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The Upaya Dharma Podcast features Wednesday evening Dharma Talks and recordings from Upaya’s diverse array of programs. Our podcasts exemplify Upaya’s focus on socially engaged Buddhism, including prison work, end-of-life care, serving the homeless, training in socially engaged practices, peace & nonviolence, compassionate care training, and delivering healthcare in the Himalayas.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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In this session of Awareness in Action, spiritual teacher, psychologist, and author Tara Brach begins by acknowledging the profound pressures in our society and the importance of building solidarity in these times. She frames her exploration around the question of what it means to “keep choosing love.” Drawing on Father Gregory Boyle’s work with LA gangs, Tara highlights two unwavering principles…
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This is the 2nd half of the closing session of the Awakened Action series begins with Christiana Figueres joining from Costa Rica, fresh from COP30 in Berlin. She shares her striking observation of “three realities” at the climate conference: the scientific urgency, governmental paralysis, and 50,000 activists accelerating change. Christiana emphasizes the fundamental importance of choice—between…
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This is the 1st half of the closing session of the Awakened Action series begins with Christiana Figueres joining from Costa Rica, fresh from COP30 in Berlin. She shares her striking observation of “three realities” at the climate conference: the scientific urgency, governmental paralysis, and 50,000 activists accelerating change. Christiana emphasizes the fundamental importance of choice—between…
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In the sixth session of Awareness in Action, Christiana Figueres discusses Brazil’s Climate Conference, reflecting on our collective anxiety about present conditions and future uncertainties. She emphasizes that “the future is not waiting for us. The future is being shaped right now, every day, in the choices we make.” Drawing on Buddhist teachings of impermanence and interbeing…
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In the fifth talk of the Awakened Action series, Rebecca Solnit invites participants to name acts of moral beauty—from tribal leaders honoring Japanese American internment survivors to the Rainbow Defense Coalition protecting LGBTQ+ events. Rebecca reflects on falling into depression amid political darkness, emphasizing that the long view of history offers an antidote to despair.
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In the fourth session of the Awakened Action series, Terry Tempest Williams shares the quiet, touching story she “could never write”—the killing of Harvard Divinity School’s beloved 200-year-old red oak in 2019. Sleeping beside the tree the night before its death, she received its transmission: “My absence will be my presence…this is transformation.” Witnessing its four-hour dismantling while…
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In part three of the Awakened Action series, Roshi Joan Halifax invites participants to imagine the world in 20 years, revealing how we’re often “living in dread” rather than envisioning liberating possibilities. She distinguishes between liberating imagination—”the capacity to be with what is possible, even inside seeming impossibility, and to respond in an unprescribed way”—and toxic imagination…
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In this second session of Awakened Action, Valerie Brown explores where we encounter the charnel grounds—a Buddhist metaphor for places where deep suffering is present, including in our own minds. Valerie shares her own charnel ground: the dismantling of civil rights in America and invites participants to name their own charnel grounds within and outside themselves. She weaves together teachings…
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The opening session of Awakened Action lead by Roshi Joan, Rebecca Solnit, Valerie Brown, and Terry Tempest Williams, participants are invited to explore how futures are shaped through attention, relationship, and imagination. The teachers emphasized that “place is so important,” grounding the gathering in the land, labor, and layered histories that make the present moment possible.
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Roshi Joan Halifax, joined by Senseis Kodo and Dainin, reflects on how Thanksgiving is both a time of festivity and a day of mourning for Native peoples. She raises this not to “send us down,” but to remind us not to turn away from the truth of suffering. Roshi moves through stories from her life, gathering us close to the heart of practice through moments of…
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Rebecca Solnit explores empathy as an act of imagination—the capacity to feel beyond the boundaries of one’s own body. She begins with Roshi Joan’s distinction between empathy as “feeling into another” and compassion as “[empathy] accompanied by the aspiration to take action.” Rebecca considers how our inner capacities to both care and act shape our public…
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Monshin explores what it means to be truly nourished. While attending to a full day of cooking chiles rellenos, Monshin opened to how her ingredients might bring health to her body and her practice. In discussing the fifth precept as it relates to spiritual nourishment, Sensei Monshin challenges us to find contentment with life exactly as it is—without…
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, delivered under the largest supermoon in two years, Sensei Kodo reflects on fusatsu—the full moon ceremony of vow renewal—his own marriage vows, and the absence of regular ceremony in our lives. He notes how ceremony awakens in us something our culture has largely forgotten: “We hunger for ritual.” Drawing on Taigen Leighton’s essay from the book Zen Ritual…
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Valerie Brown honors the life and legacy of Dr. Larry Ward, a pioneering African-American Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition. Valerie recounts Larry’s journey from his Baptist roots to his work with Thich Nhat Hanh and his creation of the first BIPOC retreat in North America, and shares his teaching on the “inner sangha”—a community of compassion and…
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On the closing day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kathy, Hoshi Senko, and Sensei Monshin offer an integrated reflection on continuing practice beyond the zendo. Sensei Kathy grounds us in the body, reminding us that awareness can arise anywhere—and that mind and mood are contingent, not fixed. She encourages returning to simple acts of life—walking, breathing…
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In this Day five talk during the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Monshin weaves together stories of generosity, effort, and hummingbirds to explore “effort without desire”—the natural, uncalculated movement of life giving to life. Beginning with the question of “deserving” in the meal chant, she challenges the logic of worthiness and turns us instead toward reciprocity and appreciation.
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On Day three of the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Hoshi Senko begins with Suzuki Roshi’s simple reminder: “Appreciate your life.” Senko describes sesshin as a means for this, saying sesshin is “a kind of resensitizing to our lives, a coming back into that kind of intimate contact with our lived experience.” Through the quiet repetition of meals, sitting, and silence of sesshin we relearn how to be…
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and you called this Buddhist , so disappointing
Thank you. I listened to this episode after listening to podcast History On Fire about Ikkyu Sojun. Having run into sexism in some Buddhist communities in the US I was becoming confused about how to navigate it. I have a better understanding now.🙏
The addictions of multitasking and solving "problems" is something I can relate to. Been working on this for a while now and making headway, but this talk was very helpful. Being aware that this is a thing for others in a more deeper sense than just intellectually helps me give myself permission to let go. Gratefully 🙏