Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Hoshi Senko reflects on Radiant Light as the everyday experience of being alive. Drawing on Dōgen Zenji’s Komyō (Radiant Light) and Koun Ejō’s sole surviving work, Komyōzō Zanmai (The Practice of the Treasury of Radiant Light), Senko traces how the ancestors point to what is closest and most easily missed—summarized by Wittgenstein: “It is not how things are in…

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On the first full day of Rohatsu sesshin, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and Roshi Joan Halifax open practice with teachings on non-division and “undivided activity.” Kaz reminds practitioners that Rohatsu marks the Buddha’s awakening—“birth, enlightenment, and passing, celebrated in one day”—and points to the core insight that “all things have absolutely no separation.” He describes emptiness as “all…

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In this session of Awareness in Action, spiritual teacher, psychologist, and author Tara Brach begins by acknowledging the profound pressures in our society and the importance of building solidarity in these times. She frames her exploration around the question of what it means to “keep choosing love.” Drawing on Father Gregory Boyle’s work with LA gangs, Tara highlights two unwavering principles…

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This is the 2nd half of the closing session of the Awakened Action series begins with Christiana Figueres joining from Costa Rica, fresh from COP30 in Berlin. She shares her striking observation of “three realities” at the climate conference: the scientific urgency, governmental paralysis, and 50,000 activists accelerating change. Christiana emphasizes the fundamental importance of choice—between…

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This is the 1st half of the closing session of the Awakened Action series begins with Christiana Figueres joining from Costa Rica, fresh from COP30 in Berlin. She shares her striking observation of “three realities” at the climate conference: the scientific urgency, governmental paralysis, and 50,000 activists accelerating change. Christiana emphasizes the fundamental importance of choice—between…

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In the sixth session of Awareness in Action, Christiana Figueres discusses Brazil’s Climate Conference, reflecting on our collective anxiety about present conditions and future uncertainties. She emphasizes that “the future is not waiting for us. The future is being shaped right now, every day, in the choices we make.” Drawing on Buddhist teachings of impermanence and interbeing…

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In the fifth talk of the Awakened Action series, Rebecca Solnit invites participants to name acts of moral beauty—from tribal leaders honoring Japanese American internment survivors to the Rainbow Defense Coalition protecting LGBTQ+ events. Rebecca reflects on falling into depression amid political darkness, emphasizing that the long view of history offers an antidote to despair.

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In the fourth session of the Awakened Action series, Terry Tempest Williams shares the quiet, touching story she “could never write”—the killing of Harvard Divinity School’s beloved 200-year-old red oak in 2019. Sleeping beside the tree the night before its death, she received its transmission: “My absence will be my presence…this is transformation.” Witnessing its four-hour dismantling while…

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In part three of the Awakened Action series, Roshi Joan Halifax invites participants to imagine the world in 20 years, revealing how we’re often “living in dread” rather than envisioning liberating possibilities. She distinguishes between liberating imagination—”the capacity to be with what is possible, even inside seeming impossibility, and to respond in an unprescribed way”—and toxic imagination…

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In this second session of Awakened Action, Valerie Brown explores where we encounter the charnel grounds—a Buddhist metaphor for places where deep suffering is present, including in our own minds. Valerie shares her own charnel ground: the dismantling of civil rights in America and invites participants to name their own charnel grounds within and outside themselves. She weaves together teachings…

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The opening session of Awakened Action lead by Roshi Joan, Rebecca Solnit, Valerie Brown, and Terry Tempest Williams, participants are invited to explore how futures are shaped through attention, relationship, and imagination. The teachers emphasized that “place is so important,” grounding the gathering in the land, labor, and layered histories that make the present moment possible.

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Roshi Joan Halifax, joined by Senseis Kodo and Dainin, reflects on how Thanksgiving is both a time of festivity and a day of mourning for Native peoples. She raises this not to “send us down,” but to remind us not to turn away from the truth of suffering. Roshi moves through stories from her life, gathering us close to the heart of practice through moments of…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Rebecca Solnit explores empathy as an act of imagination—the capacity to feel beyond the boundaries of one’s own body. She begins with Roshi Joan’s distinction between empathy as “feeling into another” and compassion as “[empathy] accompanied by the aspiration to take action.” Rebecca considers how our inner capacities to both care and act shape our public…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Monshin explores what it means to be truly nourished. While attending to a full day of cooking chiles rellenos, Monshin opened to how her ingredients might bring health to her body and her practice. In discussing the fifth precept as it relates to spiritual nourishment, Sensei Monshin challenges us to find contentment with life exactly as it is—without…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, delivered under the largest supermoon in two years, Sensei Kodo reflects on fusatsu—the full moon ceremony of vow renewal—his own marriage vows, and the absence of regular ceremony in our lives. He notes how ceremony awakens in us something our culture has largely forgotten: “We hunger for ritual.” Drawing on Taigen Leighton’s essay from the book Zen Ritual…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Valerie Brown honors the life and legacy of Dr. Larry Ward, a pioneering African-American Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition. Valerie recounts Larry’s journey from his Baptist roots to his work with Thich Nhat Hanh and his creation of the first BIPOC retreat in North America, and shares his teaching on the “inner sangha”—a community of compassion and…

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On the closing day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kathy, Hoshi Senko, and Sensei Monshin offer an integrated reflection on continuing practice beyond the zendo. Sensei Kathy grounds us in the body, reminding us that awareness can arise anywhere—and that mind and mood are contingent, not fixed. She encourages returning to simple acts of life—walking, breathing…

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In this Day five talk during the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Monshin weaves together stories of generosity, effort, and hummingbirds to explore “effort without desire”—the natural, uncalculated movement of life giving to life. Beginning with the question of “deserving” in the meal chant, she challenges the logic of worthiness and turns us instead toward reciprocity and appreciation.

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On Day three of the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Hoshi Senko begins with Suzuki Roshi’s simple reminder: “Appreciate your life.” Senko describes sesshin as a means for this, saying sesshin is “a kind of resensitizing to our lives, a coming back into that kind of intimate contact with our lived experience.” Through the quiet repetition of meals, sitting, and silence of sesshin we relearn how to be…

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In Day two of the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kathie Fischer likens sesshin to an artist’s colony where each practitioner’s work unfolds through the act of doing itself. “Each of us is unique,” she says, “and therefore we express ourselves in this practice uniquely,” yet we also “fiercely protect the quiet space and resources we share.” She speaks of forms—silence, stillness…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk and Day 4 of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kathie Fischer brings our attention to resonance—the way one vibration awakens or encourages another. Drawing from physics, poetry, and the words of the ancestors, she invites us to hear the dharma not as explanation but the vibration of practice itself. She reminds us, “Do not be concerned with the…

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In this morning talk on the first full day of the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Shinzan draws from Dōgen’s Bendōwa (“The Wholehearted Way”) to remind us that zazen itself is the true gate of the Buddha Dharma. With warmth and humor, he encourages practitioners to release striving and self-judgment, saying, “Sesshin is not for making decisions or planning your life. It’s for trusting the…

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In this opening session of Upaya’s 2025 Fall Pratice Period Sesshin, four teachers—Sensei Kathie Fischer, Sensei Shinzan (joining remotely from San Diego), Sensei Monshin, and Hoshi Senko—welcome participants into the stillness and rhythm of this week-long meditation retreat. They offer encouragement and practical guidance for entering sesshin as a space of deep care and transformation.

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In this Zazenkai Day Talk during Fall Practice Period, Chris Senko Perez reflects on Dōgen’s Genjō Kōan through his image of sailing far out to sea, where the ocean appears perfectly round. Dōgen comments on this imagery, “When Dharma fills your whole body and mind. You understand that something is missing.” Senko explores this paradox—how true fullness awakens an awareness of vastness still…

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In this Fall Practice Period session, Senseis Kathie, Monshin, and Shinzan, with reflections from Hoshi Senko, open the study of Dogen’s Bendowa and Genjokoan. They invite participants to encounter Dogen not as a distant master to be analyzed but as a living companion in practice. “The zazen of even one person at one moment,” reads Sensei Monshin, “imperceptibly accords with all things and…

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In this Zazenkai Day talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Kathie Fischer offers her reflections on the simplicity and depth of Zen practice. She begins by exploring the role of language in understanding Zen, noting that “the purpose of a word is to create a boundary.” Kathie reflects on our intellectual and creative tendency to collect, compare, and update expressions of practice or…

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Senseis Monshin, Kathie Fischer, and Shinzan, together with Hoshi Senko, open Upaya’s Fall Practice Period by welcoming participants from around the world into a month of deep study of Dogen’s Genjokoan. “To study the way is to study the self,” Monshin reminds us, as the teachers reflect on beginning again, letting go of comparison, and trusting the unfolding of practice. With warmth, humor…

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In this talk from Upaya’s Awareness and Action series, Dr. Guo Gu, founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center, explores Embodiment and Engaged Practice—how awakening through the body becomes the ground for compassionate action in the world. “This body is what we have to work with,” he says. “It is the tool, it is this moment.” Through guided meditation and passionate teaching…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk during Fall Practice Period at Upaya, Sensei Monshin explores the meaning of dharma position. Building from Dogen’s Genjokoan, she explains dharma position as an expression of the inseparability of self and reality—“this intersection of the individual and universal.” Each being, she reminds us, is perfectly situated where it is; practice does not move us toward…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk during the Fall Practice Period, Sensei Shinzan turns to Dōgen’s Genjō Kōan, drawing on the image of a monkey grasping at the moon’s reflection to reveal how our search for enlightenment often obscures what is really there. “You want to see who is awake or who is enlightened? Just watch how they live their lives,” he says, reminding us that realization is…

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In this Way-Seeking Mind Dharma Talk, resident Tuck Butsumon Stibich offers a moving reflection on his path from intellectual inquiry to embodied Zen practice. Raised in Dayton, Ohio, in a family grounded in both mathematics and Catholic faith, Stibich’s curiosity about the world was nurtured by moments of wonder in nature and study abroad. His life’s arc carried him through Peace Corps service in…

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In this session of Upaya’s Awareness in Action series, Bhikkhu Bodhi offers a penetrating teaching on discernment as the heart of engaged Buddhism in times of crisis. He reflects on his journey from 1960s activism, through decades of monastic practice in Sri Lanka, and back into the realm of social engagement, emphasizing that “Buddhism must not remain cloistered within meditation halls…

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In Part 4 of Upaya’s Love and Death program, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan invite participants to “bring death into the room” through a mindfulness practice with photographs of people who stepped through the threshold of life. This practice asks us to directly face mortality and how our bodies, hearts, and minds respond to it—what draws us in and what makes us turn away? Through vivid stories of…

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This is the 2nd half of … part 3 of Upaya’s Love and Death program, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the tension between belonging and accommodation. Through personal stories of illness, recovery, and care, they show how dignity in receiving and offering support deepens our understanding of love. Frank distinguishes authentic belonging—our birthright of interconnection—from the self…

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In Part 3 of Upaya’s Love and Death program, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the tension between belonging and accommodation. Through personal stories of illness, recovery, and care, they show how dignity in receiving and offering support deepens our understanding of love. Frank distinguishes authentic belonging—our birthright of interconnection—from the self-abandonment of…

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This is the 2nd half of … part two of Upaya’s Love and Death weekend program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski deepened the exploration of how personal love can open into universal compassion. Framed by the bodhisattva path, Roshi Joan recounted Thich Nhat Hanh’s story of youthful love for a nun, which he transmuted into service for a suffering Vietnam: “She represented everything I loved…

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In part two of Upaya’s Love and Death weekend program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski deepened the exploration of how personal love can open into universal compassion. Framed by the bodhisattva path, Roshi Joan recounted Thich Nhat Hanh’s story of youthful love for a nun, which he transmuted into service for a suffering Vietnam: “She represented everything I loved…

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In the opening session (part 1) of Love and Death, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski welcomed more than 1,300 participants into a shared inquiry of love and mortality. Framed by Rainer Maria Rilke’s insight that “Love and death are the great gifts that are given to us. Mostly they are passed on unopened,” the dialogue explores how dying strips away pretense, dissolves stories…

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In this intriguing Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Kodo inspires us with the lion’s roar of Queen Srimala. Beginning with reflections on how motivations and intentions consciously and unconsciously impact behavior, Kodo guides us into the surprising and unexpected teachings of Queen Srimala. Counter to common cultural conceptions of Buddhism, Queen Śrīmālā proclaims the four shining qualities…

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In this timely session of Awareness in Action, Father John Dear confronts the urgency of our times with an echo from Martin Luther King Jr.: “The choice is no longer violence or non-violence… It’s non-violence or non-existence.” Rooted in Gandhi’s teaching that “nonviolence is the highest form of human consciousness,” Father John presents nonviolence not as passivity but as the already existing…

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In this unique Wednesday Night Dharma Talk before the upcoming Love and Death program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski engage in an open dialogue on Life, Death, and Freedom. Departing from scripted teachings, the evening unfolds through participant questions that touch the raw edges of grief, love, and mortality. Roshi Joan frames grief as “unmediated access to truth…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Dainin interweaves personal story, Buddhist teaching, and contemporary challenges to show how the Bodhisattva vow can be lived — and is urgently needed — in our times. She shares how her understanding of compassion shifted through practice, from a fixed character trait to something that can be cultivated and allowed to emerge. “In order to make…

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In this session of Upaya’s Awareness in Action series, writer and activist Rebecca Solnit joins Roshi Joan Halifax to explore how stories shape reality, the nature of human behavior in crisis, and the discipline of hope as an antidote to despair. Rebecca reminds us, “Hope is not an emotion, it’s a commitment to not give up, to keep looking for possibilities… to remember, we make the future in the…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei James Fushin explores vulnerability as a profound gateway to awakening. Drawing from the Vimalakirti Sutra and physicist Brian Cox’s question—”How do we live a finite, fragile life in an infinite, eternal universe?”—Fushin reflects on illness, silence, and the dissolution of self and other as pathways to true healing. From Vimalakirti’s teaching…

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In the second part of this two-part Wednesday Night Dharma Talk mini-series, Zen teacher Guo Gu guides us into the embodiment of silent illumination. He begins not with theory but with experience: posture, presence, and body. Speaking with a soft, smooth cadence—measured and unhurried—we explore the terrain of our own physicality through an extended guided meditation followed by a reflection on…

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In this session of Awareness in Action, Roshi Joan Halifax and Terry Tempest Williams guide participants to witness the world with care, presence, and courage. Roshi Joan opens with the Zen koan—“A monk asked Joshu, when great difficulties come upon us, can they be avoided?” Joshu replies, “Welcome.”—and, in the same spirit, notes the similarity in Chinese kanji between “crisis” and “opportunity”…

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In this closing session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar, faculty and participants reflect on how ancient teachings become living transmission through courage, friendship, and practice. Roshi Joan reminds us that discovery emerges not through resolution but through living fully within paradox, just as Dogen himself persisted amid loss and uncertainty. Steven Heine and Kazuaki Tanahashi illuminate Dogen’s…

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In the seventh session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar, Sensei Genzan explores Dogen’s Eight Awakenings of Great Beings (Hachi Dainin Gaku), weaving scholarship with lived experience to reveal how Zen practice addresses the paradoxes of daily life. “It’s not that Dogen is paradoxical,” he notes, “our lives are paradoxical.” With humor and humility, Genzan shows how the Eight Awakenings form not a list…

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In the sixth session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar, the faculty engage in a rich exploration of Dogen’s use of language, paradox, and poetry as spiritual communication. Heine highlights how paradox functions as a “turning word,” pushing beyond ordinary discourse to liberate us from fixed assumptions. The faculty respond with perspectives on authenticity, context, and translation…

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In this fifth session of Upaya’s Dogen Seminar, Norman and Kathie Fischer explore Dogen’s Four Methods of Guidance (Bodaisatta Shishobo), one of the most accessible and transformative fascicles of the Shobogenzo. Building on reflections about paradox in Zen, Norman Fischer explains how paradox “extends the subtlety and the scope of what you mean,” allowing us to deepen our curiosity toward…

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