July 9, UPAYA ZEN CENTER Santa Fe, New Mexico

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1 July 9, 2007 UPAYA ZEN CENTER Santa Fe, New Mexico Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. --- Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet) Holidays---like all cultural-religious artifacts---tend to undergo drastic shifts in meaning from one epoch to the next. Many people now experience Christmas as an occasion for manic consumerism instead of hope or love, and conflate Thanksgiving with ritualized gluttony rather than gratefulness or compassion. In contrast to the popular tendency to celebrate (U.S.) Independence Day with an orgy of nationalistic self-congratulation, last Wednesday Roshi Joan challenged a surprisingly full (since it fell on the Fourth of July) zendo to consider what she sees as its essential spirit: a call to action against unjust and untenable conditions not only in our immediate environs but anywhere such conditions exist, and also an affirmation of certain basic values that grow straight out of what could be argued is our original nature. She proposed a middle path between mythologizing The Founding Fathers as traditionalists love to do, and pooh-poohing them like many revisionist historians such as the seminal Howard Zinn. She pointedly enumerated their ingrained cultural biases, but also highlighted the way in which these fifty-six bourgeois 18th-century white males managed to transcend their social-historical limitations to pen a document that has come to serve as an inspiration to many people in many places even to this day. If we are the stories we tell, choosing a historical narrative that could potentially serve the greatest good for the greatest number is a brilliant way to apply Dogen s teaching to throw nothing away and make use of everything, thus inviting ourselves to be enlightened and transformed by all things. Wednesday, July 11th DHARMA TALK will be given by Roshi Joan and the faculty of the "Women In the Shelter of Each Other" retreat: Rabbi Malka Drucker, Mother Tessa, Zuleikha, Mayumi Oda, Diane Haug, Barbara Tedlock, Cynthia West, Claudia Luigi, and the ordained women of Upaya. 12:20PM MEDITATION will be canceled from Thursday July 12th through Sunday July 15th due to the "In the Shelter of Each Other" Women's Retreat. The 7:00am and 5:30pm sittings will be held as usual. * CORRECTION: Our retreat catalog incorrectly lists the start date of the Summer Ango Bodhidharma Sesshin as August 18th. The correct date (which also appears on our website listing) is August 19th. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.

2 INVITATION: 2007 Summer Practice Period Roshi Joan Halifax Dear Friends, Each August, one of the most beautiful and lush seasons of Santa Fe, we gather together at Upaya to affirm our practice and our life by stepping inward together for a time of intensive practice and learning, offering our whole lives to the realization of the Way. Please join us for our Summer Practice Period: Ango and the Arts, from August This training period is rich with practice, learning, exploration and experimentation. It is buddhism out of the box, a way for us to learn that is both innovative and traditional. During all of Ango, Roshi Joan will guide us through the various lenses of Buddhist practice, experience, art, engaged Buddhism, and learning. Along the way, we will explore Big Mind with Genpo Roshi, learn traditional Zen craft from Kyojo Bakker, practice traditional and wild calligraphy with Kazuaki Tanahashi, drop into a very concentrated space of intensive practice with Roshi Joan, learn from the natural world and the arts with Natalie Goldberg and Roshi Joan, and be touched by the traditional when many of our community will receive Jukai and formally become Buddhists. We will do daily zazen, sit in council, do yoga, art practice and chi gung, meet Roshi Joan and other teachers in private interviews, and engage in the profound life of the sangha. You may participate in the whole retreat, by the week, program, or day. Each year, many of our friends gather to offer our whole presence in practice. Please join us for this time of complete practice and learning and a time of closeness with Roshi. Appropriate for both seasoned practitioners and beginners. Tuition: For entire period, $1350 member; $1650 non-member. Per week, $470 member; $550 non-member. Includes lodging. Dana to teacher. To register, registrar@upaya.org or call Individual programs are priced below: Aug : THE ESSENCE OF BIG MIND. Genpo Merzel Roshi The Big Mind process is a direct exploration of our true nature. Genpo Roshi ( draws from over thirty years of Zen teaching and Western therapeutic practices to bring forth a radical technique that can unlock the wisdom of Zen with directness and clarity. The Big Mind process gives one a profound perspective on our great potential to be free. Participants learn to sit with non-seeking mind in its vastness, rather than grasping after the truth. Genpo Roshi is Abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center and author of many books on Zen. Tuition: $220 members; $250 non-members; plus lodging. Dana to teacher. Aug : THE ART OF ZEN TRAINING. Irene Kyojo Bakker The craft of Zen permeates every aspect of monastery life, and can inform and deepen every dimension of our life in the world. In this training retreat, students will learn liturgy, nuances of meditation practice, explore koans, and discover a path of precision and gentleness that liberates the mind and body, as well as open compassion and wisdom. Four hours of meditation a day, samu and seminars. Irene Kyojo Bakker is a Dharma Holder and student of Roshi Genpo. She has taught at Upaya for many years, and carries Roshi Joan s teachings in Europe on care of the dying. Tuition: $255 members; $270 non-members. Dana to teacher. Plus lodging. Aug : CLASSIC AND WILD CALLIGRAPHY: SMALL, MEDIUM AND GIANT BRUSHES.

3 Kazuaki Tanahashi This powerful and wild workshop offers the practice of classical Zen calligraphy working on the most intimate scale to the largest scale with giant brushes. In the tradition of Asian calligraphy, we engage the creative process by reproducing ideograms and paintings from ancient Chinese masterpieces in all sizes. We interpret these works and explore creativity and how it works in our life as a source of insight. For beginners and seasoned artists. Kazuaki Tanahashi is a master calligrapher, Dogen scholar, and social activist (). Tuition: $220 members; $240 non-members; $70 materials; plus lodging. Dana to Sensei. Here are some photos of Kaz's last workshop at Upaya: Aug Aug 23: BODHIDHARMA SESSHIN: THE ART OF DIRECT SEEING. Roshi Joan Halifax The First Chinese Patriarch said that Zen is seeing your nature, not thinking anything, and everything you do. This is a profoundly quiet, simple and direct sesshin, emphasizing complete openness, strength of posture and presence, and complete surrender. We practice fifty minute periods of zazen throughout the day, walking meditation, work practice, two meals a day, two interviews with Roshi, two dharma talks during the sesshin, and no other formal aspects of Zen practice. The monastery drops into utter stillness as we sit and move invisibly and silently, cultivating our natural nobility of mind and heart in the experience of boundlessness. Roshi Joan Halifax is Abbot and Head Teacher, Upaya Zen Center. Tuition: $340 members; $365 non-members; plus lodging. Dana to Roshi. Aug Aug 29: NATURE OF ALL THINGS: FOREST REFUGE RETREAT. Natalie Goldberg and Roshi Joan Halifax With the fundamental base of sitting and walking meditation, we will settle into the deep mountains to create poems, draw, listen, look and practice letting the earth come home to us. We will be at Prajna Mountain Forest Refuge, practicing with the land, the forests, streams, and mountains. Be prepared to meet the trees with an open heart. Going to the gorgeous Refuge, nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, we do deep hermit and sangha practice, mountain walking, dharma talks in alpine meadows, and zazen. We write, draw, and contemplate. This is the practice of the ancients who revered the great mountains. It is a time of perfect quiet in the remote wilds of New Mexico. Accommodations are camping, bunk house, or hermitage; food is simple or you may fast. Mountains are high, clear and accessible from the Refuge. Utter simplicity of practice. All levels of practitioners, writers, artists, and nature lovers are welcome. Natalie Goldberg is a renowned writer, lover of Zen and the natural world ( Roshi Joan Halifax is Head Teacher at Upaya Zen Center. Tuition: $475 members; $500 non-members. Aug 29-30: ANGO COMPLETION: JUKAI, ORDINATIONS. Roshi Joan Halifax, Kyojo Bakker The last two days of Ango will be teachings on completion, letting go, and marking change through the power of ceremony. Tuition: included for those who enroll in the month-long program; otherwise $70 per day. UPCOMING PROGRAM DETAILS JULY 11-15: IN THE SHELTER OF EACH OTHER WOMEN'S RETREAT: WOMEN AND ALTRUISM---COMPASSION, SHADOW, AND POWER" With an extraordinary ecumenical faculty, including Roshi Joan Halifax, Zuleikha, Mayumi Oda, Mother Tessa, Rabbi Malka Drucker, Colleen Kelley, Diane Haug, Claudia Fluckiger,

4 Yushin Heilmann, Jisen McFarland, Jean Wilkins, Cynthia West; with special invited faculty Merle Lefkoff, who will do a special program on women and power. This powerful annual ecumenical gathering for women explores contemplative practice, social action, and the arts. A rich blending of body, mind and spirit, the retreat focuses on women s spiritual lives and service to others. Includes a unique faculty and intensive teachings, meditation practice, the arts, healthy diet, and physical practice to strengthen our lives. This years retreat explores altruism, power and their shadow in women's lives: How do we actualize compassion in our lives and the life of this world? How do we serve unselfishly with no attachment to outcome? How do we care for ourselves as we extend our hearts to others? What in our culture turns us away from caring and connectedness? How do we address the issues of alienation and fear in the lives of our young people and the lives of our elders? When is altruism self-serving and neurotic? How do we create a base of altruism that is not tainted with fear? How can the arts and spiritual practice help us face the fear in our society and transform this crippling mental quality? Who are examples of extraordinary altruism in the world today and in the past? To view a powerful 6-minute video of last year's Women's Retreat, please go to: AUGUST 10-30: SUMMER PRACTICE PERIOD. Please see the preceding section for details. SEPTEMBER 7-9: "AGAINST THE STREAM." Noah Levine The program is especially appropriate for social workers, teachers, and anyone interested in how the Buddha's teachings relate to personal and societal transformation, because the path of awakening was described by the Buddha as being one of rebellion and subversive action. He said that the experience of freedom from suffering was "against the stream". Retreat participants will learn to rebel against greed, hatred and delusion through the meditative practices of mindful investigation and compassionate action. Teachings on the Buddhist path to freedom will be offered and meditation instructions will act as a guide in the upstream journey to liberation. Noah Levine is author of Dharma Punx and Against the Stream. SEPTEMBER 14-19: "WRITING AND THE NATURAL WORLD." Natalie Goldberg and Wendy Johnson Pen, paper and the human mind are the basic tools of the writer. The more we understand the mind, the better we can work with it. Through writing, andsitting practice, and slow walking we will enter the natural luminous state of the mind. Through studying the untamed world of plants, soil, water, and trees we will experience the reverberation and affirmation of what we intuitively know inside. Come prepared to listen deeply, fill notebooks, write in small and large groups, take simple walks in nature. Open to all levels of sitters, walkers and writers. Sitting and slow walking instruction will be given along with writing practice teachings. Bring notebooks and fast writing pens. Upon registration, a reading list will be mailed out. 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,

5 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 Volunteers in the Prison Outreach Project offer weekly mindfulness instruction classes in three correctional facilities: Central New Mexico Adult Correctional Facility, Santa Fe Youth Development Facility, and the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Facility. These classes provide inmates with a way to reduce the stress of their time in prison and to encourage a shift in thought and behavior patterns away from violence and harming. Studies show that this training reduces violent behavior among inmates as well as between inmates and corrections staff, preparing them to re-enter society without relapsing into addiction and ending back in prison. 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 Some of Roshi's students on Zaadz invited her to join this social network and over the last Thanksgiving weekend, she did. 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. It complements her Flickr photo site, where she constantly adds new photos of current Upaya happenings, as well as some great archival photos of her life. To find out more, go to WANTED: Land Steward for the Prajna Refuge Someone who loves both wilderness and people, is reliable and kind; can plan and execute projects; do land work (from fence mending to clearing slash and deadfall); can work safely with a chain saw and do simple construction; works well with people; is a practitioner, and loves the adventure in the development of a new endeavor. Couples are also welcome. For more info: upaya@upaya.org c/o Roshi re. Refuge NATIVE GRACES photo exhibition by Thomas L. Kelly will run June 29 - August 25 at Verve

6 Fine Arts in Santa Fe, with an Opening Reception on the 29th, 5-7pm and a Gallery Talk with the artist on the 30th, 3-4pm. Thomas is an internationally acclaimed photojournalist who s lived in Katmandu for the last 25 years while travelling the world to document indigenous cultures and traditions. He will be leading Upaya s upcoming trip to Mongolia in July, along with anthropologist Carroll Dunham. For more info on Thomas and to view some samples of his stunning photography, please visit and click on Thomas Kelly under the Represented Artists box. Request for Stories, Memories, Reflections to commemorate Joan Halifax Roshi's 65th Birthday (July 30, 2007) by Ted Heffernan All of us---friends, colleagues, teacher, students---are getting older. Roshi Joan is also older (though somehow, oddly, she seems to be moving faster). She's approaching her 65th birthday on July 30, I've known her now for over a decade; many of you have known her even longer. Attending a workshop of hers at Naropa in 1996 initiated shifts in my life that still reverberate. Over the years, she has challenged and bemused, exasperated and infatuated, stretched and strengthened, guided and loved. I know many of you know what I mean, have experienced what I have, and more. I am asking folks for whom Joan has been important, who have known her, cared about her, been influenced or affected by her, to write something about who she is. What you write does not have to be great literature, or of great length---only from the heart. It might be a story, a song, an anecdote, a memory, a reflection. I am hoping for the stories one finally is willing to say at a wake, but before the damn wake is necessary. Roast her, kid her, chastise her, flirt with her, honor her, tell stories of this great storyteller. Joan's power for many of us is her heartbreaking humanity. She has lived and lives a wild and precious life, and this mosaic memoir will draw whatever meaning it has by honoring both her wildness and her precious gifts, and her giving. If you are willing and interested, please send everything as or attachments to , to my address eheffern@provak.org (or tedheff@yahoo.com as a backup). I would hope to have all in by July 1, allowing time to compile all these stories and reflections into one large electronic document (and a hard copy) to have presented to Roshi as one of her gifts. I do hope to organize this chronologically, so it would help if you can be sure to include the year(s) you of which you are writing, or perhaps the year she first entered your life. And of course your name. Lastly: Please do not send or forward any of these s to the Upaya office. They have generously allowed me to use the Upaya newsletter to make this project known, and I would not want to make their lives any harder. Thanks, in advance, to all of you. --- T.H. To unsubscribe from newsletter distribution or if you have received this in error, please reply to upaya@upaya.org with REMOVE in the subject line.

Wednesday, JUNE 20th DHARMA TALK will again be given by Tias Little, head teacher of Prajna Yoga (formerly known as YogaSource).

Wednesday, JUNE 20th DHARMA TALK will again be given by Tias Little, head teacher of Prajna Yoga (formerly known as YogaSource). June 18, 2007 UPAYA ZEN CENTER Santa Fe, New Mexico 505-986-8518 upaya@upaya.org www.upaya.org Know the male, yet keep to the female: receive the world in your arms. --- Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching, #28) After