Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Jay Garfield, delves into the philosophical implications of Dogen’s Painted Rice Cakes fascicle, entering into conversations with many notable philosophers across time and tradition; Vasubandhu, Sankappa, and Wilfrid Sellars are all brought into account. These discussions of phenomenology conclude with a lively discussion with the other Varela panelists. Click here for more resources and information about the 2020 Verala International Symposium. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: 2020 Varela International Symposium

In the first talk of the Varela Symposium, Jonathan Schooler, gives a treatment of meta-awareness and introspection through the perspectives of historical western philosophy and modern neuroscience and psychology. The session is followed by a panelist Q&A. Click here for the video of the lecture showing the accompanying slides. Click here for more resources and information about the 2020 Verala International Symposium. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: 2020 Varela International Symposium

The Varela Symposium brings together a remarkable faculty to explore cutting edge areas of science, philosophy, and Buddhism. Today, we are in an epoch changing era. In this year’s program, we had the opportunity to explore with leading scientists, philosophers, and scholars insights regarding the nature of our mind and the nature of the world. We explored the nature of awareness that allows us to familiarize ourselves with our mental, physical, social, and environmental experience. We also addressed questions like: Can we be aware without there being any object or content of awareness? How is it that we can be aware of being aware, that is, experience meta-awareness? What is mind-wandering and how does it impact our sensory and cognitive experience? How does the activity of the “default network” affect awareness? What about so-called unusual mental states and mystical experiences? How do we regulate our physical and mental reactivity (including fear and anger) in order to reduce suffering? What happens to awareness in states of “unconsciousness?” How does awareness function in sleep, during anesthesia, in coma, in states of cognitive decline, at the time of death? These are among a set of important questions that are currently being vigorously debated within the fields of Buddhist scholarship and philosophy of mind, and explored within the laboratories of mind and brain scientists. Most of the relevant research has been conducted in only the past few decades, the entire topic of consciousness having been excluded from scientific psychology and neuroscience for most of the 20th century. We examined awareness, and related experiences, such as mind wandering, mindfulness, unusual states of consciousness, and meta-awareness from the diverse perspectives of Buddhist philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience. And explored why understanding the nature of awareness is essential for processing our immediate experience, for making skillful decisions, for working with moral dilemmas, and for social, environmental, and personal well-being. Faculty for the symposium: Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD; Richard Davidson, PhD; Sensei Al Kaszniak, PhD; John Dunne, PhD; Jonathan Schooler, PhD; Kalina Christoff, PhD; Jay L. Garfield, PhD, Elissa Epel, PhD; Wendy Hasenkamp, PhD. == == == == In the opening session of this Symposium, Roshi Joan Halifax, Al Kaszniak, John Dunne, Kalina Christoff, Jonathan Schooler, Jay Garfield, and Wendy Hasenkamp give an overview of the topics to be covered in the following session, as well as background information about the Chilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela, for whom the symposium is named. Click here for more resources and information about the 2020 Verala International Symposium. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: 2020 Varela International Symposium

Sensei Kathie Fischer invites us to think of ourselves as a local climate or weather pattern. She uses the koan of Zhaozhou’s Cypress tree to ask, how can we understand and engage verbally without falling into the language and thoughts of our stories? Lastly, Sensei Fischer talks about using zazen practice to lower the volume of our thoughts, feelings, and fixed ideas

Monshin Nannette Overley talks about the gift of connection and the shared world that she wants to live in. Monshin also talks about using the practice of Zazen to nourish and cultivate a mind that realizes connection.

Participants are invited to share their experience during the workshop and appreciation of the teachers and also of translator Shulin Bergman. Sensei Kaz leaves us with these words: “My best wishes for your poet within.” The original recording had uneven volume due to some technical issues. It has been evened out as much as possible – but you may have to adjust your volume as necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Sensei Peter Levitt reads and guides us in interpreting the stillness in two more poems that exemplify Hanshan’s still mind. “Only white clouds on Cold Mountain, so still, beyond the dusty world.” The original recording had uneven volume due to some technical issues. It has been evened out as much as possible – but you may have to adjust your volume as necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Haiku participants read aloud Hanshan poems that resonate with them. The original recording had uneven volume due to some technical issues. It has been evened out as much as possible – but you may have to adjust your volume as necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Sensei Peter Levitt directs a heartfelt discussion about how the imagery is coming alive. Hanshan writes, “Who would guess that under my wisteria hat, there is a sadness this old.” The original recording had uneven volume due to some technical issues. It has been evened out as much as possible – but you may have to adjust your volume as necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Sensei Kaz begins by giving a background about the poet, Hanshan, and the one record we have about a sighting of him. Discussions of rhyming patterns in Chinese poetry has brought about the question of who Hanshan really was. Kaz and Peter discuss how they translated the poems in “The Complete Cold Mountain.” The original recording had uneven volume due to some technical issues. It has been evened out as much as possible – but you may have to adjust your volume as necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Sensei Peter talks about the way we can enter Hanshan’s world through his poetry, how his imagery works, and the Hanshan state of mind. The original recording had uneven volume due to some technical issues. It has been evened out as much as possible – but you may have to adjust your volume as necessary. Our apologies for any inconvenience. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

Of the many mountain hermits who lived in southeastern China during the Tang dynasty, approximately 1300 years ago, the poet Hanshan (Cold Mountain) may well be the most beloved. Based on the hundreds of poems he wrote on the walls of the cave where he made his home after leaving behind what he called “the dusty world” of getting, spending and delusion, so he could spend his life in the natural world with his heart and mind uninterrupted by such distractions, Hanshan found that he was often able to put an end to what he called “useless mixed-up thinking” and enjoy a good measure of peace and tranquility as a “person of nondoing” who wandered in the mountains, idly read a copy of an ancient sage, or played his humble lute on the precipice outside his cave. Living a life unhindered by worldly concerns, much of Hanshan’s beautifully imagined poetry is filled with compassionate discernment, profound tranquility, and a quiet but compelling purity of unexpected insight. But that is not all. The hermit-poet known as Hanshan discovered that it is not as easy to leave the world behind as one might think. Decades of solitude and wandering brought forward other elements from the full depth of his humanity, and so his poems also express his loneliness, longing for a companion of the way, sorrow at the loss of friends, as well as an occasional biting critique of the many ways his fellow human beings created harm in the world, though it must be said that even in these poems there is a compassion that reveals Hanshan’s deepest longing for others to know the wholeness, serenity and peace he experienced within his tender and all too human heart. This series is led by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt, translators of the newly published The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan, which collects the most complete assembly of Hanshan’s extant poetry translated into the English language. It explores Hanshan’s poetry, his life, and the major themes most essential to Hanshan’s world view, including his awakening, life in retreat immersed in the natural world, and the expression of a clear but compassionate critique of society’s realm. Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi and Sensei Peter Levitt introduce the weekend by shedding a light on their process. Kaz gives an overview of the weekend, and Peter hopes that, “You will find some part of you in Hanshan, and some part of Hanshan in you, and through that, your lives will be enriched and clarified and changed.” To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Poetry of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan

In this Way – Seeking Mind Talk: Upaya Residents Raka Banerjee, Emmanuel O’Kane, and Yudo Garcia share their experiences with mountains and rivers, the heart of their spiritual practice, and the journey that brought them to Upaya.

Sensei Kathie Fischer uses koans and the teaching of Dogen to explore how we can bring past experiences into our present hearts and lives. She also examines the deleterious effects that happen when we “us-ify” an experience into a prejudicial concept. Lastly, Sensei Fischer talks about sincere trust and the commitment of returning to our commitment to practice.

Dharma farmer Sensei Wendy Johnson offers words to nourish our lives and to feed a hungry world. She shares her practice of “just doing zazen innocently, without any aiming,” preparing Upaya’s residence for the planting of the Three Sisters Garden.