Show Notes
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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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…