In this Winter Solstice gathering, Roshi Joan Halifax offers a grounded teaching on awareness amid darkness. Speaking during the longest night of the year, she introduces the Zen phrase ekō henshō—“turning the light around”—as the practice of directing awareness toward awareness itself. Through a story from a vinaya gathering in Thailand and a single word—“phenomena”—Roshi explores how we meet…

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In this Way-Seeking Mind Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, resident Clayton Genryu Dalton charmingly shares his unexpected path to Zen and reflects on meaningful moments and insights from his life. From bathroom graffiti at UT Austin to Alan Watts, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, emergency medicine, and the abrupt end of his marriage, Genryu embodies life as process. Smiling at his own mistakes and…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Hoshi Senko reflects on Radiant Light as the everyday experience of being alive. Drawing on Dōgen Zenji’s Komyō (Radiant Light) and Koun Ejō’s sole surviving work, Komyōzō Zanmai (The Practice of the Treasury of Radiant Light), Senko traces how the ancestors point to what is closest and most easily missed—summarized by Wittgenstein: “It is not how things are in…

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On the first full day of Rohatsu sesshin, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and Roshi Joan Halifax open practice with teachings on non-division and “undivided activity.” Kaz reminds practitioners that Rohatsu marks the Buddha’s awakening—“birth, enlightenment, and passing, celebrated in one day”—and points to the core insight that “all things have absolutely no separation.” He describes emptiness as “all…

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In this session of Awareness in Action, spiritual teacher, psychologist, and author Tara Brach begins by acknowledging the profound pressures in our society and the importance of building solidarity in these times. She frames her exploration around the question of what it means to “keep choosing love.” Drawing on Father Gregory Boyle’s work with LA gangs, Tara highlights two unwavering principles…

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This is the 2nd half of the closing session of the Awakened Action series begins with Christiana Figueres joining from Costa Rica, fresh from COP30 in Berlin. She shares her striking observation of “three realities” at the climate conference: the scientific urgency, governmental paralysis, and 50,000 activists accelerating change. Christiana emphasizes the fundamental importance of choice—between…

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This is the 1st half of the closing session of the Awakened Action series begins with Christiana Figueres joining from Costa Rica, fresh from COP30 in Berlin. She shares her striking observation of “three realities” at the climate conference: the scientific urgency, governmental paralysis, and 50,000 activists accelerating change. Christiana emphasizes the fundamental importance of choice—between…

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In the sixth session of Awareness in Action, Christiana Figueres discusses Brazil’s Climate Conference, reflecting on our collective anxiety about present conditions and future uncertainties. She emphasizes that “the future is not waiting for us. The future is being shaped right now, every day, in the choices we make.” Drawing on Buddhist teachings of impermanence and interbeing…

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In the fifth talk of the Awakened Action series, Rebecca Solnit invites participants to name acts of moral beauty—from tribal leaders honoring Japanese American internment survivors to the Rainbow Defense Coalition protecting LGBTQ+ events. Rebecca reflects on falling into depression amid political darkness, emphasizing that the long view of history offers an antidote to despair.

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In the fourth session of the Awakened Action series, Terry Tempest Williams shares the quiet, touching story she “could never write”—the killing of Harvard Divinity School’s beloved 200-year-old red oak in 2019. Sleeping beside the tree the night before its death, she received its transmission: “My absence will be my presence…this is transformation.” Witnessing its four-hour dismantling while…

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