Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Measure of Our Humanity: FREEDOM Nov 01, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 6: When Boundlessness Makes a Seven-Pound Shirt Nov 01, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 5: Letting Practice Be Ordinary Nov 01, 2026

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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…

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Zhao Zhou’s Instructions for Finding Our True Home Oct 26, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 3: Unburdened Attention Oct 25, 2026

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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.

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FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 2: Going Straight On Oct 25, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026 Sesshin Day 1: Beyond Picking and Choosing Oct 25, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026: The Buddha Before You (Part 5) Oct 25, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026: The Space All Around Thoughts (Part 3) Oct 25, 2026

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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…

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FPP 2026: Introduction to the Text: Zhao Zhou’s Legacy and Teachings (Part 2) Oct 25, 2026

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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…

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