Intimacy with Life (Part 1)

Intimacy with Life (Part 1)

Zen master Dōgen teaches that enlightenment is intimacy with all things. These two talks explore teachings and practices that cultivate intimacy – a liberating experience of relatedness and oneness with our living world. Listen and watch: Intimacy with Life...
Meditation: Present Heart (14:16 min)

Meditation: Present Heart (14:16 min)

We awaken a present heart by relaxing with the breath, and bringing the kindness of a smile into our bodily experience. This meditation ends with an offering of blessings to our inner life and all beings. Photo: Tara...
Being with Love, Death and Grief: Tara Brach and Frank Ostaseski

Being with Love, Death and Grief: Tara Brach and Frank Ostaseski

Grief is our natural way of expressing loss for what we love, and learning to open to grief serves the deepening and widening of our loving. This event, given at the Upaya Zen Center on June 25, 2023, includes short meditations and talks by Frank and Tara, and...
Meditation: Loving What Is (18:49 min.)

Meditation: Loving What Is (18:49 min.)

While we might not directly love what is, there is a pathway to this inner freedom. As we explore in this meditation, we begin with allowing the changing sensations and emotions to move through us, just as they are. As this allowing presence deepens, it becomes...
Three Core Reminders for Spiritual Practice

Three Core Reminders for Spiritual Practice

This talk explores three powerful ways you can direct your attention when you find yourself emotionally stuck: Wake up from thoughts; feel your feelings and remember love. We explore both the habits blocking these basic movements toward freedom, and what nourishes...
Meditation: Meeting Life with a Kind Presence (21:05 min.)

Meditation: Meeting Life with a Kind Presence (21:05 min.)

This practice guides us to a receptive, kind presence by starting with listening, and moving through a body scan. We then rest in an open awareness, responding to whatever arises with a gentle attention. Photo: Jonathan...
Meditation: Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life (21:39 min.)

Meditation: Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life (21:39 min.)

This meditation invites us to collect our attention with a calming breath, and then with the senses as a home base, settle into presence. The reminders encourage a letting go of thoughts, shifting from virtual reality into the aliveness of moment-to-moment experience....
Meditation – Cultivating a Relaxed Attention (21:28 min)

Meditation – Cultivating a Relaxed Attention (21:28 min)

In this meditation we engage a relaxed and alert attention by scanning through the body, opening to sound, and resting in the awareness that includes all the senses. This presence is stabilized with the use of a home base, for many the breath, and reminders to “relax...
Facing Fear (Part 2) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart

Facing Fear (Part 2) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart

Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes...
Facing Fear (Part 1) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart

Facing Fear (Part 1) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart

Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes...
Releasing the Habits That Imprison Your Spirit – Part 2

Releasing the Habits That Imprison Your Spirit – Part 2

Addictions of all levels of intensity arise from disconnection and are spiking globally. Humans are experiencing epidemic levels of loneliness, and this combined with engineered products and substances that are highly addictive leads to great suffering. In these two...