B. Alan Wallace - Settling The Mind In Its Natural State Series : All 8 Parts

 

From Upaya Zen Center, this is an 8-part series of podcasts featuring B Alan Wallace, one of the foremost scholars of Tibetan Buddhism. The series of talks is focused on the meditative practice of “settling the mind in its natural state,” which is foundational for both the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. These practices are centrally focused on realizing the nature of consciousness, occupying a middle space between shamatha (the cultivation of highly focused attention) and vipashyana (the cultivation of contemplative insight). "Settling the mind" consists essentially in focusing single-pointedly on the space of the mind and on whatever thoughts, images, and other mental events arise within that field of experience.

Enjoy!

Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 1)

By Dharma Podcasts on May 29, 2014

Speaker: B. Alan Wallace
Recorded: Friday May 2, 2014

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Series Description: The meditative practice of “settling the mind in its natural state” is foundational for both the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, which are centrally focused on realizing the nature of consciousness. This practice lies right at the cusp between shamatha (the cultivation of highly focused attention) and vipashyana (the cultivation of contemplative insight). It consists essentially of focusing single-pointedly on the space of the mind and on whatever thoughts, images, and other mental events arise within that field of experience. The quality of mindfulness cultivated in this practice is focused, spacious, discerning, and non-reactive. Through such practice, the activities of the mind gradually subside so that the mind comes to settle in its “natural state,” which manifests three core qualities: bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality. We explore this practice with teachings and commentary from B. Alan Wallace, as well as experientially through guided meditations and daily group practice.

Episode Description: In this first session of the program, Alan introduces participants to the practice of “settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural states” through a guided meditation. He then discusses his views of what “practicing Dharma” and being “on a path” to liberation mean in terms of a long-term spiritual aspiration. He also touches briefly upon the idea of continuity of consciousness. Finally, Alan introduces and delves into the root text from which he will teach during the program: Taking Aspects of the Mind as the Path, from the Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra, by Dzogchen master Dudjom Lingpa (19th C).

B. Alan Wallace began his studies of Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture in 1970 at the University of Göttingen in Germany and then continued his studies over the next fourteen years in India, Switzerland, and the United States. Ordained as a Buddhist monk by H. H. the Dalai Lama in 1975, he has taught Buddhist meditation and philosophy worldwide since 1976 and has served as interpreter for numerous Tibetan scholars and contemplatives, including the Dalai Lama. After graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied physics and the philosophy of science, he returned his monastic vows and went on to earn his Ph.D. in religious studies at Stanford University. He then taught for four years in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and is now the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. He has edited, translated, authored, and contributed to more than thirty books on Tibetan Buddhism, medicine, language, and culture, and the interface between science and religion.”

Here are the rest of the episodes in this series.

• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 2a)
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 2b)
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 3a)
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 3b)
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 4)
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 5a)
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State (Part 5b, last part)

Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (12 Parts)

It's my favorite time of year - the annual Zen Brain Conference at Upaya Zen Center, hosted as always by Roshi Joan Halifax. Among the regular attendees who were there again this year were Richard Davidson, Evan Thompson, Al Kaszniak, and John Dunne.

This year's topic was Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation.

In this intensive program, we explore our lived experience of awareness in relation to our living bodies and brains seen as complex adaptive systems. We focus especially on the themes of “embodied cognition,” “emergent processes,” and “enaction” (cognition as embodied action). Neuroscientists, philosophers, Buddhist scholars, and Zen teachers explore these themes through presentations and discussion interspersed with periods of meditation practice throughout each day.

This is the kind of stuff I get excited about - so I look forward to listening to all of these.

01-30-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 1)

By Dharma Podcasts on February 13, 2014

Speakers: Richard Davidson & Evan Thompson & John Dunne & Neil Theise & Rebecca Todd & Al Kaszniak & Roshi Joan Halifax

Recorded: Thursday Jan 30, 2014

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Series Description: Increasingly, cognitive science presents us with a vision of mind as grounded in the complex transformative processes of life, while neuroscience presents us with a vision of the brain as a complex adaptive system that constantly reshapes itself in response to context, experience, and practice. How can this vision of complexity and transformation enrich our understanding of consciousness—the felt experience of awareness across waking, dreaming, sleeping, and dying? In this intensive program, we explore our lived experience of awareness in relation to our living bodies and brains seen as complex adaptive systems. We focus especially on the themes of “embodied cognition,” “emergent processes,” and “enaction” (cognition as embodied action). Neuroscientists, philosophers, Buddhist scholars, and Zen teachers explore these themes through presentations and discussion interspersed with periods of meditation practice throughout each day.
Episode Description: Al Kaszniak kicks off this opening session of Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation by stating that this program is intended to “push the boundaries” of knowledge and will touch upon “new thinking” in relating complex systems theory to areas of inquiry such as neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and contemplative practice. The Zen Brain faculty then briefly introduce themselves before handing the floor over to Neil Theise. Neil presents a wide-ranging introduction to consciousness and complex systems theory that draws upon ideas in physics, biology, and spirituality. After presenting the basics of complex systems theory, Neil unfolds some very novel thinking on how the emergence of the universe can be viewed in terms of three overlapping processes: complementarity, recursion, and sentience.

BIOs:

Richard Davidson received his Ph.D. in Personality, Psychopathology, and Psychophysiology from Harvard University. He is currently Director for the Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience as well as the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research is focused on cortical and subcortical substrates of emotion and affective disorders, including depression and anxiety, using quantitative electrophysiology, positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging to make inferences about patterns of regional brain function. A major focus of his current work is on interactions between prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in the regulation of emotion in both normal subjects and patients with affective and anxiety disorders. He has also studied and published several papers on brain physiology in long-term Buddhist meditators, and in persons receiving short-term training in mindfulness meditation. Among his several books is Visions of compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature (2002, Oxford University Press), co-edited with Anne Harrington.
Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He received his B.A. from Amherst College in Asian Studies, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is the author of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007), and the co-editor (with P. Zelazo and M. Moscovitch) of The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2007) He is also the co-author with F.J. Varela and E. Rosch of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991) and the author of Color Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995). He is currently working on a new book, titled Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Revelations about the Self from Neuroscience and Meditation. Thompson held a Canada Research Chair at York University (2002-2005), and has also taught at Boston University. He has held visiting positions at the Centre de Récherch en Epistémologie Appliqué (CREA) at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
John Dunne is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at Emory University, where he is Co-Director of the Encyclopedia of Contemplative Practices and the Emory Collaborative for Contemplative Studies. He was educated at the Amherst College and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. from the Committee on the Study of Religion in 1999. Before joining Emory’s faculty in 2005, he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and held a research position at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Support from the American Institute of Indian Studies sustained two years of his doctoral research at the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India. 

His work focuses on various aspects of Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice. In Foundations of Dharmakirti’s Philosophy (2004), he examines the most prominent Buddhist theories of perception, language, inference and justification. His current research includes an inquiry into the notion of “mindfulness” in both classical Buddhist and contemporary contexts, and he is also engaged in a study of Candrakirti’s “Prasannapada”, a major Buddhist philosophical work on the metaphysics of “emptiness” and “selflessness.” His recently published work includes an essay on neuroscience and meditation co-authored with Richard J. Davidson and Antoine Lutz. He frequently serves as a translator for Tibetan scholars, and as a consultant, he appears on the roster of several ongoing scientific studies of Buddhist contemplative practices.
Neil Theise is a diagnostic liver pathologist and adult stem cell researcher in New York City, where he is Professor of Pathology and of Medicine at the Beth Israel Medical Center of the Mount Sinai Health System. He is considered a pioneer of multi-organ adult stem cell plasticity and has published on that topic in Science, Nature, and Cell. Beginning with applications of complexity and emergent self-organization to stem cell behaviors, his work has expanded into include cross-cultural models of biology and medicine, quantum behaviors in biological systems (biological complementarity, uncertainty), and parallels between contemplative insights into reality and contemporary scientific understandings. Most recently, his efforts have focused on the nature of consciousness and the role of sentience to the development and organization of the universe. His teaching efforts regarding all these themes (text and video, for lay and academic audiences) can be found on his blog, neiltheise.wordpress.com. Additional writings can be found at his website at neiltheise.com.
Rebecca Todd focused her doctoral work on mapping neural activation patterns underlying affective processing as well as cognition/emotion interactions associated with individual differences and normative development of self-regulation in childhood. Current research interests include investigating the effects of emotional arousal on the subjective experience of perceptual vividness and its link with memory vividness in healthy young adults and in post-traumatic stress disorder. She is also interested in the influence of emotional state on perceptual processing and higher-order cognitive processes, and the neural mechanisms underlying such influences.
Al Kaszniak received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Education Core, and a professor in the departments of psychology, neurology, and psychiatry at The University of Arizona (UA. He formerly served as Head of the Psychology Department, and as Director of the UA Center for Consciousness Studies. Al also presently serves as Chief Academic Officer for the Mind and Life Institute, an organization that facilitates collaborative scientific research on contemplative practices and traditions. He is the co-author or editor of seven books, including the three-volume Toward a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press), and Emotions, Qualia, and Consciousness (World Scientific). His research, published in over 150 journal articles and scholarly book chapters, has been supported by grants from the U.S. National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Science Foundation, as well as several private foundations. His work has focused on the neuropsychology of Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related neurological disorders, consciousness, memory self-monitoring, emotion, and the psychophysiology of long-term and short-term meditation. Al has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, and has been an advisor to the National Institutes of Health and other governmental agencies. He is a Past-President of the Section on Clinical Geropsychology and fellow of the American Psychological Association and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. In addition to his academic and administrative roles, he is a lineage holder and teacher (Sensei) in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism.
Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D in medical anthropology in 1973. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, University of Virginia Medical School, Duke University Medical School, University of Connecticut Medical School, among many others. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, and was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University. From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center on pioneering work with dying cancer patients, using LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy. After the LSD project, she has continued to work with dying people and their families and to teach health care professionals as well as lay individuals on compassionate care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying and Founder and Director of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. For the past twenty-five years, she has been active in environmental work. She studied for a decade with Zen Teacher Seung Sahn and was a teacher in the Kwan Um Zen School. She received the Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh, and was given Inka by Roshi Bernie Glassman. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on applied Buddhism. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); Shamanic Voices; Shaman: The Wounded Healer; The Fruitful Darkness; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying; and Wisdom Beyond Wisdom (with Kazuaki Tanashashi).

 

Here are links to the other 11 episodes.

 

01-31-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 2)

 

Episode Description: In this second session of Zen Brain, Evan Thompson follows on what Neil Theise introduced in the first session (Part 1 of this series), in a wide-ranging exploration of complexity and consciousness. Evan touches upon concepts such as autopoiesis, sense-making, the Buddhist idea of dependent co-arising, enaction, sentience, and the emergence of mind.

 

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01-31-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 3)

Episode Description: Following Evan Thompson’s talk (Part 2 of this series), the Zen Brain faculty field questions from the program participants.

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01-31-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 4)

Episode Description: In this segment of Zen Brain, Rebecca Todd discusses the processes of affect-biased attention and affective enhancement of perception in relation to the complex adaptive system of the human brain. Affect-biased attention refers to how our emotional states bias what we pay attention to in the world before we are even exposed to a stimulus, while affective enhancement refers to how an emotionally-laden perception is made more vivid by our brain. Rebecca discusses these concepts in relation to genetics, epigenetics, and also offers some clinical implications of the data she shares.

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01-31-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 5)

Episode Description: Following Rebecca Todd’s talk (Part 4 of this series), the Zen Brain faculty field questions from the program participants.

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01-31-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 6)

Episode Description: After a full day of presentations, the Zen Brain faculty address questions submitted by the program participants.

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02-01-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 7)

Episode Description: In this segment of Zen Brain, which coincides conceptually with Neil Theise’s talk (Part 1 of this series), John Dunne presents an elegant overview of the evolution of several Buddhist philosophical systems. The goal of all Buddhist systems is the elimination of suffering, suffering which arises due to confusion about the nature of “something.” As we progress from early Buddhism, to the Sautrantika system, to Yogacara, then to Madhyamika, and finally to Mahamudra and Dzogchen, that “something” about which we are confused changes. Each system presents a slightly subtler “cause” for our confusion. Importantly, however, no single system can claim to have the best account of reality. No explanatory system is ultimately true. A system is “better” than another only insofar as it is better at eliminating suffering, at leading us to freedom.

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02-01-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 8)

Episode Description: Following John Dunne’s talk (Part 7 of this series), the Zen Brain faculty field questions from the program participants.

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02-01-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 9)

Episode Description: In this wide-ranging session of the program, Richie touches upon the topics of complexity and consciousness, gamma oscillations, synchrony, and consciousness, the consequences of unconsciousness, epigenetics, contemplative practice in children, and ends with a beautiful “call for humility” in the face of the extraordinary complexity of the human brain.

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02-01-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 10)

Episode Description: After a full day of presentations, the Zen Brain faculty address questions submitted by the program participants.

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02-02-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 11)

Episode Description: On the final morning of the program, the Zen Brain faculty offer some concluding thoughts before the final Q&A.

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02-02-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 12, last part)

Episode Description: In this final session of Zen Brain, the faculty address remaining questions from the program participants.

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Upaya Zen Podcasts - Brian Byrnes: Beautiful Mind in a Broken World

This is a cool teaching from novice monk Brain Byrnes on Case Nineteen ("Ordinary Mind Is the Way") from The Gateless Gate, a collection of 48 Zen koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (1183–1260) (Japanese: Mumon Ekai).

You can read all of The Gateless Gate online, complete with the original Japanese text.

 

Brian Byrnes: 09-11-2013: Beautiful Mind in a Broken World

Speaker: Brian Byrnes
Recorded: Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Episode Description: Joshin frames this wonderful talk around Case Nineteen from The Gateless Gate (free version here) known as “Ordinary Mind is the Way.” The koan starts: Joshu asked Nansen,”What is the Way?” Nansen answered, ”Everyday, ordinary mind is the Way.” Joshu asked “If everyday, ordinary mind is the way. How shall I direct myself to it?” Nansen said “if you try to direct yourself toward it, you are going in exactly the wrong direction.” Joshin explains what is meant by ordinary mind and how should be present, accepting what life has to offer, moment to moment. “Every day reminds us that we don’t have to run around looking for something special. We just have to turn around and look at our everyday ordinary lives.”

Full test of Case Nineteen, Ordinary Mind Is the Way:

Joshu asked Nansen: `What is the path?' Nansen said: `Everyday life is the path.'
Joshu asked: `Can it be studied?'
Nansen said: `If you try to study, you will be far away from it.'
Joshu asked: `If I do not study, how can I know it is the path?'
Nansen said: `The path does not belong to the perception world, neither does it belong to the nonperception world. Cognition is a delusion and noncognition is senseless. If you want to reach the true path beyond doubt, place yourself in the same freedom as sky. You name it neither good nor not-good.'
At these words Joshu was enlightened.

Bio: Joshin Brian Byrnes is a novice priest at Upaya Zen Center and president and CEO of the Santa Fe Community Foundation. He worked at the Boston AIDS Action Committee, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and was CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation and Managing Director at Tides Foundation. His nonprofit career spans over twenty years, where he has led complex organizations through profound change processes, organizational growth, and repositioning them for increased social impact, financial sustainability, and organizational learning. Currently, he is involved with a number of of national philanthropic projects including being the chair-elect of CFLeads: Community Foundations Leading Change, and is a member of the Community Foundation Leadership Team at the Council on Foundations. His academic background includes undergraduate and graduate work in philosophy at St. Meinrad College, theology at the Aquinas Institute at St. Louis University, early music performance at New England Conservatory of Music, and medieval musicology at New York University. He has also studied and practiced organizational development with Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline), and has been trained in Organizational and Relationship Systems Coaching. He is cultivating a “back and forth” practice, moving between the zendo and the larger world of social service, organizational leadership, and social engagement.

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Upaya Zen Podcasts - Cheri Maples: Balancing Equanimity and Compassion in Engaged Practice (08-14-2013)

From Upaya Zen Center, this is a nice teaching from Cheri Maples, a dharma teachert ordained by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Here is a bit from the introduction to this teacher:

Compassion contains elements of patience, receptivity, awareness, forgiveness, and radical honesty, all of which Cheri discusses in her talk. Cheri defines equanimity as the “ability to be equally near all things.” Compassion involves our tender responsiveness to suffering, our open heart, which can burn if not checked by the cool spaciousness of equanimity. Through developing equanimity, we learn to relax in the midst of suffering.

Difficult work - and a very clear teaching that is useful for a lot of us.

Cheri Maples: 08-14-2013: Balancing Equanimity and Compassion in Engaged Practice

Speaker: Cheri Maples
Recorded: Wednesday Aug 14, 2013

Episode Description: In this wide-ranging and personal talk, Cheri discusses the crucial balance we need to cultivate between compassion and equanimity in our work in the world. Compassion is difficult to define because it incorporates so much. Compassion contains elements of patience, receptivity, awareness, forgiveness, and radical honesty, all of which Cheri discusses in her talk. Cheri defines equanimity as the “ability to be equally near all things.” Compassion involves our tender responsiveness to suffering, our open heart, which can burn if not checked by the cool spaciousness of equanimity. Through developing equanimity, we learn to relax in the midst of suffering. We learn to “withdraw our insistence that the present moment be something other than it is.” In the end, through balancing compassion and equanimity, we become exquisitely sensitive to suffering without getting lost or overwhelmed by it. We learn to respond to life from a place of calm openness.

Cheri Maples is a dharma teacher, keynote speaker, and organizational consultant and trainer. In 2008 she was ordained a dharma teacher by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, her long-time spiritual teacher.

For 25 years Cheri worked in the criminal justice system, as an Assistant Attorney General in the Wisconsin Department of Justice, head of Probation and Parole for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, and as a police officer with the City of Madison Police Department, earning the rank of Captain of Personnel and Training.

Cheri has been an active community organizer, working in neighborhood centers, deferred prosecution programs, and as the first Director of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence. As Past President of the Dane County Timebank, Cheri was instrumental in creating its justice projects – the Youth Court, which is based on a prevention and restorative justice model; and the Prison Project, a prison education and reintegration initiative supported by multiple community groups.

She has incorporated all of these experiences into her mindfulness practice. Cheri’s interest in criminal justice professionals comes from learning that peace in one’s oown heart is a prerequisite to providing true justice and compassion to others. Her initial focus was on translating the language and practice of mindfulness into an understandable framework for criminal justice professionals. Cheri’s work has evolved to include other helping professionals – health-care workers, teachers, and employees of social service agencies – who must also manage the emotional effects of their work, while maintaining an open heart and healthy boundaries.

Cheri holds a J.D. and a M.S.S.W. from University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently a licensed attorney and licensed clinical social worker in the state of Wisconsin.

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Stephen Batchelor - Buddhism: A Changing, Living Organism (Upaya Zen Podcasts)

Upaya Zen Center's monthly podcast features Stephen Batchelor this month, talking about the ever-evolving nature of Buddhism. They discuss a wide variety of topics:

“confession of a Buddhist atheist”; a Buddhist way of life; a middle road between religion and secularism; ethics & contemplation without metaphysical beliefs; the Dharma in a global culture; “Buddhism 2.0″; a plurality of discourses: the mythical and the historical; Keats and Zen.

Enjoy.

Stephen Batchelor: Buddhism: A Changing, Living Organism

Speaker: Stephen Batchelor

Upaya Conversations

This is Upaya’s monthly podcast series with our host Joanna Harcourt-Smith of Future Primitive. Today’s guest is Stephen Batchelor.

Stephen Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. Stephen considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism’s role in the modern world. He is the translator and author of various books and articles on Buddhism, including the bestselling “Buddhism Without Beliefs” (Riverhead, 1997) and “Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil” (Riverhead, 2004). His most recent publication is “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist” (Spiegel & Grau, 2010)

Stephen speaks with Joanna about “confession of a Buddhist atheist”; a Buddhist way of life; a middle road between religion and secularism; ethics & contemplation without metaphysical beliefs; the Dharma in a global culture; “Buddhism 2.0″; a plurality of discourses: the mythical and the historical; Keats and Zen.

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* * * * * * *

Roshi Joan and Upaya Zen Center launched a new Google+ Community on Engaged Buddhism. Please visit & join the community. 

Zen Brain - Greed and Generosity: The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction

From Upaya Zen Center, here is another great series of Zen Brain lectures, featuring many of the usual participants, including Joan Halifax Roshi, Al Kaszniak, Lawrence Barsalou, David Loy, and Do-On Robert Thomas.

This series is focused on Greed and Generosity: The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction.

Zen Brain - Greed and Generosity: The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction

Series Description: Buddhism recognizes attachment/desire as one of the three “poisons” or afflictions at the root of suffering. In modern Western culture, a consumer economy and the lure of constant, technology-mediated connection fuel our sense of lack and addictions to such things as shopping and the internet. Zen provides a path of liberation from attachment, aversion, and delusion through practice realization of the interdependent, impermanent nature of life, with no fixed, unchanging self at its core.

Recently, neuroscience has provided insights into the plasticity of reward circuitry and chemistry in the brain, as related to attraction and addiction. In this retreat, a philosopher, a neuroscientist, and a Roshi, all of whom are Zen teachers, will explore the relationship of these new scientific discoveries to Buddhist psychology, Zen practice and the challenges of living in a consumerist and technology-driven culture.

Joan Halifax & Al Kaszniak: 04-12-2013: ZEN BRAIN: Greed and Generosity – The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction (Part 1)

Episode Description: In this, the opening session of Zen Brain on Greed and Generosity, Roshi Joan starts by offering an overview of the retreat and introduces the members of the panel. Dr. Kaszniak then offers his presentation titled “Addiction and craving: Neuroscientific and Contemplative Clinical Science Perspectives.”

BIO: Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D in medical anthropology in 1973. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, University of Virginia Medical School, Duke University Medical School, University of Connecticut Medical School, among many others. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in Visual Anthropology, and was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University. From 1972-1975, she worked with psychiatrist Stanislav Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center on pioneering work with dying cancer patients, using LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy. After the LSD project, she has continued to work with dying people and their families and to teach health care professionals as well as lay individuals on compassionate care of the dying. She is Director of the Project on Being with Dying and Founder and Director of the Upaya Prison Project that develops programs on meditation for prisoners. For the past twenty-five years, she has been active in environmental work. She studied for a decade with Zen Teacher Seung Sahn and was a teacher in the Kwan Um Zen School. She received the Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh, and was given Inka by Roshi Bernie Glassman. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on applied Buddhism. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); Shamanic Voices; Shaman: The Wounded Healer; The Fruitful Darkness; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying; and Wisdom Beyond Wisdom (with Kazuaki Tanashashi).

Al Kaszniak received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Education Core, and a professor in the departments of psychology, neurology, and psychiatry at The University of Arizona (UA. He formerly served as Head of the Psychology Department, and as Director of the UA Center for Consciousness Studies. Al also presently serves as Chief Academic Officer for the Mind and Life Institute, an organization that facilitates collaborative scientific research on contemplative practices and traditions. He is the co-author or editor of seven books, including the three-volume Toward a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press), and Emotions, Qualia, and Consciousness (World Scientific). His research, published in over 150 journal articles and scholarly book chapters, has been supported by grants from the U.S. National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Science Foundation, as well as several private foundations. His work has focused on the neuropsychology of Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related neurological disorders, consciousness, memory self-monitoring, emotion, and the psychophysiology of long-term and short-term meditation. Al has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, and has been an advisor to the National Institutes of Health and other governmental agencies. He is a Past-President of the Section on Clinical Geropsychology and fellow of the American Psychological Association and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. In addition to his academic and administrative roles, he is a lineage holder and teacher (Sensei) in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism.

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The rest of the series is as follows:

• Larry Barsalou: 04-13-2013: ZEN BRAIN: Greed and Generosity – The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction (Part 2)
• David Loy: 04-13-2013: ZEN BRAIN: Greed and Generosity – The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction (Part 3)
• Joan Halifax & Al Kaszniak & David Loy & Larry Barsalou & Robert Thomas: 04-13-2013: ZEN BRAIN: Greed and Generosity – The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction (Part 4)
• Joan Halifax & Al Kaszniak & David Loy & Larry Barsalou & Robert Thomas: 04-13-2013: ZEN BRAIN: Greed and Generosity – The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction (Part 5)
• Joan Halifax & Al Kaszniak & David Loy & Larry Barsalou & Robert Thomas: 04-14-2013: ZEN BRAIN: Greed and Generosity – The Neuroscience and Path of Transforming Addiction (Part 6, last part) 

Other Speakers:

Lawrence Barsalou is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology at Emory University. He received a Bachelors degree in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 1977, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University in 1981. Since then, he has held faculty positions at Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Chicago, returning to Emory in 1997. Barsalou’s research addresses the nature of human conceptual processing and its roles in perception, memory, language, and thought. The current theme of his research is that the conceptual system is grounded in the brain’s modal systems for perception, action, and internal states. Specific topics of current interest include the roles of conceptual processing in emotion, self, stress, abstract thought, and contemplative practices.

David Loy, PhD, was the Besl Family Chair of Ethics/Religion and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH from 2006 to 2011. Before that he served as professor of philosophy at Bunkyo University in Chigasaki, Japan from 1991 through 2005. In 1971 he began practicing Zen with Robert Aitken Roshi in Hawaii and is an authorized teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, where he completed formal koan training under Zen Master Yamada Koun Roshi.

Do-On Robert Thomas is a Zen Buddhist priest in the lineage of Rev. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Robert’s dharma name, given to him when he was ordained as a priest in 2000, is Shi-Zan Do-On (Lion Mountain, Path of Kindness). He has been practicing Zen Buddhism since 1993, and in 2008 he received “Dharma Transmission” from his teacher, Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Today, Robert leads Zen retreats and workshops, and gives public lectures throughout the year. The expression of his Buddhist practice in his teachings has been focused on helping people from all walks of life to realize the practical benefits of Zen practice and meditation (zazen), and extend the Zen mind, with its qualities of openness, clarity, and flexibility, into every moment of their life.

Upaya Conversations - Evan Thompson & Joanna Harcourt-Smith: A Deeper, Organic Embeddedness

Upaya Conversations is a new series of interviews from Upaya Institute and Zen Center, hosted by Joanna Harcourt-Smith. Their first guest is philosopher Evan Thompson, a regular guest at Upaya for their various series on Buddhism, neuroscience, and psychology.

Here is a bio statement from Thompson's website:

I am a philosopher who works in the fields of cognitive science, Phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Asian philosophy and contemporary Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy and science. I am currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. As of July 1, 2013, I will be Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. I am the author of Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Light on the Self and Consciousness from Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).

This is good stuff, and I look forward to future episodes of what promises to be a very excellent addition to the offerings from the Upaya Institute.

Evan Thompson & Joanna Harcourt-Smith: A Deeper, Organic Embeddedness

Speakers: Evan Thompson & Joanna Harcourt-Smith
Recorded: Friday Mar 8, 2013

Upaya Conversations

We are launching a new podcast series (Upaya Conversations), that’s a collaboration with different outstanding teachers, scholars, visionaries, thought leaders, or organizations in Buddhism and other fields of human development. Joanna Harcourt-Smith of Future Primitive will be hosting this monthly series of conversations with Upaya’s collaborators. 

We begin this series with scholars from Neuroscience/Neuropsychology … The first guest is Evan Thompson.

Evan is a philosopher who works in the fields of cognitive science, Phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Asian philosophy and contemporary Buddhist philosophy in dialogue with Western philosophy and science. He is the author of “Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Light on the Self and Consciousness from Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy” (Columbia University Press, forthcoming) and of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007). He is also the co-author of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991; new expanded edition, 2014).

Evan speaks with Joanna about his forthcoming book “Waking, Dreaming, Being…”: how consciousness and the sense of self shift in different waking states, lucid dreaming…through the twin perspectives of neuroscience of consciousness and meditative experience and philosophy; lucid dreaming in a contemplative context; being a philosopher in a post-modern world; autopoiesis: life creates its own ends; love and the web of life: this deeper, organic embeddedness; embodied mind, gender and aging; sitting & movement: complementary contemplative practices; science and meditation: the primacy of mind as direct experience.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Upaya Zen Center)

Another excellent Zen Brain conference hosted by Joan Halifax Roshi and the Upaya Zen Center. This yearly event always features excellent speakers and enlightening discussions. This year is no exception, with Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, Richard Davidson, and Joan Halifax all participating.

All eleven segments (+1) are linked to below - you can listen for free at the Upaya site in exchange for an email address.

ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 1): Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, Richard Davidson, and Joan Halifax: 02-07-2013

Speakers: Al Kaszniak & Evan Thompson & Stephen Batchelor & Richard Davidson & Joan Halifax
Recorded: Thursday Feb 7, 2013

SERIES DESCRIPTION: At the core of Zen practice lies an intention to develop the ability to rest our attention in the broad field of conscious awareness and to observe the mental continuum without grasping, aversion, or judgment. In doing so, we can begin to examine the enormous range and subtlety of the mysterious phenonemon that we call “consciousness”. In this ground-breaking retreat, neuroscientists, a philosopher, Buddhist scholars, and Buddhist teachers will explore the intersection of what philosophy, science, Buddhist scholarship, and meditation practice have contributed to our understanding of the variations of consciousness from waking to dreaming and the states that unfold in the process of dying.

Episode Description: This is the opening session of Zen Brain. Each of the presenters explains what their upcoming talks will be about and respond to Roshi’s question: “Why is it important to explore the nature of consciousness at this point in time.”

Teacher BIOs: 

Al Kaszniak received his Ph.D. in clinical and developmental psychology from the University of Illinois in 1976, and completed an internship in clinical neuropsychology at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. He is currently Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Education Core, and a professor in the departments of psychology, neurology, and psychiatry at The University of Arizona (UA. He formerly served as Head of the Psychology Department, and as Director of the UA Center for Consciousness Studies. Al also presently serves as Chief Academic Officer for the Mind and Life Institute, an organization that facilitates collaborative scientific research on contemplative practices and traditions. He is the co-author or editor of seven books, including the three-volume Toward a Science of Consciousness (MIT Press), and Emotions, Qualia, and Consciousness (World Scientific). In addition to his academic and administrative roles, he is a lineage holder and teacher (Sensei) in the Soto tradition of Zen Buddhism.

Dr. Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He received his B.A. from Amherst College in Asian Studies, and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is the author of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007), and the co-editor (with P. Zelazo and M. Moscovitch) of The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2007) He is also the co-author with F.J. Varela and E. Rosch of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991) and the author of Color Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995). He is currently working on a new book, titled Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Revelations about the Self from Neuroscience and Meditation. Thompson held a Canada Research Chair at York University (2002-2005), and has also taught at Boston University. He has held visiting positions at the Centre de Récherch en Epistémologie Appliqué (CREA) at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Stephen Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. Stephen considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism’s role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer. Stephen spent his young adult life ordained as a Buddhist Monk, first in the Tibetan tradition, and later in Korean Zen. He has been the co-ordinator of the Sharpham Trust and since 1990 has been a guiding teacher at Gaia House Meditation Center. Stephen is the translator and author of various books and articles on Buddhism including the bestselling Buddhism Without Beliefs and Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil . His most recent publication is Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.

Richard J. Davidson received his Ph.D. in Personality, Psychopathology, and Psychophysiology from Harvard University. He is currently Director for the Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience as well as the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research is focused on cortical and subcortical substrates of emotion and affective disorders, including depression and anxiety, using quantitative electrophysiology, positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging to make inferences about patterns of regional brain function. A major focus of his current work is on interactions between prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in the regulation of emotion in both normal subjects and patients with affective and anxiety disorders. He has also studied and published several papers on brain physiology in long-term Buddhist meditators, and in persons receiving short-term training in mindfulness meditation. Among his several books is Visions of compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature (2002, Oxford University Press), co-edited with Anne Harrington.

Joan Halifax Roshi is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. She is Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She received her Ph.D in medical anthropology in 1973. She has lectured on the subject of death and dying at many academic institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, University of Virginia Medical School, Duke University Medical School, University of Connecticut Medical School, among many others. A Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on applied Buddhism. Her books include: The Human Encounter with Death (with Stanislav Grof); Shamanic Voices; Shaman: The Wounded Healer; The Fruitful Darkness; Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America; Being with Dying; and Wisdom Beyond Wisdom (with Kazuaki Tanashashi).

Al Kaszniak: 02-08-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 2)

In this session Dr. Al Kaszniak takes listeners through some of the ways that cognitive science and neuroscience have approached the study of consciousness.

Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, Richard Davidson, and Joan Halifax: 02-08-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 3)

In this second panel discussion our presenters answer such guest questions as: difference between awareness and consciousness, is unconscious created externally, long term meditation and pain response, historical use of term consciousness.

Evan Thompson: 02-08-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 4)

Dr. Thompson takes the listener on a cross-cultural fusion, neuro-phenomenology journey. He weaves Buddhist ideas from the Abhidharma, with work on the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness.

Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, Richard Davidson, and Joan Halifax: 02-08-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 5)

During the Fri afternoon and evening panels. The Zen Brain faculty consider questions on “out of body” experiences, embodiment and direct experience, Indian writings on interoception, lucid dream states, consciousness as a layered phenomenon, the mind and life meeting held in monastery in India attended by 10000 monks, relationship between attention and consciousness.

Al Kaszniak: 02-06-2013: Consciousness, Neuroscience, and Zen Practice

Sensei Al notes that understanding consciousness can be useful in our lives. In this dharma talk he explores what can be learned about the nature and function of consciousness through some recent research in neuroscience and through experience in meditation practice. (NOT part of the Zen Brain series, but it fits here anyway.)

Stephen Batchelor: 02-09-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 6)

In this presentation, Stephen Batchelor considers two questions: What was the Buddha trying to do? and How does consciousness fit in? His draws on the Pali canon but not any particular school of buddhism.

Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, Richard Davidson, and Joan Halifax: 02-09-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 7)

During this session the Zen Brain faculty answer questions about the concepts: rebirth, fully knowing, mindful awareness, yoni awareness & Dogen, near death experience. store consciousness and memory.

Richard Davidson: 02-09-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 8)

In this presentation, Richard Davidson explores three of the major topics of the seminar: waking, sleeping, and dying. Richard orients the presentation specifically to the intersection of Neuroscience and contemplative practice. Richard begins the presentation by taking offering the audience a visual contemplative journey through the beautiful complexity of the brain. This video can be found here (or direct URL : http://smithlab.stanford.edu/Smithlab/AT_Movies.html ), titled “Machinery of Mind.” Richard goes on to identify particular phenomena of contemplative practice that are currently being investigated by neuroscientists. He then discusses recent findings of this exciting work.

Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, Richard Davidson, and Joan Halifax: 02-09-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORINGCONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 9)

During our Saturday afternoon session, our faculty respond to questions about the scientific and subjective significance of near death experience and the continuity of consciousness after death. Also, Richard comments on the differences he has measured between different styles of meditation, and he further discusses the implications of contemplative science in the health care fields.

Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, and Joan Halifax: 02-10-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 10A)

This is the final day of Zen Brain. This podcast includes the reflections of the faculty on their own personal way of coming to grips with what has been talked about during these days.

Al Kaszniak, Evan Thompson, Stephen Batchelor, and Joan Halifax: 02-10-2013: ZEN BRAIN: EXPLORING CONSCIOUSNESS: Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Dying (Part 10B, last part)

This is the final day of Zen Brain. This last session contains participant reflections on what they are taking from this time, what is most relevant to them, what are the implications for what they do and what does all this have to do with practice.

Compassion's Edge States: Roshi Joan Halifax on Caring Better (NPR's On Being)

From On Being, Krista Tippett's excellent NPR show (which frustratingly does not air locally as far as I know), an interview with Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author, Roshi Joan Halifax, the founder, Abbot, and head teacher of Upaya Zen Center in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Roshi is one of my favorite Buddhist teachers (strange they are both female, the other being Pema Chodron), in part because she has actively sought to foster the conversation between Buddhism and its various practices and neuroscience research.

COMPASSION'S EDGE STATES: ROSHI JOAN HALIFAX ON CARING BETTER

January 10, 2013

Krista Tippett, host: 

It can be a stretch to summon buoyancy rather than burnout in how we work, live, and care — a thousand people soaked up Roshi Joan Halifax when I interviewed her at the Hall of Philosophy at the Chautauqua Institution. She has said: "I am not a 'nice' Buddhist. I'm much more interested in a kind of plain-rice, get-down-in-the-street Buddhism." Joan Halifax is a Zen teacher and medical anthropologist who's been formed by cultures from the Sahara Desert to the hallways of American prisons. She founded the Project on Being with Dying. Now she's taking on the problem of compassion fatigue, though she doesn't like that phrase. Whatever you call it, for all of us overwhelmed by bad news — and by the attention we want to pay to suffering in the world — Joan Halifax has wisdom.

Listen
Radio Show/Podcast (mp3, 51:06)
Unedited Interview: » Joan Halifax (mp3, 91:36) 

Learn
Books + MusicTranscript

Voices on the Radio


Joan Halifax

Halifax is the Founding Abbot of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and director of the Project on Being with Dying.

Selected Readings

Inside Compassion: Edge States, Contemplative Interventions, Neuroscience

Joan Halifax speaks about the challenge of caregivers who care for those who are seriously ill. Learn about basic research in neuroscience and psychology on mindfulness, compassion, and the effects of stress on the body.

Pertinent Posts from the On Being Blog

Encountering Grief: A 10-Minute Guided Meditation with Joan Halifax
The Zen abbot walks a live audience through this guided meditation on encountering grief. Download and share with your friends and family.



Roshi Joan Halifax Discusses the Painful Truths of Death and the Impermanence of Life (video)
“Another level of your life opens up when you recognize that you have a life that is inside.” ~Roshi Joan Halifax

The Zen Buddhist monk and medical anthropologist talks to Krista Tippett about her life, Buddhist faith, inspirations, and the vast concepts of death, compassion, grief — and neuroscience.

A Little Bit of Mindfulness Meditation Can Reduce a Lot of Pain
Even novice meditators are able to curb their pain after a few training sessions in mindfulness meditation.

End of Life Zen Care
The first Buddhist chaplaincy training program in the U.S. is featured in this beautiful short film about end of life care.