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Recorded: April 23rd, 2008
Speakers: Beate Seishin Stolte
Show: 78

Beate Seishin Stolte, Vice Abbot of Upaya Zen Center
Beate references several koans in this talk about the quality
of aliveness and how it is measured in degrees of awareness and awakeness.
Our aliveness arises in direct proportion to the quality of selflessness
or self-forgetting in us.

selflessness
koan

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Recorded: April 16th, 2008
Speakers: An Evening with Natalie Goldberg and Wendy Johnson
Show: 77

Authors and Zen practitioners, Natalie Goldberg and Wendy Johnson share stories and readings from their newly released books: Old Friend From Far Away and Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate, respectively. As the talk progresses we learn from the authors that the themes of the two books: writing memoir and gardening are not really what the books are about…

Natalie Goldberg
Wendy Johnson

Recorded: April 9th, 2008
Speakers: Joan Halifax
Show: 81

Vice Abbot Beate Seishin Stolte discusses the need to understand our fundamental loneliness in order to practice Zen. She emphasizes that we need to understand and practice the lineage of the ancestors which requires us to discover the true attitudes and vision of Zen practice.

Zen practice

Robina Courtin, a nun for the past 20 years in the Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhist tradition speaks on the roots of suffering as manifested by the delusional mind.

Robina contributes to our understanding of the characteristics and functions of the mind, with an emphasis on identifying and transforming the disturbing emotions and perceptions arising as a result of the mind’s tendency to embellish fact with delusional overlay. Robina illustrates some concepts by drawing from her work with the Liberation Prison project.

Marty Peale, longtime environmentalist and the first Upaya Zen Center resident uses the Valles Caldera National Preserve to illustrate and explore the interplay between human and natural systems.

Marty reflects upon themes of individuality, independence, interdependence, and the ramifications of our cultural assumptions of these terms to the sentient world.

Recorded October 31, 2007
with Stephen Batchelor

In this talk, Stephen Batchelor uses a poem from the Dhammapada to elucidate the correct relationship with the self; that the self is something to be cultivated, fashioned and carved like a field, an arrow, and a block of wood. Stephen challenges us to not fall into
the typical idea of the self as an illusion, but to recognize that it is the very thing we work with on the spiritual path. Quoting from the Buddha, he shares a story from the end of the Buddha’s life when he was asked whether there is or is not a self. The Buddha refuses to
answer either question. Stephen tries to answer both. Stephen Batchelor is a clear and lucid scholar speaking directly from the heart of his own deep practice; he shares with us some important tools for our own walk on the spiritual path.

Recorded October 10th, 2007
with Matt Flickstein

In this Dharma Talk, Matt Flickstein takes us through the Seven Stages of Purification according to the Theravaddin Tradition. He elucidates the spiritual path allowing us to see through the obscurations of the mind to our inherent freedom. The stages are like concentric circles as we weave through the stages daily and over time as we unfold and grow in the pratice. Matt lays out the map so we can track where we are in the process, beginning with the preliminary realizations that bring us to the beginning of a serious spiritual practice and moving through the seven stages of purification: purification of virtue, of mind, of view, by overcoming doubt, by knowledge of what is and what is not the path, by knowledge of the way, and by knowledge and vision.

Recorded: September 19, 2007
Speakers: Natalie Goldberg and Wendy Johnson

Natalie Goldberg and Wendy Johnson share this talk about being awake in the natural world and the role of structure in the awakening process.

Natalie discusses the essential relationship of the individual to structure in two beneficial ways: we need to either break open the structure to awaken or becoming completely intimate with the structure such that any separation dissolves.

Wendy then speaks about the interplay in the natural world of light and dark; of the earth being laid open at harvest time in order to rest and renew, of destruction and laying waste in the world and our imperative to rebuild upon a damaged surface. Works of literature and art are used to illustrate these themes and the audience is invited to a question and answer ending.

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Recorded August 15, 2007
Speaker: Irene Kyojo Bakker

Irene Kyojo Bakker speaks about the ways in which Zen ritual, liturgy and gestures serve to connect us to everything. How practice perfecting the craft of Zen creates skillful means through its emphasis on precision and gentleness, and dissolves the individual into a sangha body.

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Recorded August 8, 2007
Speaker: Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg, well known author and Dharma holder, tells us a real life story about her experience of an unusual fugue state and her inability to ‘resolve’ what happened to her.

She has been trying to write an essay about the experience but feels that her understanding of what happened is blocked. She asks the listeners to help her explore the story by choosing whatever she said that had ‘energy’ for them. She points out the connections between dreams, koans, and insights and emphasizes the embodying component of knowing deeply.

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