Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

In this session of The Measure of Our Humanity, Roshi Joan Halifax opens by reflecting on six years of monthly gatherings exploring socially engaged Buddhism — and on the urgency of the question animating this year’s series: how do we lay down a sane and compassionate path forward in these times? The session turns to Valerie Brown who grounds her teaching in a vision of collective awakening… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Roshi Joan Halifax opens by naming her deep concern for the ongoing wars, displacement, and political upheaval seen throughout the world. Rather than offering direct reassurance, she turns to two stories held in deliberate tension: Kyōgen’s koan “Man Up a Tree,” in which a man hanging by his teeth from a branch is asked a question he cannot answer without… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Butsumon Tuck Stibich — a resident priest at Upaya — opens with a teaching from Thich Nhat Hanh. No stranger to war, Thich Nhat Hanh explains that our anxiety about the world’s suffering is an obstacle to service: that fear and worry do not help us cultivate peace, or become a refuge for others. Reflecting on this and the vows made in Jukai… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Fushin addresses what so many of us are carrying right now — the weight of a world in upheaval, the accumulation of personal grief, and the stories we tell ourselves at three in the morning when everything feels urgent and nothing feels within reach. Drawing on the Lotus Sutra’s parable of the burning house, Fushin reframes the question entirely… Source

In the final session of The Poetry of Cold Mountain, participants share their overnight translations of Hanshan’s poems — working from character-to-word guides across five poems. The range and depth of what emerges moves Peter Levitt and Kaz Tanahashi to reflect openly on the nature of creative work. Peter observes that the participants had nothing but seeds — elements borrowed from a poet writing… Source

In Part 6 of The Poetry of Cold Mountain, the evening session gathers around two offerings. Kaz Tanahashi gives a live calligraphy demonstration, rendering Hanshan’s poem “You Ask the Way to Cold Mountain” first in formal script, then in semi-cursive — pausing to explain how each style reveals something different about the characters, the poem, and the calligrapher’s mind. Sensei Dainin reads each… Source

In Part 5 of The Poetry of Cold Mountain, the session opens with a participant unexpectedly sharing two pieces of calligraphy prepared before the retreat — Hanshan poems rendered by hand as an act of study and care. Kaz Tanahashi and Peter Levitt then open the floor to another round of participant poetry. Kaz offers his own poem, inspired by Hanshan’s eccentricity: As in the previous session… Source

In Part 4 of The Poetry of Cold Mountain, the session opens into a shared creative space. Kaz Tanahashi and Peter Levitt shape the afternoon around two fundamental poetry practices — writing from the present moment and listening. Peter offers a generative prompt: use lines from Hanshan as scaffolding, borrowing one to begin a poem, one to anchor the middle, one to close. What follows is an open… Source

In Part 3 of The Poetry of Cold Mountain, Peter Levitt offers a deep dive into the craft and consciousness of Hanshan’s poetry. Drawing on three defining qualities of Hanshan’s work — plain speech, imagery that moves between the literal and the symbolic, and last lines of sudden, inevitable surprise — Peter shows how each poem both instructs and enacts the journey it describes. Source

Roshi Joan Halifax opens this first full session (Part 2) of The Poetry of Cold Mountain by acknowledging the violence unfolding in Iran, holding the gravity of the world alongside the refuge of practice and community. She then turns the session to Kaz Tanahashi. Kaz introduces the structure of classical Chinese characters and verse — one character, one syllable, one word — before exploring the… Source

The Poetry of Cold Mountain weekend program opens with an evening of orientation and anticipation, as world-renowned calligrapher Kazuaki Tanahashi and poet and Zen teacher Peter Levitt — co-translators of The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan — introduce the hermit poet whose words have endured for over a thousand years. Kaz situates Hanshan in his time: the sacred… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Monshin opens by acknowledging the 33 practitioners preparing to receive jukai — and the vow to carry non-harming actions into the world. She reads from Thich Nhất Hạnh’s Go As a River, encouraging us to understand community as refuge from despair. Roshi Joan Halifax speaks into our heavy hearts — the outbreak of new war, the deep karmic wounds that will… Source

This final session of Sitting with Original Love opens once again with Nicolle Reigetsu leading the community in singing the Metta Sutta — words of loving kindness from the Pali canon — before Henry Shukman and Roshi Joan Halifax offer their final teaching of the retreat. Henry leads a guided reflection, then reads from his book: a passage about a grieving mother who finds herself unexpectedly… Source

This Saturday evening session of Sitting with Original Love opens with a beautiful performance from Nicolle Reigetsu, drawing the community into tender connection. Roshi Joan Halifax and Henry Shukman engage in warm dialogue exploring what it means to embody Original Love — not as theory but as the lived meeting of wisdom and compassion. Henry offers his own, luminous poem, Slow… Source

In this Saturday afternoon session of Sitting with Original Love, Roshi Joan Halifax and Henry Shukman guide participants into an exploration of bodhicitta — the awakened heart — through the intimate terrain of first love. Roshi draws on Thich Nhat Hanh’s account of falling in love with a young nun at Plum Village, and how that particular love became a doorway for him into boundless compassion. Source

In this Saturday afternoon session of Sitting with Original Love, Henry Shukman frames the direction of spiritual practice — not as a solitary ascent away from suffering but as a descent into the heart of it. Reading from Pema Chödrön, he offers a vision of awakening that moves downward: Through guided meditation and calm instruction, he invites participants to stop treating practice as a… Source

In this mid morning session of Sitting with Original Love, Roshi Joan Halifax leads a passionate and sweeping teaching on the many faces of love — from the Greek expressions of eros, philia, storge, pragma, ludus, philautia, and agape — to the early Buddhist concepts of Samvega and Pasada, the existential unease that drives us toward practice and the quiet radiance that meets us there. Source

In this morning session of Original Love, Henry Shukman introduces a central metaphor from early Chinese Buddhism: a cart drawn on two wheels — one wheel of mindfulness practice, where we “get better” incrementally, and one wheel of our Original Nature, which “is not really subject to improvability.” Through guided meditation, poetry, and a reading about the Tibetan master Karma Thinley… Source

In this opening session of Sitting with Original Love, Roshi Joan Halifax and Henry Shukman share the personal crucibles that led them to explore a more intimate and spacious relationship with their own lives. Shukman describes how a concussion and heartbreak stripped away his cognitive reliance, turning him unexpectedly toward the heart: “I found I was just living in my heart more. Source

This session of The Measure of Our Humanity brings together Roshi Joan Halifax, Rebecca Solnit, and Christiana Figueres to reflect on courage, interconnection, and moral responsibility amid social and ecological rupture. Rebecca Solnit offers a passionate and lucid articulation of our moment as a struggle between an ideology of isolation and a shift back into the cosmology of interconnection. Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Kodo hosts a conversation with Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and poet-translator Peter Levitt in anticipation of their upcoming weekend retreat on the poetry of Cold Mountain poet Hanshan. Rather than a formal dharma talk, the evening unfolds as sharing and inquiry, touching on the nearly 40-year friendship between Kaz and Peter — a companionship born… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk coinciding with Lunar New Year, Senseis Kodo and Dainin Lau guide viewers through a recording of Upaya’s Gate of Sweet Nectar — a monthly new moon ceremony of radical hospitality toward all hungry and wandering spirits. These hungry ghosts become a mirror for the parts of ourselves blinded by greed, aversion, and delusion — the states that make us unable to… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, poet, author, and meditation teacher Henry Shukman explores the topic of his latest book, Original Love, by walking through four progressively deeper meanings of awakening. Through a light, simple, and warm narrative, Henry sets forth four ways we can awaken: returning to presence, waking from oppressive self-narratives, entering into flow or samadhi, and… Source

In this dharma talk following Upaya’s Winter Practice Period, Sensei Fushin explores silence not as absence but as presence itself—”our own true nature looking back at us.” Through his work as a family law attorney and former Chaplain intern, he reveals three moments when silence showed its active power: In his conference room after a disappointing court ruling, twenty-five seconds of excruciating… Source

On the fifth and final day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Senseis Kodo and Dainin gather the threads of practice into a teaching on Magnanimous Mind, intimacy, and not knowing. Kodo explores not knowing as a gateway to vastness, questioning how thought and naming can obscure direct experience. Roshi Joan continues this inquiry, inviting practitioners to stay with… Source

On the fourth day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kodo and Sensei Dainin continue the exploration of Dōgen’s Three Minds. Kodo opens by situating the dharma talk itself within silence, inviting practitioners to listen as they would to wind, creaking floorboards, or the laughter and screams arising from the nearby park, quoting Mahatma Gandhi “Do not speak unless you can improve upon… Source

On the third full day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kodo and resident priest Butsumon reflect on how practice comes alive through ordinary activity. Butsumon opens with stories from samu (work practice), contrasting effort driven by efficiency with work done in care and attention. Drawing on Dōgen’s Three Minds, he explores how Joyful, Caring, and Magnanimous Mind transform any… Source

Day two of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin opens with Sensei Dainin recalling placing the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—both killed in recent shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis—on the altar. Visibly moved by these tragedies Dainin reflects on Nyoho (thusness), the practice of embracing “the good, the bad, the ugly, everything.” She invites us to consider wether even those… Source

On the first full day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on alignment and presence, exploring how practice begins by meeting things as they are. She emphasizes that Zen training is not performance but a return to our natural state—learning to act with care, attention, and nonviolence in relationship with others and the world. Addressing ongoing social violence in… Source

In this Zazenaki Talk during the Winter Practice Period, two recently ordained priests— Butsumon and Genryu—explore Dōgen’s Tenzo Kyokun through personal experiences of transformation and learning. Genryu shares how a “ghost from a past life” unexpectedly visited him just days before ordination, initially shaking him but ultimately becoming a teacher. Weaving quotes from sutras and Dogen… Source

In this Winter Practice Period Zazenkai Day Talk, resident priest Jimon and Sensei Wendy Johnson explore apamada—careful, heedful practice—through the lens of everyday activity. Drawing on Dogen’s Tenzo Kyokun, Jimon shares stories on how grinding sesame, tending squash, and preparing food are opportunities for the expression of ‘gyoji’, or wholehearted engagement. She reflects on how ritual… Source

In this introduction to Dōgen’s Tenzo Kyōkun (Instructions for the Cook) during the opening days of Upaya’s Winter Practice Period, the faculty explores how awakening is realized through work, care, and ordinary activity. Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on Dōgen’s three minds—joyful mind, parental mind (grandmother’s heart), and big mind—emphasizing care for others in the cultivation of wholesome… Source

In this opening session of the Winter Practice Period, Roshi Joan Halifax, alongside Senseis Wendy Johnson, Dainin, Kodo, and Hoshi Senko, names this month of practice as movement “against the stream”. Roshi suggests this step into structure, silence, and relationality is expressed not through personality, but through respect. Ango, she reminds us, is not only “peaceful dwelling” but safety: a… Source

This opening session of The Measure of Our Humanity series gathers over 1,000 participants worldwide to reflect on what sustains our humanity in difficult times. Roshi Joan Halifax welcomes longtime friend Jon Kabat-Zinn, framing the series as a shared ‘commons’ grounded in solidarity, truth-telling, and radical care, recognizing the gathering itself as an act of collective sanity. Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk during the Winter Practice Period at Upaya, Sensei Dainin collects our attention from the many paths we feel pulled in—gathering it toward one-pointed effort as a genuine way of relieving the suffering of self and other. Illustrating Roshi Joan’s reflection—“it’s good to stay in one place, watch the seasons change, and just do one thing”—through photographs of… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk during the Winter Practice Period at Upaya, Sensei Wendy Johnson explores Dōgen’s Tenzo Kyokun (Instructions for the Cook) through the metaphor of standing stones like those erected in England and the British Isles by Neolithic ancestors—ancient, grounded monuments embodying power and presence. She traces the text’s origins to Tang Dynasty monastics who created… Source

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Roshi Joan Halifax is joined by Senseis Kodo, Dainin, and longtime Upaya friend and master Zen gardener Sensei Wendy Johnson to set the roots of the month-long Winter Ango (peaceful dwelling). Roshi traces Ango’s history to ancient traditions of seasonal retreat and offers careful instruction not to trample what arises—no longer avoiding snakes, insects… Source

On the final day of Rohatsu sesshin, the faculty turn toward presence as the heart of the bodhisattva way. Sensei Kaz Tanahashi reflects on the final full day not as a rush toward the end, but as an invitation to be more fully present with each moment, as practice settles into quiet confidence and seamless activity. Roshi Joan Halifax deepens this inquiry by asking, What is a bodhisattva? Source

On the fifth day of Rohatsu sesshin, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi explores Indra’s Net—jewels “reflecting one another forever” in “inter-illumination”—showing how Buddhist teachings illustrate the reality of interconnected actions and outcomes. Kaz assures us that every humble action contributes to breakthrough. Reflecting on his anti-nuclear activism in the 1970s and ’80s, he says, “Everything I did… Source

On the fourth day of Rohatsu sesshin, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi reflects on the previous evening’s full moon atonement ceremony, revealing that “I think to be ethical is … life with ease and joy. You don’t have to hide anything. You don’t have to fear.” Kaz references the teaching to “thoroughly engage in each activity” to transform the world. He reframes “continuous failure” as “continuous missing”… Source

On the third full day of Rohatsu sesshin, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi illuminates the radical teaching at the heart of Zen practice: we begin with enlightenment itself. Tracing the tension between seventh-century China’s scholarly Huayan school—requiring lifetimes of gradual study—and Huineng’s “illiterate school” of sudden enlightenment, Kaz reveals how Dogen went even further… Source

On the second full day of Rohatsu sesshin, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi explores the Avatamsaka Sutra’s vision of Shakyamuni Buddha as Vairocana—the Dharmakaya itself—and the bodhisattva path through its metaphoric landscape. Kaz teaches that bodhisattvas become bridges, letting beings cross the ocean of life and death. He offers practical guidance for working with sleepiness… Source

In this year’s Gratefulness and Generosity program Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski explore gratefulness and generosity as essential Buddhist practices for navigating “the pressure of the time we’re in.” Roshi Joan situates generosity as the first paramita—a boundless state of mind—and invites participants to hold both sorrow and beauty, acknowledging the painful histories and difficult… Source

In this penultimate session of Awareness in Action (2025), Roshi Joan Halifax gathers with Sharon Salzberg and Frank Ostaseski to explore love as the foundation for engaged Buddhism, acknowledging the collective “upwelling of perturbation” many feel about the body politic. Roshi describes how spiritual community calls us back into love, noting the nation’s parallel journey: “We fell out of love… Source

In this penultimate session of Awareness in Action (2025), Roshi Joan Halifax gathers with Sharon Salzberg and Frank Ostaseski to explore love as the foundation for engaged Buddhism, acknowledging the collective “upwelling of perturbation” many feel about the body politic. Roshi describes how spiritual community calls us back into love, noting the nation’s parallel journey: “We fell out of love… Source

In this Winter Solstice gathering, Roshi Joan Halifax offers a grounded teaching on awareness amid darkness. Speaking during the longest night of the year, she introduces the Zen phrase ekō henshō—“turning the light around”—as the practice of directing awareness toward awareness itself. Through a story from a vinaya gathering in Thailand and a single word—“phenomena”—Roshi explores how we meet… Source

In this Way-Seeking Mind Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, resident Clayton Genryu Dalton charmingly shares his unexpected path to Zen and reflects on meaningful moments and insights from his life. From bathroom graffiti at UT Austin to Alan Watts, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, emergency medicine, and the abrupt end of his marriage, Genryu embodies life as process. Smiling at his own mistakes and… Source

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… Source

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… Source