Summary: Episode Description: This Christmas Eve talk by Maia revolves around the question: "How do we let go of our attachment to outcome yet stay engaged?" Which can also be asked: "How do we stay engaged yet learn to let go?" Maia frames these questions as a koan to be worked with in our practice and lives. She explores a number of ways one might approach this koan. Her favorite of which is expressed by a line from the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. "Turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a massive fire." Bio: Maia was the director of Upaya's Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program from its inception in 2008 until 2014. Maia is an anthropologist, writer, and editor. In 2012, she received lay ordination from Roshi Joan Halifax as a lay Buddhist chaplain. She is also a student in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi, and has lived and practiced at the San Francisco Zen Center, where she received jukai from Victoria Shosan Austin in 2008. From 2004-2008, Maia worked at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship where she served as executive director and editor of Turning Wheel magazine. From 2002-2004, Maia was the research director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she led a study on the use of meditation and other contemplative practices in secular settings. She is the author of a number of articles on this topic, including "The Contemplative Organization," published in the Journal of Organizational Change Management. Maia's writing can be found on her blog, The Liberated Life Project. She is also the author of a blog on socially engaged Buddhism called The Jizo Chronicles.
