Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell provide a very intimate talk on love, and the power of right speech. The talk is inspired by a parable from the Lotus Sutra called, “The Bodhisattva Never Disparaging.” The Bodhisattva Never Disparaging was known for solely repeating his reverence and praise for whomever he happened to encounter, saying that he would never dare disparage anyone. As a beautiful introduction to this story, Sensei Joshin plays a recording of Sensei Hozan Alan Senauke singing a song about the story which includes an emphasis on love. The parable has insights about the courage and strength that it takes to speak words of kindness and healing. Sensei Genzan complements these insights with three ways that we can integrate them into our practice: not knowing, bearing witness, and compassionate action.

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell discuss two different versions of the three vehicles, as well as the importance of spiritual friendship to our practice. Sensei Genzan explains that The Three Great Vehicles, the Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana respectively emphasize literal, relational, and absolute teachings. He also discusses Zen Master Dogen’s teaching on the three minds, which are magnanimous, grandmotherly, and joyful mind. Joshin follows with a story from the Lotus Sutra about friendship and speaks to the importance of friendship, dharma friends, and the qualities of friendship that we might cultivate on the path, including a wholesome sense of humor. “Buddhism doesn’t have to be grim —it is fundamentally joyful.” For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: SESSHIN: The Continuing Stories of the Lotus Sutra

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell talk about how important selflessness is to the Bodhisattva path. Sensei Joshin emphasizes the importance of not clinging to fame, profit, body, mind, or enlightenment. He tells a story of generosity from the Lotus Sutra of Quan Yin who, after twice rejecting a gift from The Buddha, finally accepts it only to break it into two and re-gift it to other people as a form of generosity. Joshin lists four ways in which a Bodhisattva embraces the world which include giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. Sensei Genzan concludes with encouragement for Sesshin practitioners to keep practicing wholeheartedly even if the end of Sesshin is in sight. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: SESSHIN: The Continuing Stories of the Lotus Sutra 

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell continue the conversation around sound and dharma with some poems composed by Zen Master Dogen. Dogen explicitly refers to the Lotus Sutra in a poem, or, “Waka,” that he wrote about Dharma and sound. “Throughout night and all day long, everything we do following the dharma is the sound and the heart of The [Lotus] Sutra.” The talk contains insights relating to not dividing our practice into secular or spiritual, or places and phases. Sensei Genzan reminds us to see Zen as a practice about being in unity, or, harmony with the world. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: SESSHIN: The Continuing Stories of the Lotus Sutra

As an homage to the recent burning of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Sensei Joshin Byrnes talks about the role of beautiful architecture in lifting people out of the mundane, and the role of music and sound to the mystical experience. He relays a story from the Lotus Sutra called “Bodhisattva Wonderful Sound,” which is the story of a Bodhisattva from another world who decides to visit a mundane earth in order to bring sound, joy, and beauty. Sensei Joshin also includes a wonderful soundbite from singer-songwriter, Tina Turner, chanting the Lotus Sutra in Sino Japanese. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: SESSHIN: The Continuing Stories of the Lotus Sutra

As a continuation of the “Dharma Rain” theme from the Dharma Talk on the preceding day, Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell begin with another passage from The Lotus Sutra. Genzan reads, “I bring fullness and satisfaction to the world, like a rain that spreads its moisture everywhere. Eminent and lowly, superior and inferior, observers of precepts, violators of precepts, those fully endowed with proper demeanor and those not fully endowed… —I cause the Dharma rain to rain on all equally…” Sensei Joshin raises a relevant question: how much water do you need to flourish as a unique individual? He explains that our work is in constantly discerning where the Dharma comes alive for us, finding the unique dharma gate which best matches our own personality to help us grow along the path of the Bodhisattva. He concludes with Four Peaceful practices which the Buddha taught on growing in our Buddhahood. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: SESSHIN: The Continuing Stories of the Lotus Sutra

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell explore some of the insights found in “The Parable of the Medicinal Herbs,” also known as “Dharma Rain.” Sensei Joshin reads a passage which describes the infinite variety of plants, trees, thickets, groves, and medicinal herbs. It doesn’t matter how different they are from each other or where they grow, “Dense Clouds spread over them, covering the entire thousand-million-fold world and in one moment saturating it all. The moisture penetrates to all the plants and the trees and thickets and groves and medicinal herbs equally.” Sensei Genzan tells two stories, one of a man unmoved by good and bad fortune, and one of a man caught between two situations involving certain death. His stories contain insights about enjoying life and seeing everything as Dharma rain, able to serve as the gift of a teaching.

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell tell The Parable of the Hidden Jewel, and discuss its insights by relating them to their own personal stories. The parable is the story of a poor man who discovers that a wealthy friend has sewn a priceless jewel into his robe, unbeknownst to him. The jewel symbolizes a Buddhahood that we all already possess, even if we were not previously aware of it. Sensei Genzan speaks about a morning walk in a freshly snow laden garden, and recent news of hardship in his family. He says, “Sickness, old age, and death are the truth of life… They are also jewels and dharma gates.” Sensei Joshin tells the story of a young man who has finally taken steps to reconnect with his child that he abandoned in his troubled youth. Joshin uses this story to discuss how we create the conditions for others to discover the hidden jewel which we all carry.

Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell relay the stories of Devadatta and the Dragon Girl, two stories which both make the inclusive point that everyone will become a Buddha someday. Devadatta is the story of a disciple who attains Buddhahood even after attempting to assassinate the Buddha. The Dragon Girl is a story of an eight-year-old dragon-girl who attains complete enlightenment as a result of her compassion, wisdom, and virtue. Both stories challenge conventional notions of who might become a Buddha, people such as assassins, enemies, and those who are devalued in our society are all equally capable. As Genzan says of the Dragon Girl Story, “The instant that you raise the aspiration for enlightenment: bodhicitta, helping others, forgetting about your petty little worldview, and giving your life to the service of others. —The moment that you raise that bodhicitta, the enlightened mind arises.”

In acknowledgment of global warming, Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell briefly describe a “world on fire.” Genzan uses this description to relate a different story, the Parable of the Burning House, to our current lives. The story has to do with children, unaware that they are playing in a burning house of suffering. The Buddha sees the suffering and uses expedient, skillful means to save the children. Sensei Genzan discusses ways that you can escape from such a burning house, “remind yourself that you’re a Buddha, and see others as Buddha, and see your situation as a Buddha-land.” Sensei Joshin discusses three criteria for skillful means: 1. Appropriate actions, which allow others to flourish; 2. Attuning to the situation at hand; and, 3. Effectiveness, or, a commitment to accountability.

As a welcome and introduction to Spring Practice Period, Senseis Joshin Byrnes and Genzan Quennell invite practitioners to step out of the hustle and bustle of everyday, conventional life and to practice deepening their spiritual practice by being together in community. They also introduce the Lotus Sutra, an enchanting text fundamental to Mahayana Buddhism. Sensei Joshin explains, “The Sutra starts out saying that this very world, all of it, is a world of enchantment. That the things we touch, the places we sit, the people we meet, the things we hear, the flowers we smell —all of it— is this world that opens up other worlds.” Sensei Genzan offers additional commentary on The Sutra; he discusses its relationship to space, time, and being, and he concludes with heartwarming words on relationality and a beautiful poem by Kenji Miyazawa titled, “Strong in the Rain.”

Matthew Kozan Palevsky invites us to look at the relationship between samu, or work practice, and the experience of being a Buddha. He says, “Only a Buddha and a Buddha is a practice of being in the world as things are. It’s sitting zazen, it’s walking through an aspen grove, and it’s the whole world as samu.” Kozan uses the work of Zen Master Dogen, Roshis John Daido Loori and Joan Halifax, and Sensei Kathie Fischer in order to look at samu as a way of being in relationship, as a way of identifying impediments to practice, and as a way to see our work as our self.

Sensei Alan Senauke explores the Three Treasures through the life and work of an Indian activist, Dr. Ambekar, and particularly through the context of a politically motivated Buddhist conversion movement that he founded meant to dismantle the country’s caste system. Sensei Alan invites us to see the concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity as synonymous with Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, also known as the Three Treasures. As Dr. Ambekar put it, “positively, my social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality, and fraternity… My philosophy has its roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my master the Buddha.”

In the spirit of not turning away from our history, Monshin Nannette Overley invites us to pause before she begins her talk and acknowledge that we are guests on Tewa ancestral homelands, and to remember, respect, and recognize the beautiful wisdom the people and the land both carry. Through paper-making, stories, and poetry, Nannette explores two foundational Buddhist teachings—deep faith in cause and effect, and not turning away—and how the intersection of these two can guide our actions. “If the law of cause and effect is so simple,” Nannette asks, “why do we need to have deep faith?”

In acknowledgement of Ash Wednesday, Kigaku Noah Rossetter’s talk begins with a heartwarming look at atonement (at-onement) and its relationship to gratitude, inviting us to remember our role in receiving and causing karma, which can help deepen our experience of interconnectedness. He then launches into a metaphor of ocean navigation, to help elucidate three aspects of our practice: stabilization, realization, and actualization. Noah explains that we continually strengthen our boat by sitting zazen, and we sometimes even embrace the ocean, diving into its depths, where we realize that we were never separate from it to begin with. Kigaku ends the talk by taking some questions from the audience, including one from Roshi Joan: “What happens if you fall off the surfboard?” Listen to hear the answer!