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 lives and notes from surgeon Paul Brand’s work with leprosy patients, “it’s hard to care for what you can’t feel.” This turns into a broader inquiry about what we allow ourselves to feel or what we may avoid feeling. The shared roots of sutra and suture—“to sew together”—anchor her critique of the Ideology of Isolation and frame her call for relational responsibility. Citing Bell Hooks’ insight that “the first violence patriarchy commits is against men,” Solnit argues that disconnection is culturally produced. She closes with a mention of the community safety patrols in North Carolina, where neighbors gather nightly to protect immigrants: a living example of what feeling-for and acting-with can look like.

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 wishing things were different. Even seemingly innocent ideas like improving a cloudy day with a little sunshine are challenged. She reads, “It does not seem like such a terrible thing to wish for a little sunlight, but this precept is gently indicating a way of being upright that is so much more at peace—so much at peace that you’re free of the impulse to bring something in. You don’t reach for anything. You’re content with the gray sky.” This radical practice of not reaching for anything connects with gratitude and acceptance as well as a natural resistance to our culture of consumption. From this arises the liberating alternative: to be genuinely nourished by what we already have.

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, Kodo describes zazen as an “enactment and expression of awakened awareness,” suggesting that wholehearted zazen might be a ritual expression of—rather than a method for achieving—the four great bodhisattva vows, or more simply, our vow to awaken.
Kodo also explores the four perfections of Buddha nature through self-annihilating paradoxes that resist easy understanding. How can something be eternal if it’s impermanent? What is intimacy when there’s no separate self? Sharing that giant sequoia seeds must be burned before they can sprout, Kodo reflects: “That to me is that expression of life within the destruction… the lotus blooming on a sea of fire.”
The talk moves between observation and inquiry, closing with a poem by Ryokan: “The moon in the water. You try to scoop it up, your hands are wet. That is all.”

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 wisdom within. “It is really important to know who your core community is inside,” he taught, “just like we do externally with Sangha.” Reflecting on her own practice of healing, Valerie describes a moment of self-compassion when she wrapped her arms around herself and said, “I’m going to be with you. You are totally safe.” The talk closes with Ward’s encouragement: “A full and open heart of just one person is enough to change the world.”

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, drinking coffee—as ways to stay connected to practice. Senko invites us toward creative, courageous presence and invokes Bernie Glassman’s insight that “the thing we have in common is our difference.” He calls us to bear witness to all of life, meeting each moment without shrinking from discomfort or difference. Sensei Monshin reminds us that sincere action, however small, can spark transformation in ways we cannot foresee. Together, their teachings bridge sesshin’s stillness to the busy, conventional world awaiting our return.
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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. From the tireless flight of hummingbirds to Lingzhao’s “neither difficult nor easy,” Monshin reveals how effort arises freely when it’s not driven by comparison or grasping. Drawing on Dogen’s teaching that “realization is effort without desire,” she describes practice as a vast call and response with all beings—where “your effort calls forth what is already given,” and even the grass, trees, and walls radiate the light of awakening.
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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 our true selves. “After all this,” he says, “we are normal. We weren’t normal when we came in.” The talk moves between humor and depth as Senko shares two koans of Xiangyan: his awakening to the sound of a tile striking bamboo, and his later response to a student after that awakening—“A dragon is singing in a withered tree.” In both koans, Senko suggests, the ‘sound’ of awakening cannot be held (or heard), only lived through our own practice within our own life.
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In Day two of the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kathie Fischer likens sesshin to an artist’s colony where each practitioner’s work unfolds through the act of doing itself. “Each of us is unique,” she says, “and therefore we express ourselves in this practice uniquely,” yet we also “fiercely protect the quiet space and resources we share.” She speaks of forms—silence, stillness, attention—not as restrictions but as supports for our genuine expression. When restlessness or pain arises, the instruction is simple: stay with it, breathe, and trust the process. Fischer weaves this with Dogen’s teaching that realization isn’t elsewhere or later: “Practice of the present moment is practice-realization.” What appears ordinary—this sitting, this breath—is the full expression of awakening itself.
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk and Day 4 of Upaya’s Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kathie Fischer brings our attention to resonance—the way one vibration awakens or encourages another. Drawing from physics, poetry, and the words of the ancestors, she invites us to hear the dharma not as explanation but the vibration of practice itself.  She reminds us, “Do not be concerned with the splendor of the words” but instead use words and teachings to “put us into the territory” of practice. Always encouraging direct experience Kathie offers a profound question: “We long for peace, our hearts ache with this longing. This is our resonance with the suffering of so-called others… I am wondering, is this where we generate our concept of the future? Projecting our heartache for the vision of the future?”
A gentle pointer to the real ground of practice and the living reality of our non-separate nature.
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In this morning talk on the first full day of the Fall Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Shinzan draws from Dōgen’s Bendōwa (“The Wholehearted Way”) to remind us that zazen itself is the true gate of the Buddha Dharma. With warmth and humor, he encourages practitioners to release striving and self-judgment, saying, “Sesshin is not for making decisions or planning your life. It’s for trusting the process and letting go.” As we surrender the impulse to control or achieve, we allow the practice to reveal its own quiet wisdom. “You are already Buddha,” Shinzan reminds us, pointing to the natural awakening that unfolds when we sit wholeheartedly—moment by moment, breath by breath—entering the wondrous dharma through the true gate.
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In this opening session of Upaya’s 2025 Fall Pratice Period Sesshin, four teachers—Sensei Kathie Fischer, Sensei Shinzan (joining remotely from San Diego), Sensei Monshin, and Hoshi Senko—welcome participants into the stillness and rhythm of this week-long meditation retreat. They offer encouragement and practical guidance for entering sesshin as a space of deep care and transformation. Sensei Kathie likens sesshin to a chrysalis, a protected container where we can safely dissolve old forms and allow something new to emerge. She reminds us of the quiet intimacy of silence, the tenderness of shared vulnerability, and the simple act of following the bell. Sensei Shinzan speaks of letting go of control—of plans, decisions, and self-concern—to rediscover the freedom of simply being present. Together, the teachers invite us to trust the process of sesshin: to meet our emotions with gentleness, care for one another as we would a fragile wing, and allow transformation to unfold naturally in its own time.
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In this Zazenkai Day Talk during Fall Practice Period, Chris Senko Perez reflects on Dōgen’s Genjō Kōan through his image of sailing far out to sea, where the ocean appears perfectly round. Dōgen comments on this imagery, “When Dharma fills your whole body and mind. You understand that something is missing.” Senko explores this paradox—how true fullness awakens an awareness of vastness still unseen. As practice ripens and familiarity sets in, complacency can create what Senko calls “a thin layer of non-contact,” a subtle barrier between ourselves and the living moment. His encouragement: return to the heart of our intention, to the freshness of not knowing. “You have no idea the depth of what’s here,” he reminds us. Senko invites us to rest in this mystery with “warmth and precision” asking “Why are you actually here? Why are you actually doing this?” opening us to a relaxed attentiveness where the ordinary reveals its quiet profundity—“the present moment becoming the present moment”.
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In this Fall Practice Period session, Senseis Kathie, Monshin, and Shinzan, with reflections from Hoshi Senko, open the study of Dogen’s Bendowa and Genjokoan. They invite participants to encounter Dogen not as a distant master to be analyzed but as a living companion in practice. “The zazen of even one person at one moment,” reads Sensei Monshin, “imperceptibly accords with all things and resonates through all time,” illustrating Dogen’s vision of practice and enlightenment as one. Sensei Shinzan reminds listeners, “It is right here… it’s happening,” while Sensei Kathie speaks of the “dynamic center” of the Middle Way and the spaciousness of beginner’s mind. With warmth and humor, the teachers guide students to slow down, trust the body, and let Dogen’s teachings come alive in everyday experience.
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In this Zazenkai Day talk during Upaya’s Fall Practice Period, Sensei Kathie Fischer offers her reflections on the simplicity and depth of Zen practice. She begins by exploring the role of language in understanding Zen, noting that “the purpose of a word is to create a boundary.” Kathie reflects on our intellectual and creative tendency to collect, compare, and update expressions of practice or enlightenment over time—sharing her curiosity for the word actualizing, —yet reminding us that “thinking and conceptualizing are actually outside the boundary that actualizing conveys.”
Kathie emphasizes that we cannot capture this practice through words alone; instead, these great questions must be lived and explored through our own bodies. In the end, Kathie, like Dōgen, points us toward the practice of shikantaza—“just sitting”—as the way to embody our pursuit of awakening. Her talk offers a timely reminder that our practice is our own, and that reading, analyzing, or striving for understanding can sometimes distract us from the simple act of being present.
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Senseis Monshin, Kathie Fischer, and Shinzan, together with Hoshi Senko, open Upaya’s Fall Practice Period by welcoming participants from around the world into a month of deep study of Dogen’s Genjokoan. “To study the way is to study the self,” Monshin reminds us, as the teachers reflect on beginning again, letting go of comparison, and trusting the unfolding of practice. With warmth, humor, and reverence, they invite practitioners to move with ease, rest in presence, and allow the forms to reveal their quiet magic. As residents and Cloud Sangha sign the opening scroll, a shared vow takes shape—an ancient rhythm renewed: do not squander your life.
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In this talk from Upaya’s Awareness and Action series, Dr. Guo Gu, founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center, explores Embodiment and Engaged Practice—how awakening through the body becomes the ground for compassionate action in the world. “This body is what we have to work with,” he says. “It is the tool, it is this moment.” Through guided meditation and passionate teaching, Guo Gu reframes emptiness as “freshness, connection, new beginnings,” showing that when we return to embodied awareness, compassion arises naturally and action becomes effortless. Drawing on both ancient sutras and lived experience, he emphasizes that “everything is workable” when practice is rooted in presence. Grounded, humorous, and deeply practical, Guo Gu invites practitioners to rediscover the immediacy of awakening—right here, through this very body.
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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk during Fall Practice Period at Upaya, Sensei Monshin explores the meaning of dharma position. Building from Dogen’s Genjokoan, she explains dharma position as an expression of the inseparability of self and reality—“this intersection of the individual and universal.” Each being, she reminds us, is perfectly situated where it is; practice does not move us toward awakening but reveals that we are already dwelling within it. Quoting Dogen, “Each thing, when it’s completely and fully what it is, manifests the absolute,” Monshin invites us to consider how practice unfolds through alignment with this inherent fullness. We are encouraged to embody our own dharma position by participating fully in the dynamic functioning of the world—to stop and rest within the living moment of arising and passing. In this view, practice is the continuous realization of action, aliveness, and belonging.

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk during the Fall Practice Period, Sensei Shinzan turns to Dōgen’s Genjō Kōan, drawing on the  image of a monkey grasping at the moon’s reflection to reveal how our search for enlightenment often obscures what is really there. “You want to see who is awake or who is enlightened? Just watch how they live their lives,” he says, reminding us that realization is expressed through embodied action rather than social or material achievement. Quoting Dōgen, “Enlightenment does not disturb the person, just as the moon does not disturb the water,” Shinzan points to awakening as inseparable from daily life—reflected in each moment, whether washing a bowl, placing shoes at the zendo door, or meeting one another fully awake.

In this Way-Seeking Mind Dharma Talk, resident Tuck Butsumon Stibich offers a moving reflection on his path from intellectual inquiry to embodied Zen practice. Raised in Dayton, Ohio, in a family grounded in both mathematics and Catholic faith, Stibich’s curiosity about the world was nurtured by moments of wonder in nature and study abroad. His life’s arc carried him through Peace Corps service in Mongolia, graduate work in public health, and entrepreneurship before profound loss reshaped everything: his wife Julie’s death from glioblastoma and his own cancer diagnosis. Julie’s fearlessness in facing death, he shared, opened a space of deep connection—“she wasn’t afraid and she wasn’t angry… we ended up just connecting in this amazing, deep way.” Finding refuge at Upaya, Stibich discovered practice as presence rather than expertise, opening the gate for himself, and others through compassion and attentive presence.

In this session of Upaya’s Awareness in Action series, Bhikkhu Bodhi offers a penetrating teaching on discernment as the heart of engaged Buddhism in times of crisis. He reflects on his journey from 1960s activism, through decades of monastic practice in Sri Lanka, and back into the realm of social engagement, emphasizing that “Buddhism must not remain cloistered within meditation halls; it must speak to the burning issues of our age.” Drawing on his founding of Buddhist Global Relief, Bodhi critiques “a world where almost everything—land, water, even human relationships—has been turned into commodities for profit.” He exposes how “corporate, political, and media power weave together to entrench inequality and stifle compassion,” while urging practitioners to resist despair. Against this tide, he calls for “conscientious compassion,” an ethic of active responsibility for one another and the planet. “We have to discover what is true,” he says, “even at the cost of our comfort.”
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