Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast show

Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Summary: 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.

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  • Artist: Joan Halifax | Zen Buddhist Teacher Upaya Abbot
  • Copyright: Copyright 2006-2018, Upaya Zen Center. All rights reserved.

Podcasts:

  John Dunne: Unsaying, Not Knowing, and Pointing at the Moon: Language and Non-dual Practice (Part 3 of 8) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:14:21

Episode Description: “Conceptuality and therefore language is ignorance,” John Dunne says, in quoting the 7th century Indian philosopher Dharmakirti’s discourses. In untangling and deconstructing the arguments of why, Dunne says, “we think categories exist in the world somehow, that we’re not producing them… When I say ‘cup’ or ‘apple’ to you, you get an image in your consciousness, and in some sense you think of that image as actually being an apple.” He says, “we already have the capacity right away to see through the ways in which our own thoughts about the world can control us… We can train that capacity, it’s a technique in meditation practice.” 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: John Dunne Upaya Podcast Series: Language and Non-dual Practice

  Hozan Alan Senauke: Defying Gravity | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 42:46

Episode Description: In this talk, Sensei Hozan Alan Senauke reflects on the ease and joy that can come from Zen practice and how we can work with suffering. “The faith that I had was from seeing how people that I appreciated and respected moved in the world… Clearly they had located some measure of repose and bliss. I thought, maybe you have to be born with it, but what I realized was that we actually all are born with it.” Inspired by the words of the songwriter Jesse Winchester, Sensei Alan sings a song that expresses the profound sense of ease and joy he admires. “[Over time] maybe we learn something about life, or maybe the songs we sing work on us. Maybe the practice works on us.” To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

  John Dunne: Unsaying, Not Knowing, and Pointing at the Moon: Language and Non-dual Practice (Part 2 of 8) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:07:46

Episode Description: In the second session of this program, John Dunne leads a guided meditation. He then begins to explore the Yogācāra school of philosophy, also known as the perspective of the “third turning of the wheel.” Dunne says that the issue that is being picked up in Yogācāra is the question of: “what is it like to know emptiness? If we can’t articulate what we’re knowing, how does that count as knowledge?” He then describes that the Yogācāra point of view is that “as soon as we articulate something as ‘I know that,’ we are already dualistic–and dualism is the problem.” 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: John Dunne Upaya Podcast Series: Language and Non-dual Practice

  John Dunne: Unsaying, Not Knowing, and Pointing at the Moon: Language and Non-dual Practice (Part 1 of 8) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:05:15

Series Description: For the non-dual traditions of Buddhism, to use language is to be necessarily dualistic, yet language can also induce non-dual experience. How is this possible? Over the course of this weekend, we will explore the dual role that language can play as both an obstacle and a vehicle for non-dual realization. The inherently social aspects of language, and its corresponding capacity to link embodied minds, will be one focus, and another will be the surprising forms of language that undo language itself, often through an act of “unsaying.” We will likewise explore the way that these uses of language serve not to reinforce what we know, but to induce a particular kind of non-knowing. Philosophy, poetry, conversation, and meditation practice will be woven throughout this weekend of exploration. Episode Description: In the introductory session of the program, John Dunne starts to explore how language is used in the non-dual Buddhist philosophical traditions in particular and poetic ways that take into account suspicions toward the trap conceptuality and language in general. He says, “you sometimes have to take philosophy and go all the way to the end of philosophy before you’re ready for non-dual practice…that might be true for a lot of westerners because we’re so much in our heads.” 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: John Dunne Upaya Podcast Series: Language and Non-dual Practice

  Matthew Kozan Palevsky & Joshin Byrnes & Joan Halifax: Warm Hand To Warm Hand: Stewarding The Mandala Together | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:01:07

Episode Description: In this talk, Sensei Joshin Byrnes and Matthew Kozan Palevsky discuss the meaning of leadership from the perspective of the Dharma. In the context of Upaya transitioning its presidential role, Joshin and Kozan reflect on what it means to steward the Upaya community. Utilizing Bikkhu Bodhi’s text, The Buddha’s Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony, they reflect on the “four means of support” – giving, endearing speech, beneficent conduct, and impartiality–as guidance for being skillful in a role of leadership. Following their talk is a brief ceremony where Roshi Joan Halifax offers some words on what it means to be a leader, and formally welcomes Kozan into the role of presidency at Upaya. To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

  Natalie Goldberg & Kaz Tanahashi & Clark Strand & Joan Halifax: The Way of Haiku: Shiki and Modern Japanese Haiku Writers (6 of 6) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:08:22

Episode Description: In the closing session of this program, Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on Haiku practice in relationship to Zen. “…that is really the nature of our Zen practice; attending deeply, to just this moment as it is,” she says. Sensei Kaz Tanahashi points out that “in this culture people need to keep talking. Chatter is a very important part of social interaction… Being abrupt is very bad, but maybe we can learn to be abrupt in writing Haiku.”  The teachers and participants share their writing and conclude the weekend study of Haiku. 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: Upaya Podcast Series: The Way of Haiku 2018

  Natalie Goldberg & Clark Strand: The Way of Haiku: Shiki and Modern Japanese Haiku Writers (5 of 6) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 51:46

Episode Description: In this session, participants read their writing and reflect on thoughts and impressions on the process of writing Haiku. Clark Strand discusses the Haiku circle or group, a practice listening in sharing Haiku in small groups, and facilitates one with 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: Upaya Podcast Series: The Way of Haiku 2018

  John Dear: They Will Inherit the Earth | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 49:58

Episode Description: In this talk, Father John Dear, a Catholic priest and long-time nonviolence and peace activist, echoes the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “It’s either non-violence or non-existence.” Reflecting on the imminent threats our planet now faces, Dear says that the only hope is, “a global, grassroots, bottom-up, people-powered movement of active, provocative nonviolence–the likes of which the world has never seen before.” He invites us to, “rise to the occasion,” and urges that we, “become our best selves, like Dr. King did. Be the people who are going to do what we can to stop non-existence. To chose and help humanity chose active nonviolence.” To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

  Natalie Goldberg & Clark Strand: The Way of Haiku: Shiki and Modern Japanese Haiku Writers (4 of 6) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 42:56

Episode Description: In this session, Natalie Goldberg and Clark Strand offer tips on how to approach writing Haiku and discuss the creative process. Natalie offers some advice and quotes Alan Ginsberg with: “The only real test of a Haiku is that when you hear one, you get a little sensation of space–which is nothing less than God.” 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: Upaya Podcast Series: The Way of Haiku 2018

  Kaz Tanahashi: The Way of Haiku: Shiki and Modern Japanese Haiku Writers (3 of 6) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 49:53

Episode Description: Sensei Kaz Tanahashi discusses grammatical elements of Japanese Haiku and looks at the mechanics and processes of translating Haiku from Japanese to English. “I think part of the traditional aesthetics of Haiku is ambiguity… In my mind, the strength of Japanese poetry is ambiguity– it can be taken either way.” 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: Upaya Podcast Series: The Way of Haiku 2018

  Matthew Kozan Palevsky: Wholeheartedly Showing Up | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 34:26

Episode Description: In this talk, Matthew Kozan Palevsky invites us to consider what stops us from wholeheartedly showing up to this very moment. He looks at our fears, desires, discomforts and ego-clinging in life through the lens of the Buddha’s First Noble Truth, Dukkha–the truth of suffering. Kozan points out that avoiding the inevitable suffering of life is what prevents us from fully showing up to our lives, and that finding acceptance and composure within this truth is where we can find equanimity. “The transient nature of life is where we can find wholeness and depth, a bottomless well through which we turn toward intimacy.” To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

  Natalie Goldberg & Clark Strand & John Brandi: The Way of Haiku: Shiki and Modern Japanese Haiku Writers (2 of 6) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:18:56

Episode Description: In the second session of this program, Natalie Goldberg and Clark Strand discuss the life and work of Shiki. John Brandi discusses some of his work as a poet and translator of Shiki’s work. 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: Upaya Podcast Series: The Way of Haiku 2018

  Natalie Goldberg & Kaz Tanahashi & Clark Strand & Joan Halifax: The Way of Haiku: Shiki and Modern Japanese Haiku Writers (1 of 6) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 45:45

Series Description: Shiki Masaoka (1867-1902) advocated the significance of “portrayal of nature” in haiku and revived the poetic form. The popularity of haiku writing in Japan and the Western world owes much to him. We will study his poems as well as masterpieces in contemporary Japan. We will also note how Japanese female poets have contributed to this genre. Inspired by the works we examine, all of us, including the participants, will write and share our own poems. Episode Description: In the opening talk of the program, Roshi Joan Halifax, Natalie Goldberg, and Clark Strand orient us to the historical, technical and poetic aspects of Haiku. “Haiku will teach you joy, over and over again… It’s a seventeen syllable course in the Bodhisattva way, the joyous way of saving all beings, over and over again,” Strand says. 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: Upaya Podcast Series: The Way of Haiku 2018

  John Dunne: Not Knowing, but Not Non-knowing: Embracing Uncertainty, Transcending Ignorance | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 42:42

Episode Description: Exploring the falsehood of conceptualization and language, John Dunne looks at the ways in which we hold categorical and conceptual thinking which can create a distorted and fragmented experience of the world—or delusion. Drawing from Buddhist philosophy, Dunne talks about grasping our thoughts and ideas as being a form of ignorance. He reflects on the importance of not-knowing and grounding ourselves in immediate experience, saying, “what we mean by seeing the way things truly are is knowing that things are selfless… It’s knowing how to be aware without the fixation. It is knowing, it is awareness—but it’s not belief.” To help keep these podcasts freely available, we hope you will consider making a suggested donation of $25 to our Dharma Podcast Fund.

  Irene Kaigetsu Bakker & Shinzan Palma: Sesshin: Sandokai – Looking at the World from the Relative and Absolute Perspective (Part 3 of 3) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 47:49

Episode Description: In this talk, on the final full day of sesshin, Sensei Irène Kaigetsu Bakker and Sensei Sinzan Palma further explore the teachings of the Sandokai, the Identity of Relative and Absolute. “We need to experience the inter-being, or interconnectedness so we can experience the oneness of life,” Sensei Shinzan says. “Wisdom is the common sense in our lives. Why do we have to complicate things?” 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: Upaya Podcast Series: Sesshin: Sandokai

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