Can we see the extraordinary in the ordinary? How can we discover the sacred in the mundane?

In this talk, Tetsugan Tom Baker examines how we can come to realize that we already have everything we need to experience the sacred in our lives. He looks at the common desire for transcendence that underlies most spiritual pursuits, whether Bhakti yoga or Zen practice. 

Both are deeply rooted in sangha and employ a chanting practice. Bhakti is an exuberant expression of devotion, reciting the names of God;  whereas Zen is to settle the mind, focusing on emptiness and our interconnectedness.   

He examines the three conditions for following Zen: 

1. Great Faith - not an unquestioning belief, but rather the confidence that arises from practice. 
2. Great Doubt - not the paralyzing kind, but an understanding that there is no one "right way."
3. Great Determination - Zen meditation involves no agenda or goal or belief that something extraordinary should happen, which may require years to fully embrace. 

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Tetsugen Tom Baker is a Soto Zen priest in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi. He was ordained by Shinki Mark Lancaster at Dragon’s Leap Temple in 2017. He practices in the “Marketplace Priest” tradition. Long active in the Meditation in Recovery group, he was a founder of the off-shoot monthly Zen Men in 2015.

Tom works in the Geriatrics Division at UCSF and specializes in Palliative Care and end-of-life issues. He married his husband Gary Dexter in November 2021.

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Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

How can we use the experience of anxiety to understand the Buddhist concept of emptiness?

Dale Borglum shares that our understanding of emptiness is necessary for conscious living and conscious dying, the subject of his life work.

Just being on the spiritual path can lead us into anxiety at times, because we are letting go of our identity. This anxiety can be a difficult experience because it becomes so persistent in the background that we no longer recognize it. This makes it difficult to differentiate when we are acting out of anxiety versus wholeness and centeredness.

Emptiness is often misunderstood as nothingness. It is simply a way of perceiving our relationship with the nature of reality. Embracing anxiety can actually bring us into direct relationship with the true nature of self. It is grasping at the delusion of a non-existent self that gives rise to our suffering.

Dale explores how all emotions are healing messages. It is only when we are immersed in the delusion of living in separateness that anxiety arises. By working with anxiety, we learn who we really are and how we can approach our death fully conscious, without fear. We come to see that anxiety is something we experience, but is not our true nature.
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Dale Borglum founded and directed the Hanuman Foundation Dying Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the first residential facility in the United States to support conscious dying. Working with Ram Dass and Stephen Levine, Dale helped found the conscious dying movement in the West. He has been the Executive Director of the Living/Dying Project in Santa Fe and since 1986 in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the co-author with Ram Dass, Daniel Goleman and Dwarka Bonner of "Journey of Awakening: A Meditator’s Guidebook," Bantam Books and has taught meditation since 1974. Dale lectures and gives workshops on the topics of meditation, healing, spiritual support for those with life-threatening illness, and on caregiving as spiritual practice. He has taught with Ram Dass, Stephen Levine, Joan Halifax, Robert Thurman, Joanna Macy, Jack Kornfield, Annie Lamott, Jai Uttal and many others. He has a doctorate degree from Stanford University.
Learn more at https://www.livingdying.org/

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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Do we have the ability to laugh at ourselves? 

Bill Weber shares that this is a terrific way to work with one of the foundations of Buddhist wisdom: the concept of Non-self. The allure of our sense of self can easily lead us to become overly attached to our identity. We become competitive, demanding, and obsessive about the way we are treated.  

To counter this, Bill encourages us to instead find humor in the demands that our ego makes of us (and others). If we observe our mind playing these games, it allows us to lighten up and disconnect from our sense of self. We gain the ability to laugh at embarrassing situations rather than see them as personal failures. It helps us connect with who we really are behind our social facade - the observer, rather than the performer of acts. 

This ability to find the absurdity in the human condition is actually a deep practice, one perfected by the late Wes Nisker, a teacher, author and Buddhist comedian. 

Bill speaks about the tradition of Crazy Wisdom and its role in breaking through the illusion of reality. He encourages us to find the clown, the trickster, the jester and the fool within and learn how not to take ourselves so seriously. 

He also mentions the organization, "Clowns Without Borders" and reflects on the work of Bernie Glassman, founder of the New York Zen Center. Although Glassman founded a retreat where participants lived among the homeless, and one that took place in Nazi concentration camps, he later pursued humor and went on to found the "Order of Disorder" and the "Zen Peacemakers." 

Bill closes with Wes Nisker's poem "Why I Meditate"
https://inquiringmind.com/article/2301_50_nisker_why-i-meditate/
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Bill Weber is a senior Vipassana practitioner and a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program. He has twenty-five years of extensive retreat practice and currently practices at home with his husband or sits with a small group of gay men. He is also a documentary filmmaker and video editor, whose latest projects are “To Be Takei,”  “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin,” and "Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song."

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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

John Del Bagno discusses Pure Land Buddhism and reads his poems devoted to Amitābha Buddha. 

John describes Pure Land Buddhism as an alternative to self-powered practice, which often engages the willful, striving aspects of our ego. Pureland relies instead on an 'other power' to bring us to enlightenment: Amitābha Buddha. This is accomplished through the habit of reciting the Buddha-name, believed to make the attainment of Buddhahood possible in only one lifetime.
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John Del Bagno is a poet, spoken word performer, visual artist and gerontologist. He was ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order for many years and was one of the founders of the San Francisco Buddhist Center. After meditating every day for over two decades, he turned to the Pure Land Way which relies on Amitabha Buddha and the recitation of the Buddha-name. His first book is a collection of his essays, poems and prints: Hope from the Pure Land Way in Unnerving Times.

Learn more at purelandartwork.com

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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  

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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

What does the Third Noble Truth really promise when it speaks of "an end to dukkha?" Does it mean an end to unpleasant experiences? 

In this rich talk, Donald Rothberg shares that the end of dukkha actually means the cessation of our REACTIVITY to unpleasant experiences. He relates the analogy of "the second arrow" to our reactivity (both clinging and aversion) rather than the typical translation of "suffering." 

He introduces 10 guidelines for working with reactivity: 

1. Understand the nature of reactivity and how it becomes institutionalized
2. Assess your level of reactivity and determine an appropriate response
3. Be mindful of your patterns of reactivity
4. Explore how you react to both pleasant and unpleasant
5. Develop a regular heart practice, such as loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity, forgiveness, gratitude, and empathy 
6. Recognize the insight offered by our reactivity and transform it rather than strive to eliminate it
7. Learn alternatives to reacting through mindfulness
8. Bring conscious intention to our habitually reactive mind
9. Look at the roots and history behind our reactive patterns
10. Learn to develop non-reactive ways of speaking and acting 

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Donald Rothberg, Ph.D., a member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Center, and a teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center, teaches retreats and groups on concentration and insight meditation practice, loving-kindness practice, transforming the judgmental mind, mindful communication, working skillfully with conflict, and socially engaged Buddhism.

He has practiced insight meditation since 1976 and received training in Tibetan Dzogchen, body-based psychotherapy, and trauma work. He has helped guide many six-month to two-year training programs in socially engaged spirituality, both Buddhist-based and interfaith. He is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in Dialogue.
Find him at donaldrothberg.com

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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

In her signature humorous fashion, Ryuko Laura Burges shares wisdom from her latest book: "The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction."
Listen in as she reveals her insights on:

• How recovery can unshackle the mind to deepen one's practice 
• The healing power of forgiveness, of self and others
• We don't have to be limited or defined by the ways in which we have been hurt

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Ryuko Laura Burges, a lay-entrusted dharma teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, lectures and leads retreats at practice centers in Northern California. She received monastic training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen Buddhist Monastery in the United States. Laura taught children for 35 years and mentored other teachers, helping to bring mindfulness practice into the elementary classroom.

Laura is active in recovery, co-founded the Sangha in Recovery Program at the San Francisco Zen Center, and is the abiding teacher at Lenox House Meditation Group in Oakland. Her two children’s books are "Buddhist Stories for Kids" and "Zen for Kids." Her latest book is "The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction."

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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  

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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Can compassion serve as an antidote to the judgmental messages in our hyper-capitalist society? 

Told we must justify our worth, we begin clinging to self-righteousness and perceive the world through only our physical senses. Metta practice disrupts this energy that keeps us emotionally stuck. It allows us to see the interconnectedness of all conditioned things and realize that we can't truly take credit for our accomplishments that depend on so many others around us. 

In this talk, Kevin explores the benefits of engaging in metta practice, including:

• Addressing negative internal voices and judgment
• Developing more capacity for seeing things as they are
• Bringing comfort and humility from the cushion out into the world

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Kevin Martin, aka Thando, is a Vipassana meditation teacher with a decade of experience. He learned metta practice from his teacher's insight and cherishes witnessing life's aspects others fear experiencing. Thando's teaching philosophy is that life is our best teacher, and we should continually transform through cycles of death and life. His teaching style is practical and adapts to the student's understanding.

Thando means Love in Xhosa, a South African culture and language. While studying abroad in South Africa as a college student in 2009, Thando received his name from a Xhosa elder who identified 'love' as a virtue that would be his lifelong call to action. Since the passing of his elder, Thando has taken this name as a lifelong commitment.

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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  

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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Do we truly understand the world around us that we encounter, and the true nature of reality?

In this talk, Zerdan explains that the highest wisdom teachings in Buddhism center on Emptiness - realizing the true nature of reality that we experience.

To understand the place of Emptiness in Buddhist teachings, Zerdan examines the Three Poisons, or obstacles to enlightenment, along with their associated 'ANTIDOTES':

1. Greed (Attachment) - LOVE
2. Hatred (Anger) - PATIENCE
3. Delusion (Ignorance) - REALIZING OF EMPTINESS

He goes on to explore the various ways we can explore emptiness to realize it as the foundation for all that we experience.
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Zerdan Phunrab is an American Kadampa Buddhist monk. Zerdan has been a practicing Buddhist since 2001 and was ordained in 2007 by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche. He began his ordained life by helping to create a Buddhist temple in Dallas–Fort Worth. Zerdan now lives in Oregon as a vegan minimalist, sharing a warm, gentle heart.

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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  

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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

In Part 3, René Rivera looks at how we connect intimacy with self and others to the whole of our life. He examines how we can become more aware of, and present to, the world around us.
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René Rivera is a meditation teacher, restorative justice facilitator, and leader, working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, mixed-race, trans man.

René teaches heart-centered, trauma-informed meditation, at the East Bay Meditation Center and other meditation centers. He has co-led the first residential meditation retreats for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. René is a restorative justice facilitator for the Ahimsa Collective, working to heal sexual and gender-based violence.

______________ 
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  

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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

After first exploring intimacy with ourselves in Part 1, we now look at how the dharma informs all our relationships:
Intimate, friends, family, colleagues, society, and even the natural and unseen world - ancestors, guides and deities. 

In this talk, René Rivera reminds us that we can become more grounded in our relationships using the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which are awareness of:
1. The physical body
2. Feelings and sensations
3. Thoughts and consciousness
4. The dhammas - phenomena and the nature of existence
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René Rivera is a meditation teacher, restorative justice facilitator, and leader, working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, mixed-race, trans man.

René teaches heart-centered, trauma-informed meditation, at the East Bay Meditation Center and other meditation centers. He has co-led the first residential meditation retreats for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. René is a restorative justice facilitator for the Ahimsa Collective, working to heal sexual and gender-based violence.

______________ 
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  

•  Donate 
•  Learn how to participate live 
•  Find our schedule of upcoming speakers 
•  Join our mailing list or discussion forum
•  Enjoy over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995

CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter