Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

“If you’re a photon, what is time like for you?  What would you see if you watched somebody fall into a black hole? What’s it like from their perspective?” asks Kigaku Noah Rossetter, taking us on a journey through space and time to the center of the earth and the moment just after the big bang.  With awe-inspiring scientific facts and Dogen’s call to “reflect now, whether any being or world is left out of the present moment,” Noah invites us to allow this “cosmic geekiness” to inform our contemplative practice, to spark our curiosity, to help us slow down, and to use our time to “produce” presence and love for ourselves and for others.

“How do we harvest the truth of this world respectfully and wholeheartedly —honorably—in dishonorable times?” asks Wendy Johnson. Encouraging us to “let the sorrows of the world ripen” in ourselves and to be open to the dishonor of our times, Wendy weaves in the acidification of the oceans, the lonely lost and left behind hungry ghosts, school shootings, and student debt… and yet there are incredible projects happening, particularly on Tewa land, within the shadows of Los Alamos. Wendy offers ten ways to enjoy an honorable harvest which include asking permission and giving thanks. She implores us to stand and be honorable human beings in a dishonorable world.

Sensei Al Kaszniak opens this discussion by summarizing the talks from Adam Frank and John Dunne earlier in the day. The panel is then opened to questions from participants in the audience as well as other faculty members. Questions from the audience focus on process and self-organization in networks, and specifically on the connections between nodes, rather than on networks or nodes as discrete entities. John and Adam also talk about the ontologization of relationship and how theories and words are just “fingers pointing at the moon.” For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

Quoting Zen Master Dogen, Matthew Kozan Palevsky reads, “To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and illuminate the self is awakening.” This dharma talk focuses on what is perhaps the most famous of Dogen’s essays, “Genjokoan,” or as Kosho Uchiyama translates it, “The Ordinary Profundity of the Present Moment Becoming the Present Moment.” Kozan begins by noting the importance of seeing through the dualism inherent in language and looking beyond dichotomies in our own personal narratives. How do we do this, he asks? Well, we can begin with the direct experience of the present moment. When we let go of our sense of control, our sense of self, the world penetrates us and the myriad things illuminate the self. This is when practice can occur.

John Dunne fields questions from the audience which relate to the order of Buddha presence and compassion, the innateness of compassion, the nature of mind, the nature of awareness, and the differences between notions of emptiness and objectivity. John’s answers provide a fascinating glimpse into the inherent dualism within language and the ways in which non-dual teachings are consequently transmitted to account for this. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

John Dunne delivers a very lively and informative talk on shunyata, which is sometimes translated from Sanskrit into English as “emptiness” or “boundlessness.” John explains that “shunya” means zero in Sanskrit, and that “ta” is a suffix meaning “ness.” He emphasizes the point that zero is not nothing, rather, that it is a meaningful absence. John’s talk takes the listener through Buddhist philosophy which includes practice as conduct, the cause of suffering, the five aggregates, Samsara, and interdependence. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

Adam Frank answers questions regarding the significance of networks to complexity theory. One such question relates to the relevance of density and topology of networks. Another has to do with the networked manifestations of emergent properties such as intelligence. He also takes part in a more general discussion about Buddhism and networks which includes some discourse on what is seen as a Buddhist hesitancy to ontologize emergent properties. The conversation also looks at what drives samsara, and it explains the importance of compassion in reworking this primary motive. The conversation continues with questions relating to the attraction of objective explanations, and the ways in which science is subjective. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

Adam Frank’s presentation explores such questions as: what is the place of individual experience in the scientific narratives that we create; what is the relationship between scientific truths and the world itself; and, what is complexity? His talk weaves together interrelated themes relating to scientific realism, reductionism, materialism, “basal” structures, ontology, and the irreducibility of experience which is crucial to creating a new scientific paradigm which is composed of a Heideggerian context of “Being-there.” For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

Richard Davidson answers a question from the panel related to the connection between insight, compassion, and emptiness, and reads a Tibetan prayer called the Aspiration for Mahamudra which clarifies the connection between the three. He also answers questions about what a non-objective reality might be, what the neural relation is to salience, self-regulation and resilience, what the effects of social media might be, and what the implications of lifestyle choices might be to well-being. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

Richard Davidson discusses his groundbreaking work in neuroscience. He divides his talk into what he calls “the four components of well-being:” awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. His work explores connections between meditation and its effects on the brain, especially as it relates to these four components. One example of this kind of research is the amygdala, which is commonly associated with salience, and now, we are learning, with compassion and altruism. Newer research has established that long-term meditators have longer amygdalas. For Series description, please visit Part 1. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: VARELA SYMPOSIUM 2019: The Science of Connection, Complexity, and Emptiness

Robert Wilder discusses the challenges and blessings of a life lived in “not knowing.” What does such an attitude entail? How might it lead to a richer life? Robert tells the story of being raised to know things and feeling secure in having always known what to do during most of his life. He knew how to navigate through college, how to promote himself to advertising jobs, how to be a teacher at a preparatory school. Now, facing a transitional time in his career as a teacher, Robert tells of his fear in facing the unknown. Yet, he also talks about the richness of leading such a life. Robert quotes Buddhist teacher Frank Ostaseski, “When we don’t know, anything is possible because we are not limited by old habits of thinking or other’s points of view. We see the bigger picture.”

Series Description: Roshi Joan Halifax, Richard Davidson, Sensei Al Kaszniak, John Dunne, Adam Frank, Amy Cohen-Varela, and Perla Kaliman discuss a variety of topics ranging from epigenetics and neuroscience, to a philosophy of science which incorporates Buddhist notions of emptiness, the primacy of human experience and relationality. This year’s symposium explores some of the most radical issues of our time, and it is a deep dive into a view of reality that has profound implications for how we live our lives. The Symposium honors Francisco Javier Varela García, Roshi Joan’s dear friend and colleague, who was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, and neuroscientist and best known for co-founding the Mind and Life Institute to promote dialog between science and Buddhism. Episode Description: Amy Cohen-Varela discusses her late husband, Francisco Varela’s, pioneering work in neuroscience, philosophy, and biology. She discusses the vital significance of relationship to life and experience. Themes from his work include his theory of enaction, autopoiesis, sense making, and identity making. Amy describes the motivations that underlie her husband’s work, saying, “the passion that drove him from start to finish was one of bringing science home to human experience, and the loam in which experience is rooted is relationship.”

As a prelude to this year’s Varela Symposium, Sensei Al Kaszniak discusses interrelated themes from science, Buddhism, complexity, boundlessness, and reality. Do our sense organs actually represent reality as it really is? What is the interaction between our mind and our genome? Does the experience of emotion have a biological foundation? Sensei Al answers these questions and reminds us that “it may really be vitally important for us to rest often in timelessness and spaciousness, deeply experiencing how who we really are is completely interconnected with everyone and everything else in the universe.”

As a complement to the coincident professional training program for clinicians, Being With Dying, Cynda Hylton Rushton and Anthony Back discuss healthy narratives for caregivers. What is burnout and how is it increasingly affecting so many caregivers and by extension their patients? How can we cultivate a practice which both strengthens compassion and consequently allows us to become more effective caregivers? Cynda and Tony discuss a range of transcendent narratives and related compassion-based tools which empower caregivers. Tony offers a powerful narrative: “The challenges are inevitable; I know my values; I can make wise choices; I have the tools and capacity, and I know how to renew myself.”

Seigen Chuck Overley discusses his journey through Zen Buddhist practice and emphasizes the importance of “just showing up” to whatever he’s engaged in. Chuck talks about how some of the large themes in his practice—his time in the military, his family, his career as an art teacher, his spiritual teacher, and cooking for the homeless—have enriched his life. Cooking for the homeless taught him a simple but profound lesson: “how to be with homelessness without being above, below, or sideways—just being with it.”