

Upaya Zen Center's Dharma Podcast
Joan Halifax | Zen Buddhist Teacher Upaya Abbot
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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 3, 2025 • 1h 39min
Awareness In Action: Discernment with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (Part 12 – September)
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…
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Oct 2, 2025 • 1h 7min
Love and Death 2025: Photos at the Threshold (Part 4)
In Part 4 of Upaya’s Love and Death program, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan invite participants to “bring death into the room” through a mindfulness practice with photographs of people who stepped through the threshold of life. This practice asks us to directly face mortality and how our bodies, hearts, and minds respond to it—what draws us in and what makes us turn away? Through vivid stories of…
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Oct 2, 2025 • 48min
Love and Death 2025: The Sovereignty of Solitude (Part 3B)
This is the 2nd half of … part 3 of Upaya’s Love and Death program, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the tension between belonging and accommodation. Through personal stories of illness, recovery, and care, they show how dignity in receiving and offering support deepens our understanding of love. Frank distinguishes authentic belonging—our birthright of interconnection—from the self…
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Oct 2, 2025 • 51min
Love and Death 2025: The Sovereignty of Solitude (Part 3A)
In Part 3 of Upaya’s Love and Death program, Frank Ostaseski and Roshi Joan Halifax explore the tension between belonging and accommodation. Through personal stories of illness, recovery, and care, they show how dignity in receiving and offering support deepens our understanding of love. Frank distinguishes authentic belonging—our birthright of interconnection—from the self-abandonment of…
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Oct 2, 2025 • 1h 4min
Love and Death 2025: Four Flavors of Fearless Love (Part 2B)
This is the 2nd half of … part two of Upaya’s Love and Death weekend program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski deepened the exploration of how personal love can open into universal compassion. Framed by the bodhisattva path, Roshi Joan recounted Thich Nhat Hanh’s story of youthful love for a nun, which he transmuted into service for a suffering Vietnam: “She represented everything I loved…
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Oct 2, 2025 • 49min
Love and Death 2025: Four Flavors of Fearless Love (Part 2A)
In part two of Upaya’s Love and Death weekend program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski deepened the exploration of how personal love can open into universal compassion. Framed by the bodhisattva path, Roshi Joan recounted Thich Nhat Hanh’s story of youthful love for a nun, which he transmuted into service for a suffering Vietnam: “She represented everything I loved…
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Oct 2, 2025 • 1h 3min
Love and Death 2025: Opening the Great Gifts: Opening Session (Part 1)
In the opening session (part 1) of Love and Death, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski welcomed more than 1,300 participants into a shared inquiry of love and mortality. Framed by Rainer Maria Rilke’s insight that “Love and death are the great gifts that are given to us. Mostly they are passed on unopened,” the dialogue explores how dying strips away pretense, dissolves stories…
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Sep 29, 2025 • 49min
The Ultimate Inspiration: The Lion’s Roar of Queen Srimala
In this intriguing Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Kodo inspires us with the lion’s roar of Queen Srimala. Beginning with reflections on how motivations and intentions consciously and unconsciously impact behavior, Kodo guides us into the surprising and unexpected teachings of Queen Srimala. Counter to common cultural conceptions of Buddhism, Queen Śrīmālā proclaims the four shining qualities…
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Sep 22, 2025 • 1h 33min
Awareness In Action: Nonviolence with Father John Dear (Part 11 – September)
In this timely session of Awareness in Action, Father John Dear confronts the urgency of our times with an echo from Martin Luther King Jr.: “The choice is no longer violence or non-violence… It’s non-violence or non-existence.” Rooted in Gandhi’s teaching that “nonviolence is the highest form of human consciousness,” Father John presents nonviolence not as passivity but as the already existing…
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Sep 22, 2025 • 53min
Life, Death, and Freedom
In this unique Wednesday Night Dharma Talk before the upcoming Love and Death program, Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski engage in an open dialogue on Life, Death, and Freedom. Departing from scripted teachings, the evening unfolds through participant questions that touch the raw edges of grief, love, and mortality. Roshi Joan frames grief as “unmediated access to truth…
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