Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Running Into Time Aug 10, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, given on the eve of Hiroshima’s anniversary, Sensei Kodo sits with how easily the mind justifies what it later regrets: “It’s very disturbing, isn’t it?… The beauty of science and of discovering truth and of imagining realities that we just can’t conceive, then being co-opted by just the greed, hatred, and delusion of our minds.” Kodo turns to Einstein’s…

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A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Spirituality and Governance Aug 03, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Roshi Norma Wong, a Zen priest of Native Hawaiian and Hakka Chinese descent, offers a Zen and indigenous perspective on spirituality and governance. Norma grounds the talk in an unbroken relationship to place and lineage, opening with the Hawaiian chant E Ho Mai, calling in the ancestors and declaring: “There is no human on the face of the Earth who was not…

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The Measure of Our Humanity: WISDOM Jul 27, 2026

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In this session of The Measure of Our Humanity series, Roshi Joan Halifax opens with a guided meditation grounded in stability, breath, and the bodhisattva’s aspiration to meet suffering with mercy and care, before introducing Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi. In the main session, Bhikkhu Bodhi explores what he calls the “world-sustaining Dharma” — the moral order that Buddhist teaching asks us to bring…

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Open Dharma: Taking Refuge in Community Jul 27, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Senseis Kodo and Dainin join Roshi Joan Halifax as she explores what it means to live and take refuge in spiritual community. Drawing on decades of building and residing in community herself, she traces valences of the three jewels — Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha — to their most human dimensions. Refuge, she suggests, is not rest in the ideal alone…

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Caught in the Self-Centered Dream Jul 20, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Koshin Flint Sparks takes up an old question posed to the Buddha’s disciple Mahakaccana: what drives our conflicts? Mahakaccana answers that conflict arises from our attachment, adherence, fixation, addiction, obsession, and holding firm to our personal views and pleasures. Koshin answers the same question, borrowing language from Joko Beck’s four-line practice…

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The Transformative Power of Suffering: Finding an Appropriate Response Jul 13, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Genryu Clayton Dalton — emergency physician and novice priest — draws on stories from his hospital work to explore how we can meet suffering without turning away from it. Memories of long-ago encounters in the ER, returned to and turned over again, have become a kind of teacher: moments of violence, grief, and quiet tenderness witnessed at the bedside…

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Breathe with Your Ears Jul 06, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Butsumon Tuck Stibich describes teaching the GRACE program — Roshi Joan’s framework for compassionate action — to a class of cadets training as correctional officers. Butsumon admits to having judgments and expectations going into the training, and his surprise when cadets explained their reasons for being there: faith, family, and a wish to give others the…

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Appreciate Your Life: Reflections on Interbeing Jun 29, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of her twin sister Ellie’s passing, novice priest Jimon Lorene Flaming tenderly opens the bittersweet space of her sister’s life and death. Jimon traces Ellie’s path — a woman who lived entirely on her own terms, spending her life in nature, deeply embodied, trusting the flow of life — and the shock of losing not…

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The Raft and the Shore Jun 22, 2026

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Fushin takes us through the currents of the Buddha’s raft metaphor — where practice becomes binding together grass, twigs, and branches to cross from a shore that is dangerous and fearful to one that is safe. Drawing on Dogen’s Uji (Being-Time), Fushin challenges the notion of completion, suggesting there is actually no shore to rest on: “There’s no…

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Planting Life 2026: Corn, Culture, and the Living Stars (Part 6b) Jun 17, 2026

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In the 1st part of this closing session of Planting Life, Alonso Mendez — archaeoastronomer, artist, and farmer — opens a window into the ancient Maya wisdom of corn and cosmos. Drawing on twenty years of research at Palenque and recent discoveries still unpublished, Alonso traces the deep roots of a civilization shaped by maize. Our teeth, he observes, are corn seeds — teeth surviving centuries…

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