Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Sensei Wendy Johnson gives a characteristically energizing, inspiring, and poetic talk on ecology and Dharma practice. She discusses the process and practice of planting and harvesting Upaya’s garden this past year and the relationship she and Upaya have built with indigenous knowledge holders like Roxanne Swentzell and her family over time. Dharma practice, Sensei Wendy insists, especially at this time, must include active engagement with the ecological crisis and a more intimate relationship with local land and food.

Sensei Noah Kodo Roen reports on his first year of fatherhood and what he’s learned from his daughter Skyla. Try to imagine what it would be like to be a newborn baby meeting each thing for the first time, without any concept of self to separate you from these things. “Without a concept of self, we are free to start where we are, and not judge where we should be.” When we practice this in our everyday lives we begin to taste the effortless freedom of being awake.

In this final episode of Training the Mind to Transform, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, invites program participants to share any insights from their conversations in small groups, reminding us that we now only derive wisdom from our own confusion and adversity but from the confusion and adversity of others. We each walk our own paths, Rev. Angel affirms, and yet, all of these paths come together into one path that we share and create together. The key to the practice is maintaining the mind of joy, the mind that is excited and inspired to show and train, and this mind shows us not only for one’s own liberation, but on behalf of others, and this, Rev. Angel affirms, is especially valuable in a hyper-individualistic society like that of the United States. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, invites participants in her Training the Mind to Transform program to discuss their experiences with Lojong training thus far. She prescribes certain slogans for particular difficulties, such as “Don’t turn gods into demons” for someone who is struggling with perfectionism, and explains that the need to “get it right” all the time is really just more ego and self-cherishing. The mind trainings are designed to point us away from away from an obsessive need to gain self-worth from external approval and towards the basic goodness to which we fundamentally belong, prior to and through the inevitable ups and downs of our lives. Also, Rev. Angel gives a clear, concise, and timely explanation of relative and absolute bodhicitta, the cultivation of which is the goal of mind training. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

In this episode of Training the Mind to Transform, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, explores some potentially difficult sayings, such as, drive all blames into one, all dharmas agree at one point, and regard all dharmas as dreams in more depth, working with us to clear up any confusion that may come between these teachings and applying them in our daily lives. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

In this episode of Training the Mind to Transform, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, continues to lead us through the Lojong trainings and the creation of our own mind training manuals. She reminds us of the driving points of mind training: to eliminate self-cherishing and liberate our own minds, and not by way of avoiding the difficulties of the world, but by going through the challenging experiences life hands to us, again and again. Some of the slogans or trainings that Rev. Angel guides us through in this episode are: all activities should be done with one intention; correct all wrongs with one intention; train without bias in all areas; always meditate on whatever provokes resentment. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

“Sometimes it’s good to just shut up and pay attention.” Natalie Goldberg reminds us that it’s important to know human suffering, to not run away from it. Zen is about experiencing ourselves in the world as it is. “The world is us and the world is painful and crazy.” Natalie implores us: Don’t ignore the news. And when engaging the news, don’t expect things to be fair. Don’t look in the circumstances of the world for logic. Human lives don’t work this way. There is no ground of logic or fairness because most of us humans are run by desire, aggression, hatred, and delusion. It can be terrifying to drop the self-protective structures that our culture so happily provides for us. Spirituality can function as yet another means to run away from pain. But true practice, Natalie insists, is about opening ourselves up to the pain of the world and allowing creativity to flow. She quotes her beloved Bob Dylan: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Or finding anything. Life is about creating yourself and creating things.” It’s not enough to boycott or cancel people, products, events. This can be another way to avoid suffering. It’s about paying attention, being confronted by reality as it is, and creating the world we want to share.

In part 5 of Training the Mind to Transform, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, continues her deep dive into the four slogans below, explaining phrases in the slogans that may be unfamiliar. It’s vital in this training to not let esoteric terms get in between us and the profoundly practical implications of the slogans. Rev. Angel’s explanations and definitions in these two episodes will help us to penetrate what may appear in these trainings to be rarified or not relatable and integrate them into our daily lives. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

In part 4 of Training the Mind to Transform, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, takes a deep dive into the four slogans below, explaining phrases in the slogans that may be unfamiliar. It’s vital in this training to not let esoteric terms get in between us and the profoundly practical implications of the slogans. Rev. Angel’s explanations and definitions in these two episodes will help us to penetrate what may appear in these trainings to be rarified or not relatable and integrate them into our daily lives. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, provides a practice for engaging Atisha’s mind training slogans. She suggests writing down a slogan or training, pausing, reading the slogan again, and then writing a brief reflection on how the slogan applies to your own life. Do not analyze the slogan or think about the slogan, just write down whatever immediately impacts you. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, talks about the importance of approaching practice, Lojong and otherwise, as actual practice rather than mere intellectual speculation or performance. To this end, she substitutes the traditional Lojong “slogans” with Lojong “trainings,” empathizing that these teachings are meant to be engaged in our daily lives, not merely verbalized. Lojong mind training, Rev. Angel explains, functions as one framework amongst many that, when practiced, creates the conditions for liberation. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

Series Description: Rev. Angel Kyodo williams, Roshi, is one of the most remarkable Buddhist teachers in our world today. Her unique and powerful approach to practice has transformed the lives of so many. We are fortunate to welcome her to teach this unusual online program on the Seven Point Thought Transformation and invite you to join her. This program is by donation and your support of Roshi Kyodo is deeply appreciated. In this two day program, Roshi Kyodo will explore the power of neuroplasticity, our capacity to transform our brain and our mind. That same realization occurred to the sage Atisha some 1300 years ago and led to a science of training the mind toward the highest human accomplishment: unfettered and boundless compassion. Rather than producing extensive, complicated texts that only a scholar could love or understand, Atisha’s vast study was distilled into the “Seven Point Thought Transformation,” pithy, terse slogans that anyone could engage with to transform a mind of suffering into one of awakening and compassion. There’s no greater practice than one in which the evidence affirms the approach, no greater path of resilience than using what challenges you to face and love the life you have. Through personal investigation, creative confrontation, and rigorous practice, we will train our mind toward unshakable compassion together. Reverend Angel Kyodo Williams, Roshi, gives a Dharma talk introducing the practice of Lojong or mind training, which she covers extensively over her two day program, Training the Mind to Transform (2022). What is needed now, Rev. Angel suggests, is simplicity. There is a vast body of teachings and many complex practices, but at some point many of us will cry out for a straightforward practice. The causes of suffering may be complex, but the suffering itself, however painful, is quite simple. The antidotes of Lojong are as simple and immediate as suffering itself. Are we ready to come just as we are, simply and directly, to train our minds, without argument? The ability to directly transform the mind through the pithy slogans that Rev. Angel covers in this talk and in more detail in her two day program is one of the great secrets of Buddhism. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series:Training the Mind to Transform 2022

In the final portion of Love and Death: Opening the Great Gifts, Frank and Roshi have an extended conversation with program participants about their experiences of love, death, and grief. Frank assures us that when we lose a loved one, we are reconstituted, no longer the same person, and we can never go back, but out of our grief we can experience a new wholeness out of which we are more open and loving then we’ve ever been. Roshi Joan concludes the program with a poem from the great Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim written in the spirit of opening the gifts of love and death even in the most difficult of circumstances. Please note: due to a recording error there are brief audio issues in this part of Love and Death. Our apologies for any  inconvenience. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Love and Death 2022: Opening the Great Gifts

In part seven of Love and Death: Opening the Great Gifts, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax discuss grief as a natural response to both loss of what we’ve cherished and to what we’ve wanted but never gotten. Frank assures us that grief, when fully felt, is yet another face of love.We also hear a beautiful reading of a letter from the musician Nick Cave on grief, and Roshi and Frank share more of their favorite poetry centered on the transformative power of grieving loss. Please note: due to a recording error there are brief audio issues in this part of Love and Death. Our apologies for any  inconvenience. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: Love and Death 2022: Opening the Great Gifts

Sensei Matthew Kozan Palevsky gives the final Dharma talk of Upaya’s 2022 Fall Practice Period and sesshin. He discusses atoning and renewing vows on this last day of Ango during the ceremony of Fusatsu, and continuing to practice with sincerity, vitality, and love all the way through practice period, right up to the very last bell, and then continuing after that, without ceasing. That is the incredible opportunity we have been given: to practice every moment, before, after, and during sesshin, and when we realize that we’ve forgotten to practice, to practice right then as well. To access the resources page for this program, please sign up by clicking here. For Program/Series description and to access the entire series, please click on the link below: Upaya Podcast Series: SPRING PRACTICE PERIOD 2022: Cultivating the Empty Field