Look for your other half who is always next to you and is usually what you aren't. ---Antonio Machado

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Look for your other half who is always next to you and is usually what you aren't. ---Antonio Machado"

Ashley Norman
5 years ago
Views:

1 May 7, 2007 UPAYA ZEN CENTER Santa Fe, New Mexico Look for your other half who is always next to you and is usually what you aren't. ---Antonio Machado Upaya has just finished hosting a wonderful weekend retreat with Brother David Steindl-Rast, joined by Roshi Joan and Lynne Twist, who shared in some of the teaching. The nearly forty participants were greatly inspired and energized, soaking in the words of this all-star faculty, sharing a quiet afternoon walk in the beautiful spring woods and many lively discussions about the place of gratefulness in our lives. They vowed to continue to pass along their gratefulness to others through their words, actions, and livelihoods. There will be another gathering with Brother David, Lynne and Roshi at Upaya in 2008 (May 16-18) to nourish support for the Network For Grateful Living. For more information, you may contact chandra@gratefulness.org Together, Brother David and Roshi Joan gave a lovely dharma talk last Wednesday to a very full zendo. Brother David is a man with piercing yet deeply kind eyes, who radiates a powerfully organic calmness, humility and wholeness. His message was uncomplicated, but heartfelt and moving: that when we are able to pull our minds away from habitually obsessing about the past or worrying about the future, and away from dualistic separation and self-absorption, the resulting awareness and centeredness naturally gives rise to gratefulness for every moment and aspect of our lives. Vice versa, consciously practicing gratefulness can also support and deepen that awareness and centeredness. Roshi returned from Alaska last Wednesday with many stories about her time teaching at the large Alaskan Palliative Care Conference. Christine DeCourtenay, a graduate of our Professional Training Program in Compassionate Care of the Dying, was the conference organizer, and gave her the wonderful opportunity to give many talks and meet numerous native Alaskans who are working in the palliative care field. Dr. Ted Heffernan, the head of

2 palliative care for Providence Hospital in Anchorage and a faculty member of the Professional Training Program, hosted Roshi and is doing many wonderful projects in Alaska. Wednesday, MAY 9th: DHARMA TALK will be given by Roshi Joan and Enkyo O'Hara Roshi from the Village Zendo in NYC ( BUDDHA'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION, a.k.a. HANA MATSURI (Festival of Flowers). After Roshi Enkyo's dharma talk this Wednesday evening, we will be celebrating the Buddha's birthday. Roshi Enkyo and Roshi Joan will lead us in the washing and blessing with flowers of the baby Buddha statue. Although the ceremony is traditionally held on the 8th of May, we wanted to include our larger sangha in this marking of a new beginning: offering the flowers of spring to the Buddha. Please join us on Wednesday evening for this simple and beautiful ceremony. If you wish, you may bring flowers for the altar for the offering. = CORRECTION --- PLEASE NOTE: "The Practice of Buddhist Philosophy" retreat with Stephen Batchelor was incorrectly listed in both our catalog and website as running from October 28 - November 4. The correct dates are November 1 - November 4 and as a result of the shorter duration, the cost has also changed: $ (member), $360 (non-member). Deep apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. *** URGENT: General Volunteer Request! We need volunteers to cover for the Wilderness Fast, which runs concurrently with a YogaSource hosted retreat! This will be a huge crunch-time and we need to ask anyone in the outer Sangha to help in any way they can for this retreat. The Wilderness Fast is from June 21st - July 1st. If you can volunteer, please contact Eddie at upaya@upaya.org or call WANTED: Library Volunteer Upaya is seeking a library volunteer to help us organize our library. We ask for a three-month commitment, with a minimum of three (3) hours per week. In return, the Volunteer Librarian will receive a credit of $10/hour toward the cost of an Upaya Retreat up to a maximum of 80% of the cost of the retreat. Responsibilities: 1. Continue to catalogue all books using the current system. 2. Maintain sign out register and track down late returns. 3. Maintain magazines and store them appropriately.

3 4. Place all returned books on the shelves in appropriate section. Long term projects: 1. Order new dharma books authorized by the administrative priests and the Executive Director. 2. Produce card catalog or index of the whole library on a computer. UPCOMING PROGRAM DETAILS May 18-20th: 5th ANNUAL INTEGRATING SPIRIT & CAREGIVING NAROPA UNIVERSITY Roshi Joan will be presenting the Friday evening Keynote address; this conference brings together leading visionaries, clinicians and teachers of integral and contemplative approaches to end of life and elder care. This year we will focus on transpersonal approaches to catastrophic illness and end of life care. Other presenters include Frank Ostaseski, Porter Storey MD, Barbara Dossey RN PhD, James Duffy MD, Mitchell Levy MD, Marcia Latanzi-Licht RN, and Fleet Maull MA, among others. Naropa University is offering a 20% discount off of either the Early Bird Discount price or the full price if you register by April 20 to all graduates (including this year s participants) and faculty of the Upaya 8-day Being With Dying program. When you call to register ( ), just let the registration counselor know you are a current participant, graduate or faculty of BWD. Early Bird Discount Deadline, April 20, Please go to for more info. June 21-July 1: WILDERNESS FAST FOR SOCIAL ACTIVISTS, CAREGIVERS, and EDUCATORS With Roshi Joan Halifax & John Braman. A time for deep practice and a rite of passage, participants enter the wilderness in solitude and fasting to mark change and see clearly the truth about what to do with this one wild and precious life. Preparations begin at Upaya with intensive teachings, interviews, meditation, and council. A base camp will then be established in the New Mexican wilds, and from there, participants find a natural refuge where they spend four days alone, fasting, practicing, and being taught by the elements. In the vastness of the desert, mountain and sky, the endeavor is to know the truth of wisdom and compassion in our lives and how to bring these qualities forward to serve the world. Everyone then returns to Upaya to plumb his or her experience. This powerful program is for caregivers, educators and social activists. John Braman, a renowned educator and wilderness expert, is Executive Director of Upaya. Roshi is highly regarded for her work with wilderness solitude for over thirty years. Limited registration. Contact Upaya to apply. Includes four trainees.

4 July 5-8: LIBERATION THROUGH YOGA AND BUDDHISM. With Richard Freeman & Roshi Joan Halifax. This powerful and rare retreat brings together Yoga and Buddhism with two master teachers in a radical approach to healing and liberating body and mind. Richard Freeman, a renowned teacher of Ashtanga yoga in the tradition of K. Pattabhi Jois, integrates yoga practice with Dharma. Roshi Joan explores the shared principles of yoga and Buddhism through talks and dharma exchanges with Richard in the evenings. The spirit of yoga and Buddhism is realized in a retreat setting that includes five hours of guided yoga practice, evening dharma talks, two hours of sitting meditation, and silence. July 11-15: IN THE SHELTER OF EACH OTHER WOMEN'S RETREAT: ENGAGED PRACTICE IN THE HEART OF THE WORLD With Roshi Joan Halifax and 7 other special faculty: This is the powerful annual ecumenical gathering for women exploring contemplative practice, social action, and the arts. A rich blending of body, mind and spirit, this retreat focuses on women s spiritual lives and service to others. It includes a unique faculty, with teachings, meditation practice, dharma talks, council, painting, chant, story telling, dance, yoga, healthy diet, breath work, and physical practice to strengthen our lives. Mayumi Oda, social activist and artist; Zuleikha, composer, dancer and story-teller; Tessa, former Carmelite nun, author, and co-founder of The Desert Foundation; Cynthia West, poet, painter and social activist; Diane Haug, practitioner of Holotropic Breathwork; Rabbi Malka Drucker, author, founder of HaMakom; Barbara Tedlock, author, anthropologist; Claudia Fluckiger, Buddhist practitioner, therapist, and specialist in psychodrama. UPAYA TRIPS ABROAD >> Journey to MONGOLIA, 7/6-27/ with Anthropologist Carroll Dunham & photographer Thomas Kelly Monasteries and nomads, horses and yurts, wide green grasslands and mountains, lakes and deep quiet: Mongolia, a frontier of the heart, a place for practice and renewal. To and from the Kelly s Mongolian ger camp in the Bunkhan---a 3,000 year old charnel ground beside the curvaceous indigo Tamir River, with the sacred larch forest Mt. Bulgan looming above it---we will visit some of the most extraordinary Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia. At the camp there will be yoga, meditation practice, horseback riding into the wilds and culture of the surrounding regions; and for those who wish, journey by horseback to Blue Lake through remote mountains and grasslands. > Pilgrimage to BURMA, 11/4-21/ with Roshi Joan Halifax, Mark Little, Ken Ballard > INDIA: Footsteps of the Buddha, 2/5-21/ with Roshi Joan Halifax & Shantum Seth

5 > CHINA & JAPAN: Footsteps of Dogen Zenji, 3/14-30/ with Kazuaki Tanahashi & Roshi Joan Halifax Links to more details are available on our homepage, ENGAGED BUDDHISM METTA COUNClL - Living with Illness Tuesdays from 10:30 a.m. to noon--a weekly group for people who are ill, their partners, caregivers, hospice volunteers, nurses, and anyone interested in exploring issues around living, sickness aging and death. Beginning around 12:05 p.m. until 1:00 p.m. the group engages in contemplative writing. This is not a writing group per se but rather an alternative way of exploring what is alive for people in the moment. No previous writing experience is needed, just a willingness to be fully present. Please call Jean at or jean@upaya.org for more information. PRISON OUTREACH PROJECT Since the first of this year, a number of inmates from around the country have written asking for information about meditation or Zen practice. Several of these inmates have requested participation in our Pen-Pal Program which provides information about spiritual practice, meditation and Zen practice, and assistance in setting up a Buddhist meditation group in their prison. In the past eighteen months, 15 volunteer Sangha members have engaged in correspondence with prison residents. The hyper-masculine ethos of prison life often makes sharing personal thoughts and feelings with another man taboo, so we are especially in need of female volunteers for the Pen-Pal Program as some inmates feel much more comfortable talking about their inner feelings of anger and isolated loneliness with a woman. If you would like to participate as a volunteer in the Pen-Pal program, please call Ray at 505/ or him at nanrayols@aol.com Donations of books on Buddhism or meditation are warmly welcomed and will be offered to prison residents. If you have books you would like to donate, please leave them at the Upaya front office, clearly marked Books for the Prison Project. Your generosity will be greatly appreciated. VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY Upaya is always grateful for a helping hand. We have volunteer opportunities in the office, kitchen, and housekeeping. There is the possibility of earning retreat credit for hours volunteered. If you are interested, please call Eddie at or upaya@upaya.org ROSHI JOAN HALIFAX ON THE WEB Roshi Joan has started a fascinating blog. Some of her students on Zaadz invited

6 her to join this social network and over the Thanksgiving weekend, she did. So with her Flickr photo site, moving along, now with some great archival photos of her life and the recent amazing Tibet series, she invites you to visit her new blog site which already has quite a few of her entries. Many people are now sourcing the site, where she discusses dharma, offers koanic poetry, considers the works of Ken Wilber, William Irwin Thompson, and Francisco Varela, and brings us into her lifestream through her constant attention to detail. To find out more, go to WATCH US ONLINE! The moving video of Roshi's Nomad Clinic in eastern Tibet can be viewed at: And you can find the dramatic footage of the Mt. Kailas climb here: Both videos are now available on DVD in our bookstore; call the main office if you'd like to order. There will be more previews and full length DVDs to come. Please stay tuned to YouTube and Google!

Life is an ever-rolling wheel And every day is the right one. He who recites poems at his death Adds frost to snow. --- Mumon Genshen, d.

April 16, 2007 UPAYA ZEN CENTER Santa Fe, New Mexico 505-986-8518 upaya@upaya.org www.upaya.org Life is an ever-rolling wheel And every day is the right one. He who recites poems at his death Adds frost