Five Ranks (Part 3) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/godwin-dogen-seminar-2026-dongshan-five-ranks-3/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:10:49 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109716 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/godwin-dogen-seminar-2026-dongshan-five-ranks-3/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/godwin-dogen-seminar-2026-dongshan-five-ranks-3/feed/ 0 In this session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar 2026, Roshi Konjin Gaelyn Godwin gives a close textual reading of Dogen’s fascicle Shunju, tracing a single koan — when a monk asks how to escape cold and heat, and Dongshan answers, “When it’s cold, the cold kills you. When it’s hot, the heat kills you” — through the Blue Cliff Record, multiple named commentators, and competing translations.

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]]> full 58:33 Dogen Seminar 2026: Cultural Legacy (Part 2) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/heine-dogen-seminar-2026-cultural-legacy-2/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:00:22 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109712 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/heine-dogen-seminar-2026-cultural-legacy-2/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/heine-dogen-seminar-2026-cultural-legacy-2/feed/ 0 In this session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar 2026, Steven Heine, professor of religion and history and director of Asian Studies at Florida International University, traces Dogen’s life and teaching — from proverbs posted at Soto temple gates to manga retellings of his years in China. Returning to a question raised the night before, about Bodhidharma’s charge to “bear what is unbearable…

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]]> full 1:19:32 Dogen Seminar 2026: Inspiration for Everyday Life – Opening Session (Part 1) https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-godwin-norman-kathie-fischer-heine-halifax-dogen-seminar-2026-inspiration-everyday-life-opening-1/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 20:50:01 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109709 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-godwin-norman-kathie-fischer-heine-halifax-dogen-seminar-2026-inspiration-everyday-life-opening-1/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/tanahashi-godwin-norman-kathie-fischer-heine-halifax-dogen-seminar-2026-inspiration-everyday-life-opening-1/feed/ 0 In this opening session of Upaya’s 2026 Dogen Seminar, Roshi Joan Halifax welcomes a gathering of teachers assembled to explore the life and teaching of Eihei Dogen, the 13th-century Zen master and founder of the Soto school of Zen. Sensei Kaz Tanahashi, whose decades of translation work brought Dogen’s Shobogenzo into English, traces its long path from centuries of obscurity to worldwide…

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]]> full 58:12 Vimalakirti, the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Bodhisattva Path https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-vimalakirti-avatamsaka-sutra-bodhisattva-path/ Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:00:50 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109545 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-vimalakirti-avatamsaka-sutra-bodhisattva-path/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/frank-vimalakirti-avatamsaka-sutra-bodhisattva-path/feed/ 1 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, physicist Adam Frank, PhD, admits he came to Buddhism hoping for the infinite cosmic power of his own enlightenment, and maybe more honestly, to face and resolve his own suffering. He stayed for something else entirely. Drawing on a year and a half spent with the Vimalakirti and Avatamsaka Sutras, he traces how these early Mahayana texts reimagined practice…

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]]> full 39:57 The World We Know is Possible: Cultivating Peace & Compassionate Action https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/brown-world-we-know-is-possible-cultivating-peace-compassionate-action/ Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:00:13 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109300 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/brown-world-we-know-is-possible-cultivating-peace-compassionate-action/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/brown-world-we-know-is-possible-cultivating-peace-compassionate-action/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Valerie Brown discusses how spiritual power and presence are among the greatest forces for healing and transformation, personally and societally. Now, more than ever, we are called to look deeply and to live deeply interconnected to each other and to the more than human world, to cultivate hope grounded in wise, skillful, and compassionate action…

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]]> full 47:20 Running Into Time https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/roen-running-into-time/ Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:00:25 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=109169 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/roen-running-into-time/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/roen-running-into-time/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, given on the eve of Hiroshima’s anniversary, Sensei Kodo sits with how easily the mind justifies what it later regrets: “It’s very disturbing, isn’t it?… The beauty of science and of discovering truth and of imagining realities that we just can’t conceive, then being co-opted by just the greed, hatred, and delusion of our minds.” Kodo turns to Einstein’s…

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]]> full 35:10 A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Spirituality and Governance https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/wong-zen-indigenous-perspective-on-spirituality-governance/ Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:00:31 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=108964 https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/wong-zen-indigenous-perspective-on-spirituality-governance/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/08/wong-zen-indigenous-perspective-on-spirituality-governance/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Roshi Norma Wong, a Zen priest of Native Hawaiian and Hakka Chinese descent, offers a Zen and indigenous perspective on spirituality and governance. Norma grounds the talk in an unbroken relationship to place and lineage, opening with the Hawaiian chant E Ho Mai, calling in the ancestors and declaring: “There is no human on the face of the Earth who was not…

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]]> full 42:14 The Measure of Our Humanity: WISDOM https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/bodhi-measure-of-our-humanity-wisdom/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:00:13 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=108718 https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/bodhi-measure-of-our-humanity-wisdom/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/bodhi-measure-of-our-humanity-wisdom/feed/ 0 In this session of The Measure of Our Humanity series, Roshi Joan Halifax opens with a guided meditation grounded in stability, breath, and the bodhisattva’s aspiration to meet suffering with mercy and care, before introducing Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi. In the main session, Bhikkhu Bodhi explores what he calls the “world-sustaining Dharma” — the moral order that Buddhist teaching asks us to bring…

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]]> full 1:24:07 Open Dharma: Taking Refuge in Community https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/lau-roen-halifax-open-dharma-taking-refuge-in-community/ Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:00:26 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=108715 https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/lau-roen-halifax-open-dharma-taking-refuge-in-community/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/lau-roen-halifax-open-dharma-taking-refuge-in-community/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Senseis Kodo and Dainin join Roshi Joan Halifax as she explores what it means to live and take refuge in spiritual community. Drawing on decades of building and residing in community herself, she traces valences of the three jewels — Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha — to their most human dimensions. Refuge, she suggests, is not rest in the ideal alone…

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]]> full 47:17 Caught in the Self-Centered Dream https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/sparks-caught-in-the-self-centered-dream/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:00:42 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=108293 https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/sparks-caught-in-the-self-centered-dream/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/sparks-caught-in-the-self-centered-dream/feed/ 2 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Koshin Flint Sparks takes up an old question posed to the Buddha’s disciple Mahakaccana: what drives our conflicts? Mahakaccana answers that conflict arises from our attachment, adherence, fixation, addiction, obsession, and holding firm to our personal views and pleasures. Koshin answers the same question, borrowing language from Joko Beck’s four-line practice…

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]]> full 53:31 The Transformative Power of Suffering: Finding an Appropriate Response https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/dalton-transformative-power-of-suffering-finding-an-appropriate-response/ Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:00:33 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=108075 https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/dalton-transformative-power-of-suffering-finding-an-appropriate-response/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/dalton-transformative-power-of-suffering-finding-an-appropriate-response/feed/ 1 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Genryu Clayton Dalton — emergency physician and novice priest — draws on stories from his hospital work to explore how we can meet suffering without turning away from it. Memories of long-ago encounters in the ER, returned to and turned over again, have become a kind of teacher: moments of violence, grief, and quiet tenderness witnessed at the bedside…

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]]> full 38:19 Breathe with Your Ears https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/stibich-breathe-with-your-ears/ Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:00:37 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=107911 https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/stibich-breathe-with-your-ears/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/07/stibich-breathe-with-your-ears/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Butsumon Tuck Stibich describes teaching the GRACE program — Roshi Joan’s framework for compassionate action — to a class of cadets training as correctional officers. Butsumon admits to having judgments and expectations going into the training, and his surprise when cadets explained their reasons for being there: faith, family, and a wish to give others the…

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]]> full 34:36 Appreciate Your Life: Reflections on Interbeing https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/flaming-appreciate-your-life-reflections-on-interbeing/ Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:00:57 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=107724 https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/flaming-appreciate-your-life-reflections-on-interbeing/#comments https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/flaming-appreciate-your-life-reflections-on-interbeing/feed/ 2 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of her twin sister Ellie’s passing, novice priest Jimon Lorene Flaming tenderly opens the bittersweet space of her sister’s life and death. Jimon traces Ellie’s path — a woman who lived entirely on her own terms, spending her life in nature, deeply embodied, trusting the flow of life — and the shock of losing not…

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]]> full 42:51 The Raft and the Shore https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/bristol-raft-and-the-shore/ Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:00:53 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=107440 https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/bristol-raft-and-the-shore/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/bristol-raft-and-the-shore/feed/ 0 In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Fushin takes us through the currents of the Buddha’s raft metaphor — where practice becomes binding together grass, twigs, and branches to cross from a shore that is dangerous and fearful to one that is safe. Drawing on Dogen’s Uji (Being-Time), Fushin challenges the notion of completion, suggesting there is actually no shore to rest on: “There’s no…

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]]> full 41:48 Planting Life 2026: Corn, Culture, and the Living Stars (Part 6b) https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/mendez-johnson-halifax-planting-life-2026-corn-culture-living-stars-part-6b/ Wed, 17 Jun 2026 02:25:26 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=107463 https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/mendez-johnson-halifax-planting-life-2026-corn-culture-living-stars-part-6b/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/mendez-johnson-halifax-planting-life-2026-corn-culture-living-stars-part-6b/feed/ 0 In the 1st part of this closing session of Planting Life, Alonso Mendez — archaeoastronomer, artist, and farmer — opens a window into the ancient Maya wisdom of corn and cosmos. Drawing on twenty years of research at Palenque and recent discoveries still unpublished, Alonso traces the deep roots of a civilization shaped by maize. Our teeth, he observes, are corn seeds — teeth surviving centuries…

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]]> full 32:06 Planting Life 2026: Corn, Culture, and the Living Stars (Part 6A) https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/mendez-planting-life-2026-corn-culture-living-stars-part-6a/ Wed, 17 Jun 2026 02:20:44 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=107460 https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/mendez-planting-life-2026-corn-culture-living-stars-part-6a/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/mendez-planting-life-2026-corn-culture-living-stars-part-6a/feed/ 0 In the 1st part of this closing session of Planting Life, Alonso Mendez — archaeoastronomer, artist, and farmer — opens a window into the ancient Maya wisdom of corn and cosmos. Drawing on twenty years of research at Palenque and recent discoveries still unpublished, Alonso traces the deep roots of a civilization shaped by maize. Our teeth, he observes, are corn seeds — teeth surviving centuries…

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]]> full 1:55:59 Planting Life 2026: Rewilding https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/halifax-planting-life-2026-rewilding/ Wed, 17 Jun 2026 02:00:25 +0000 https://www.upaya.org/?p=107458 https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/halifax-planting-life-2026-rewilding/#respond https://www.upaya.org/2026/06/halifax-planting-life-2026-rewilding/feed/ 0 In this fifth session of Planting Life, Roshi Joan Halifax gathers the community around Wendell Berry’s poem “The Person Born to Farming” — reading it aloud, line by line, drawing participants into its imagery of soil as divine drug, of entering death yearly and coming back rejoicing. The poem becomes a lens for the day’s planting, and a doorway into the concept of sympoiesis — the understanding…

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