12/1 - 12/8: ROHATSU SESSHIN: Exploring Wisdom and Stupidity
Roshi Joan Halifax, Roshi Enkyo O’Hara, Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi.  This retreat is in silence, with sitting and walking meditation, eating formally as a community and the world.  Sesshin provides a powerful container supporting the unification of body and mind, and our individuality with the community and the world.

12/10/08 - 1/6/09: WINTER GUEST SEASON
Intimate rooms, kiva fireplaces, breathtaking views, stillness and big sky are just a few reasons to spend some time here at Upaya.

• Upaya Guests may come and go following their own rhythm for the cost of lodging and meals.
• Guest Practitioners follow our  meditation schedule, work 4 hours per day in exchange for lodging, meals and a small daily fee.A perfect place to celebrate your holiday and bring in the New Year.

  Please contact registrar@upaya.org or call 505-986-8518 X12 to determine room options and availability.

1/7 - 2/1/2009 WINTER PRACTICE PERIOD - contact Registrar@upaya.org
Since the time of the Buddha, practitioners have gathered to explore and train the mind. This powerful Winter Practice Period, led by Roshi Joan Halifax and Sensei Beate Genko Stolte, focuses on Zen's direct nonreferential approach to meditation and explores neuroscience research on selflessness, nonduality, and compassion. Upaya's Winter Practice Period is a time/space in which those practices and perspectives on self and selflessness, nonduality and compassion will be experientially and conceptually investigated.

The Practice Period has a faculty of renowned teachers, including neuroscientists Dr. Richard Davidson, Dr. James Austin, and Dr. Al Kaszniak, philosopher Evan Thompson, contemplative scholar John Dunne, NY Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee, biomedical researcher and complexity theorist Dr. Neil Theise, and Zen teachers Roshi Joan Halifax, Sensei Beate Genko Stolte, and Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi.

• 1/7-1/11/2009 - Zen Brain-Open Presence, Selflessness and Compassion: Perspectives from Buddhism, Neuroscience, and Complexity Theory
• 1/12-1/16/2009 - Sesshin: Silent Illumination
• 1/20-1/23/2009 - Koan Study on Selflessness
• 1/23-1/29/2009 - Sesshin: Invisible Enlightenment-Dogen’s Path of Nonduality
• 1/30-2/1/2009 - Zen Painting and Calligraphy Workshop on Brush Samadhi

Robert Thurman says, "we can be buddhas"�

In our hyperlinked world, we can know anything, anytime. And this mass enlightenment, says Buddhist scholar Bob Thurman, is our first step toward Buddha nature.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bob_thurman_says_we_can_be_buddhas.html

Roshi'a book chosen as Book of the Year, American Journal of Nursing

Roshi’s Book-Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death has been

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Andrew Zuckerman: Wisdom

www.wisdombook.org

Inspired by the idea that one of the greatest gifts one generation can pass to another is the wisdom it has gained from experience, the Wisdom project, produced with the cooperation from Archbishop Desmond Tutu,

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Upaya's Post-election Retreat - Yes We Can!

Awakened Dreaming at Upaya's Post-Election Retreat
Report from Jim Gollin, co-leader of the retreat

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Wild River Review

“My field is dying,” says Joan Halifax Roshi, with a smile. “How we die and how we live can’t be separated because factors and policies surrounding death affect the well-being of us all.”

Halifax, Head Abbess and Founder of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and director of the Project on Being with the Dying, should know. “You could say I’ve been on a death trip for the past thirty years,” she adds. “Although, I’m a specialist in death, I’m also an incredible generalist.”

To read more, go to: http://www.wildriverreview.com/spotlight_roshibeingwithdying.php

Precepts Class

Upaya Zen Center offers a series of classes over five months for those preparing for Jukai, receiving of the Zen Precepts, taking refuge in the Three Treasures and becoming a Buddhist.  You may also join us if you are receiving the precepts in another lineage or if you are interested in exploring the 10 precepts, but will not be receiving the precepts during the ceremony of Jukai. All are welcome to participate in all or part of the series.

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Meditation Instruction

Meditation instruction is available on the following Sundays from 11:00 AM until 12:00 noon: Sunday, November 16, Sunday, December 14 Click here for the meditation schedule.

Roshi's Book-Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death

Being with Dying - Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death

Joan Halifax

Foreword by Ira Byock, MD

Available now from Amazon.com.

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