Show Notes
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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More from Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer explores how Zhaozhou’s teachings invite the busy, generalizing mind to rest in the field of the senses. She notes that many koans pose a general question and receive a specific answer, and that this pattern points to practice itself. Thought deals in abstractions, while what we see, hear…
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…
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…
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…
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…