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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, offered during Upaya’s Young Adult Sesshin, Sensei Kodo and Sensei Dainin explore two practices that shape the foundation of sesshin: noble silence and Oryoki. Kodo opens by naming what we’re actually up against: a culture of constant stimulation that makes stillness feel uncomfortable, citing silence as “an alternative to modern culture, i.e., samsara.” In meditation, he teaches — “when you try to control the mind, it’s like trying not to breathe.” We don’t fight the mind’s compulsive movement so much as learn to see it clearly.
Dainin traces the Five Contemplations of Food from the Buddha’s own instructions to monks through the Chan monastery handbooks that shaped Dogen. Each contemplation asks us to receive food not as comfort or reward but as medicine, as the fruit of countless labors, as life giving itself to life. These contemplations are expressed through the meal gatha chanted at Upaya daily: “May we be nourished, that we may nourish life.” Silence and food, stillness and sustenance — each an expression of what is essential.
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By Joan Halifax | Zen Buddhist Teacher Upaya Abbot
4.5
256256 ratings
In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, offered during Upaya’s Young Adult Sesshin, Sensei Kodo and Sensei Dainin explore two practices that shape the foundation of sesshin: noble silence and Oryoki. Kodo opens by naming what we’re actually up against: a culture of constant stimulation that makes stillness feel uncomfortable, citing silence as “an alternative to modern culture, i.e., samsara.” In meditation, he teaches — “when you try to control the mind, it’s like trying not to breathe.” We don’t fight the mind’s compulsive movement so much as learn to see it clearly.
Dainin traces the Five Contemplations of Food from the Buddha’s own instructions to monks through the Chan monastery handbooks that shaped Dogen. Each contemplation asks us to receive food not as comfort or reward but as medicine, as the fruit of countless labors, as life giving itself to life. These contemplations are expressed through the meal gatha chanted at Upaya daily: “May we be nourished, that we may nourish life.” Silence and food, stillness and sustenance — each an expression of what is essential.
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