Upaya Zen Center’s Dharma Podcast
- Episodes
- 50
- Released
- daily
- Latest episode
- Nov 9, 2026
About the podcast
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.
License: Copyright 2006-2018, Upaya Zen Center. All rights reserved.
Episodes 50
Open Dharma: Nonviolence and Our Moral Imperative
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, given the night after the midterm elections, Roshi Joan Halifax speaks into a precarious moment in our national and global culture. Rights are under strain, immigrant …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, given the night after the midterm elections, Roshi Joan Halifax speaks into a precarious moment in our national and global culture. Rights are under strain, immigrant families live in fear, and the earth bears the cost of an economy built on extraction. She sees a nation at a crossroads, able to tip toward deeper harm or toward real healing. Relief, she warns…
The Proliferation of Stories
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Genryu Clayton Dalton explores papañca, the Pali term for the way the mind turns experience into ever-multiplying stories. Most of the time we don’t notice this happening. A …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Genryu Clayton Dalton explores papañca, the Pali term for the way the mind turns experience into ever-multiplying stories. Most of the time we don’t notice this happening. A narrative takes shape, and we accept it as simply the way things are. The Madhupindika Sutta, or Ball of Honey Sutra, points to this unchecked proliferation as the root of conflict.
The Measure of Our Humanity: FREEDOM
In this session of The Measure of Our Humanity, meditation teacher and author Jack Kornfield explores freedom as something already ours rather than a reward for spiritual effort. Many of us treat practice as a …
Show notes
In this session of The Measure of Our Humanity, meditation teacher and author Jack Kornfield explores freedom as something already ours rather than a reward for spiritual effort. Many of us treat practice as a self-improvement project, a dutiful effort to become better versions of ourselves. Yet beneath the shifting dramas of body, emotion, and thought lies a timeless awareness no circumstance can…
FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 6: When Boundlessness Makes a Seven-Pound Shirt
On the sixth and final day of the Fall Practice Period sesshin, Sensei Kathie Fischer takes up a koan in which a monk asks Zhao Zhou a sweeping question about oneness, only to hear about a shirt he once made …
Show notes
On the sixth and final day of the Fall Practice Period sesshin, Sensei Kathie Fischer takes up a koan in which a monk asks Zhao Zhou a sweeping question about oneness, only to hear about a shirt he once made. Kathie hears in that reply the meeting of form and emptiness: the one returns to the many, and the many are always particular. “We don’t live in generalizations,” she says. “We live in the…
FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 5: Letting Practice Be Ordinary
On the fifth day of the Fall Practice Period sesshin, Sensei Shinzan turns to an exchange between Zhao Zhou and his teacher, Nanquan. Shinzan reads the story as a gentle test of how deeply insight has settled …
Show notes
On the fifth day of the Fall Practice Period sesshin, Sensei Shinzan turns to an exchange between Zhao Zhou and his teacher, Nanquan. Shinzan reads the story as a gentle test of how deeply insight has settled into the body. Realizing that every activity is practice is not the same as expressing that realization through action. Insight becomes real only when it comes through naturally…
Zhao Zhou’s Instructions for Finding Our True Home
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, given on the fourth day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear explores how Zhao Zhou understands “leaving home.” For the Tang dynasty master …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, given on the fourth day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear explores how Zhao Zhou understands “leaving home.” For the Tang dynasty master the departure from home was never only about robes, shaved heads, or monastery walls. The deeper renunciation is of the dwelling we build in our minds: our fixed ideas…
FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 3: Unburdened Attention
In this Dharma talk, given on the third day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer offers gentle guidance on meeting thoughts in zazen. She invites us to sit like a grandmother …
Show notes
In this Dharma talk, given on the third day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer offers gentle guidance on meeting thoughts in zazen. She invites us to sit like a grandmother, with a wide lap for every rambunctious or troubled grandchild: the squirmy, the grumpy, the crying. We can sit with each one, seeing and loving, without getting caught up in their stories.
FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 2: Going Straight On
In this Dharma talk, given on the second full day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Shinzan returns to Zhao Zhou, the Tang dynasty master whose teachings have shaped this season of practice …
Show notes
In this Dharma talk, given on the second full day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Shinzan returns to Zhao Zhou, the Tang dynasty master whose teachings have shaped this season of practice. Through two of Zhao Zhou’s koans, he gently loosens our inclination to be critical of our own practice. In sesshin we may come face to face with our limitations and insecurities…
FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 1: Beyond Picking and Choosing
In this Dharma talk, given on the first full day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear turns to a poem echoed throughout the koans of Tang dynasty master Zhao Zhou. Reading Robert …
Show notes
In this Dharma talk, given on the first full day of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear turns to a poem echoed throughout the koans of Tang dynasty master Zhao Zhou. Reading Robert Olson’s translation of the well-known Xinxin Ming, or Mind of Absolute Trust, Cynthia shows how readily our likes and dislikes split the wholeness of experience. She reminds us how sesshin…
FPP 2026: The Buddha Before You (Part 5)
In this Zazenkai Dharma talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Shinzan explores confidence in practice through Zhaozhou’s first meeting with his teacher Nanquan. Asked whether he has seen the temple’s …
Show notes
In this Zazenkai Dharma talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Shinzan explores confidence in practice through Zhaozhou’s first meeting with his teacher Nanquan. Asked whether he has seen the temple’s standing Buddha—whether he has awakened—the young Zhaozhou replies that he sees a reclining Buddha, Nanquan himself, resting before him. For Sensei Shinzan, this exchange points to an…
FPP 2026: The Space All Around Thoughts (Part 3)
In this Zazenkai day Dharma talk, Sensei Kathie Fisher turns to several of Zhao Zhou’s understated koans as part of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period. She explores what Zhao Zhou’s teacher meant by “ordinary mind” …
Show notes
In this Zazenkai day Dharma talk, Sensei Kathie Fisher turns to several of Zhao Zhou’s understated koans as part of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period. She explores what Zhao Zhou’s teacher meant by “ordinary mind”: not the busy, problem-solving mind we are so familiar with, but the simple awareness in which all experience rests. “This is not in opposition to thoughts,” she says. “It is the space all…
FPP 2026: Introduction to the Text: Zhao Zhou’s Legacy and Teachings (Part 2)
In this introduction to the text during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Senseis Kathy Fisher, Cynthia Ryotan Kear, and Shinzan Palma open the recorded sayings of Zhao Zhou, the Tang dynasty master whose brief …
Show notes
In this introduction to the text during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Senseis Kathy Fisher, Cynthia Ryotan Kear, and Shinzan Palma open the recorded sayings of Zhao Zhou, the Tang dynasty master whose brief, disarming exchanges lie at the heart of many classic koans. The teachers offer a way of studying unlike the one most of us learned: not cramming for understanding, but letting these old…
Fall Practice Period 2026: The Teachings of Zen Master Zhao Zhou: Opening Session
In this opening session of the Fall Practice Period, Sensei Shinzan, Sensei Kathie Fisher, and Sensei Monshin invite participants to step out of ordinary life and into a shared rhythm of practice. For three …
Show notes
In this opening session of the Fall Practice Period, Sensei Shinzan, Sensei Kathie Fisher, and Sensei Monshin invite participants to step out of ordinary life and into a shared rhythm of practice. For three weeks, participants in person and online are encouraged to “be a monastic,” setting aside familiar routines and the mind’s constant busyness. Sensei Kathie calls it “the strangest of vacations,”…
Zen History: Informing our Practice and Lives Today
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer explores how Zhaozhou’s teachings invite the busy, generalizing mind to rest in the field of the senses. She …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Sokaku Kathie Fischer explores how Zhaozhou’s teachings invite the busy, generalizing mind to rest in the field of the senses. She notes that many koans pose a general question and receive a specific answer, and that this pattern points to practice itself. Thought deals in abstractions, while what we see, hear…
Ancestral Stories: A Dharma Gate of Intimacy with Our Lives
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear opens up the practice of koans as part of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period devoted to the Chinese master Zhao Zhou. She suggests that the longing that …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Cynthia Ryotan Kear opens up the practice of koans as part of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period devoted to the Chinese master Zhao Zhou. She suggests that the longing that drew practitioners to Zen in ancient China is the same one we carry today: the wish to stop observing our lives from a distance and to live them more intimately. “Thinking about our life is…
Zhao Zhou’s Mu: The Threshold of Everyday Practice
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Shinzan explores the famous koan “Mu” from Zhao Zhou (Joshu in Japanese), leading up to Upaya’s fall practice period devoted to the Chinese master’s teachings …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Shinzan explores the famous koan “Mu” from Zhao Zhou (Joshu in Japanese), leading up to Upaya’s fall practice period devoted to the Chinese master’s teachings. Shinzan sets the scene in Tang-dynasty China, where Chan practitioners turned away from dense scholasticism toward a direct, down-to-earth practice and introduces Zhao Zhou as a humble teacher who…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Keeping Close (Part 5B)
This is the second half of the closing session for the Love and Death series: Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on what it means to practice beyond our transactional habits. She points to awakening in the details of …
Show notes
This is the second half of the closing session for the Love and Death series: Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on what it means to practice beyond our transactional habits. She points to awakening in the details of everyday life and to presence as “being with, but not being hijacked by.” Drawing on her own recent brush with death, she names the realizations at the heart of love and death: there is no…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Keeping Close (Part 5A)
This is the first half of the closing session for the Love and Death series: Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on what it means to practice beyond our transactional habits. She points to awakening in the details of …
Show notes
This is the first half of the closing session for the Love and Death series: Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on what it means to practice beyond our transactional habits. She points to awakening in the details of everyday life and to presence as “being with, but not being hijacked by.” Drawing on her own recent brush with death, she names the realizations at the heart of love and death: there is no…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: The Law of Change and Becoming (Part 4)
In part four of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski brings death into the room through photographs of people he accompanied at the Zen Hospice Project. Inviting participants to keep half their attention …
Show notes
In part four of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski brings death into the room through photographs of people he accompanied at the Zen Hospice Project. Inviting participants to keep half their attention in the body, he asks them to notice what draws them in and what makes them pull away. Frank offers his insight on this practice: “I think what we’re seeing is our own hopes and fears.”…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Guided by Grief (Part 3B)
In this second half of part three of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski continues with Guest teacher Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks, a poet and former psychologist, who reads from his work on his husband’s …
Show notes
In this second half of part three of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski continues with Guest teacher Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks, a poet and former psychologist, who reads from his work on his husband’s recent death, and participants write an imagined dialogue with someone they have lost. At its heart, this session invites us to bring attention to grief and make space for it…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Guided by Grief (Part 3A)
This is the first half of part three of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski discusses grief as “the river running through our lives.” Recognizing that grief takes its own journey, sometimes meandering …
Show notes
This is the first half of part three of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski discusses grief as “the river running through our lives.” Recognizing that grief takes its own journey, sometimes meandering and sometimes pulling us under, he cautions against confusing the map with the territory, turning us toward grief itself rather than our frameworks for it. Frank describes grief as a path from…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Fearless Love (Part 2B)
This is the second half of part two of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the fearless nature of love, which meets loss without turning away. Frank presents the four …
Show notes
This is the second half of part two of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the fearless nature of love, which meets loss without turning away. Frank presents the four Brahmaviharas (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity) as the “four flavors of love”. He distinguishes them from their near enemies, which imitate them: attachment, pity…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Fearless Love (Part 2A)
This is the first half of part two of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the fearless nature of love, which meets loss without turning away. Frank presents the four …
Show notes
This is the first half of part two of the Love and Death series, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the fearless nature of love, which meets loss without turning away. Frank presents the four Brahmaviharas (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity) as the “four flavors of love”. He distinguishes them from their near enemies, which imitate them: attachment, pity…
LOVE and DEATH 2026: Opening the Great Gifts : Opening Session (Part 1)
In this opening session of Love and Death, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski return to the line that anchors this annual series: “Love and death are the great gifts that are given to us. Mostly, they are …
Show notes
In this opening session of Love and Death, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski return to the line that anchors this annual series: “Love and death are the great gifts that are given to us. Mostly, they are passed on unopened.” Roshi Joan grounds her introduction in zengi, or undivided activity, inviting participants to acknowledge the loves, losses, and illnesses they carry and revealing our…
Ordinary Mind is the Way
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks explores a simple and radical teaching: our ordinary experience is itself the awakened way. By ordinary, he means not our passing thoughts but the …
Show notes
In this Wednesday night Dharma talk, Sensei Koshin Flint Sparks explores a simple and radical teaching: our ordinary experience is itself the awakened way. By ordinary, he means not our passing thoughts but the unmanipulated mind that holds them. Many of us come to practice believing that awakening lies somewhere else, in a later time, a better state, or in exceptional people unlike ourselves.
The Measure of Our Humanity: BELONGING
In this session of the ongoing series, The Measure of Our Humanity, Frank Ostaseski along side Roshi Joan explores what it means to truly belong—not as something earned or arrived at, but as a truth we forget …
Show notes
In this session of the ongoing series, The Measure of Our Humanity, Frank Ostaseski along side Roshi Joan explores what it means to truly belong—not as something earned or arrived at, but as a truth we forget and remember. Frank begins with Sivananda’s teaching that the body is our first home and the ground of belonging, then turns to Tara Brach and John O’Donohue on how we grow estranged from our…
Being real
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Frank Ostaseski traces what he learned sitting at the bedside of thousands of dying people: “to sit next to people and not mess with them. Not try and help them have some …
Show notes
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Frank Ostaseski traces what he learned sitting at the bedside of thousands of dying people: “to sit next to people and not mess with them. Not try and help them have some experience, or meet someone else’s agenda, including their own. Just sit with them.” That same quality of presence, he suggests, is what it means to ‘be real’ — an alignment with reality…
Grace in Prison
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Dainin describes bringing Roshi Joan’s G.R.A.C.E. compassion training into New Mexico’s prison system. Working previously with the correctional cadets, and now with …
Show notes
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Dainin describes bringing Roshi Joan’s G.R.A.C.E. compassion training into New Mexico’s prison system. Working previously with the correctional cadets, and now with men who are incarcerated, Dainin names how the system pushes both groups into opposition, each side dehumanizing the other by default. Looking for guidance on how to serve well in that…
The Measure of Our Humanity: POSSIBILITY
This session of The Measure of Our Humanity series opens with Roshi Joan Halifax‘s welcome and a grounding meditation led by Dainin, before writer and activist Rebecca Solnit takes the floor. Rebecca nurtures …
Show notes
This session of The Measure of Our Humanity series opens with Roshi Joan Halifax‘s welcome and a grounding meditation led by Dainin, before writer and activist Rebecca Solnit takes the floor. Rebecca nurtures in us the view of possibility, offering it as a path through the false comforts of both optimism and despair. Moving between a 10th-century Zen koan, the deep time of ancient trees…
The Open Gate
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Fushin turns to the first two folds of the Eightfold Path—right view and right intention—the wisdom from which the rest of the path grows. Right view, he suggests, is …
Show notes
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Fushin turns to the first two folds of the Eightfold Path—right view and right intention—the wisdom from which the rest of the path grows. Right view, he suggests, is not a belief we acquire but seeing what is actually here, before we add our story about it. “The eye opens. The heart leans,” he says — one sees, one moves, and they are not two.
These are the latest 40 of 50 episodes. You’ll find older episodes in the podcast’s feed.
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