This session of The Measure of Our Humanity brings together Roshi Joan Halifax, Rebecca Solnit, and Christiana Figueres to reflect on courage, interconnection, and moral responsibility amid social and ecological rupture. Rebecca Solnit offers a passionate and lucid articulation of our moment as a struggle between an ideology of isolation and a shift back into the cosmology of interconnection. Drawing on history, science, Buddhism, and grassroots movements, Rebecca shows how empathy, solidarity, and collective action both expand what is possible and more naturally align with the fundamental expression of our world. Roshi connects Rebecca’s call to embodied practice, emphasizing courage, accountability, and principled action rooted in care for the commons. She articulates the importance of meeting one another warm hand to warm hand as a way of restoring our recognition of shared humanity. Drawing on Buddhist ethics, moral resilience, and the Bodhisattva vows, she challenges us not only to understand interconnection, but to act from it—together, one moment and one relationship at a time.

Christiana joins from the airport after a weather delay; She reframes action not as heroic in scale, but as relational intimacy—avoiding the paralysis of monumental efforts by simply meeting what is directly in front of us. Change, she suggests, begins when compassion is practiced locally and deliberately, allowing care to ripple outward through networks of relationship rather than through individual force.

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, Sensei Kodo hosts a conversation with Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and poet-translator Peter Levitt in anticipation of their upcoming weekend retreat on the poetry of Cold Mountain poet Hanshan. Rather than a formal dharma talk, the evening unfolds as sharing and inquiry, touching on the nearly 40-year friendship between Kaz and Peter — a companionship born…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk coinciding with Lunar New Year, Senseis Kodo and Dainin Lau guide viewers through a recording of Upaya’s Gate of Sweet Nectar — a monthly new moon ceremony of radical hospitality toward all hungry and wandering spirits. These hungry ghosts become a mirror for the parts of ourselves blinded by greed, aversion, and delusion — the states that make us unable to…

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In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, poet, author, and meditation teacher Henry Shukman explores the topic of his latest book, Original Love, by walking through four progressively deeper meanings of awakening. Through a light, simple, and warm narrative, Henry sets forth four ways we can awaken: returning to presence, waking from oppressive self-narratives, entering into flow or samadhi, and…

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In this dharma talk following Upaya’s Winter Practice Period, Sensei Fushin explores silence not as absence but as presence itself—”our own true nature looking back at us.” Through his work as a family law attorney and former Chaplain intern, he reveals three moments when silence showed its active power: In his conference room after a disappointing court ruling, twenty-five seconds of excruciating…

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On the fifth and final day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Senseis Kodo and Dainin gather the threads of practice into a teaching on Magnanimous Mind, intimacy, and not knowing. Kodo explores not knowing as a gateway to vastness, questioning how thought and naming can obscure direct experience. Roshi Joan continues this inquiry, inviting practitioners to stay with…

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On the fourth day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kodo and Sensei Dainin continue the exploration of Dōgen’s Three Minds. Kodo opens by situating the dharma talk itself within silence, inviting practitioners to listen as they would to wind, creaking floorboards, or the laughter and screams arising from the nearby park, quoting Mahatma Gandhi “Do not speak unless you can improve upon…

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On the third full day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Sensei Kodo and resident priest Butsumon reflect on how practice comes alive through ordinary activity. Butsumon opens with stories from samu (work practice), contrasting effort driven by efficiency with work done in care and attention. Drawing on Dōgen’s Three Minds, he explores how Joyful, Caring, and Magnanimous Mind transform any…

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Day two of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin opens with Sensei Dainin recalling placing the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—both killed in recent shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis—on the altar. Visibly moved by these tragedies Dainin reflects on Nyoho (thusness), the practice of embracing “the good, the bad, the ugly, everything.” She invites us to consider wether even those…

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On the first full day of the Winter Practice Period Sesshin, Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on alignment and presence, exploring how practice begins by meeting things as they are. She emphasizes that Zen training is not performance but a return to our natural state—learning to act with care, attention, and nonviolence in relationship with others and the world. Addressing ongoing social violence in…

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