Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Episode Description: In this final episode of this series, Richard Davidson addresses questions from the program participants and final closing comments from other faculty members. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this talk, Matthew Kozan Palevsky explores the Fourth Noble Truth, the “pathless path”, as it relates to our desire to find direction within our lives, and the subtler joy of being lost. “If you have ever driven around, pretending you know where you’re going, and finally admit that you don’t, its freeing!” Drawing from the works of contemporary writers and Zen teachers, Kozan also discusses how the trappings of modern society can lead us to the avoidance of life or can lead us towards it. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

Episode Description: In this episode, Richard Davidson explores the history and advancements in the field of Contemplative Neuroscience. Beginning with a guided tour of just one cubic millimeter of cortex, Richard explains how the human brain is one of the most complex pieces of matter in the universe. Richard delves into the themes of epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and bi-directional communication as he explores their role in compassion and conflict. Richard further shows how the assertion that cognitive conflict is aversive may not be accurate and that to turn towards suffering is the most effective means of liberation. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this episode, John Dunne addresses questions from the program participants. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this talk, Nannette Monshin Overley discusses the practice of finding “groundedness” within our daily lives. When we are not sitting in the meditation hall, she says, “It’s easy to walk out the front door and immediately get swept away…so how do we practice with our egocentric, dodgeball-oriented, picking and choosing tendencies?” Nannette also explores the ordinariness of the practice itself. She calls to mind the day-to-day wisdom of Zen practitioners of the past and the insights of elders at a retirement community as they find beauty in their everyday routines. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

Episode Description: In this episode, John Dunne explores how our rigid concepts of reality breed conflict and separation based in confusion. John begins by looking at the motives and methods different schools of meditation take to address the issue of suffering and liberation. John quotes Dharmakirti when he says, “Only by addressing our own suffering can we learn to help others.” John shows how by fusing our thoughts with reality we erroneously see thoughts as reality. When our thoughts are viewed as reality that is when the “us and them” are created. In recognizing that falsity, separation dissolves and connections can be made. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this episode, physicist Adam Frank addresses questions from the program participants. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: How do we choose to tell the stories of a place? In this talk, Porter Swentzell, PhD, asks us to consider this question as we delve into the past and present of the Pueblo Nations of New Mexico. Detailing the languages of the Pueblo peoples, Dr. Swentzell discusses the importance of treating knowledge as a responsibility rather than just a “right,” and how this can dramatically shift the way we relate to places and to the communities that we are a part of. Wendy Johnson welcomes Porter with gratitude and with gifts. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

Episode Description: In this episode, physicist Adam Frank expands our view of the cosmos and our place in it by 10,000 lightyears. After leading us through a brief meditation, Adam explores the connection between science and the sacred. Adam shows us how the scientific perspectives of reductionism and materialism have disconnected us from our world and have fueled the conflicts we see between technology and ecology. Adam goes further to offer alternatives pathways that can reconnect scientific understanding with an appreciation and respect for the experience of the sacred. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this episode, John Paul Lederach addresses questions from the program participants. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this talk, Roshi Joan Halifax introduces us to the central themes of her new book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet. Roshi reads excerpts and discusses some of the people and experiences who brought the book to fruition—from years bearing witness to suffering in the medical field, to the hardship of refugee camps in Nepal. She also discusses the importance of studying our own inner ecology, and outlines the five Edge States. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

Episode Description: In this episode, John Paul Lederach explores the nature of conflict and reconciliation and shows us how the path forward is never a straight line. John begins this talk with a guided meditation and then moves into three stories that reflect this idea of reconciliation through patient persistence. John likens this work to that of playing Tibetan Singing Bowls. By circling the bowl at the appropriate speed, imperceptible vibrations build over time until finally the natural frequency is achieved. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Series Description: We live in a world where conflict is pervasive. It exists globally, locally, relationally, and in the mind. In this symposium, a group of renowned scientists, contemplatives, peace builders, and environmentalists examine together the neuroscience and social psychology of conflict, violence, pro-sociality, as well as the roles of self, identity, interdependence, and intersubjectivity in conflict and its transformation. Faculty also look at the personal, relational, structural and cultural aspects of conflict transformation, in- and out-group issues, and how differing views of reality impact the environmental and social well-being of our world. This includes the worldview of science which has much to offer at this time of global and local vulnerability; it is also important to explore how science has advanced our understanding of justice and suffering and as well has contributed to social and environmental fragility. The annual Varela Symposium (formerly “Zen Brain”) is inspired by the work of the late neuroscientist and philosopher Francisco Varela, who emphasized the profound value of interdisciplinary approaches to scientific, social, and personal transformation. Dr. Varela was a close associate of Upaya’s abbot, Roshi Joan Halifax, and a frequent visitor to Upaya in its early years. He was an important influence on the ethos of Upaya, and we have chosen to rename this series of significant gatherings in honor of his influence on the lives of our presenters and Upaya. Episode Description: In the opening of the Varela Symposium, our speakers set the stage for a week of exploration into the nature of conflict. We are introduced to Francisco Varela and his remarkable work that managed to touch each one of our instructors in a different way. In meeting our panel, the sheer depth and breadth of their collective expertise in the fields of neuroscience, philosophy, peacebuilding, physics, and environmentalism make for a week of discovery and insight. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: VARELA SYMPOSIUM: Transforming Conflict – From Science to Real World Applications

Episode Description: In this talk, Sensei Al Kaszniak explores the nature of conflict and aggression in our lives and offers us the tools to better relate to such difficulties. Sensei Al echoes the Buddha when he invites us to, “not meet anger with anger.” Using his background in neuropsychology, Sensei Al deepens our insight into our emotions and shows us how we need not, “anchor our anger.” To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

Episode Description: Inthis talk, Natalie Goldberg continues her exploration of writing practice by introducing us to her new book, Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home: A Memoir. In reading excerpts of her new book, Natalie takes us on her journey of cancer diagnosis, to treatment dilemmas, and facing the reality of death. Natalie shows us how the practice of writing helped her through the most difficult time of her life and asks us to explore in our writing,”What will you miss when you die?” To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.