dear dear friends,

am in bangkok now, on my way to vietnam, where i hvae not been since 1990, when i took a manuscript hidden in my suitcase to monks and nuns at thich nhat hanh's temple in hue. the manuscript was for a book he had just finished writing: knowing a better way to live alone. it was a joy to spend time with his friends, and a little heartbreaking. their love for him was deep........ palpable. it takes so much courage to stand up for justice. while there, i saw and mourned the results of the untenable vietnam war. that sense of sorrow is always with me and with so many others.

here is a communique about john dear, another hero of compassion and justice. lend him all the suppport you can.

"A lot of you have been curious about the Sentencing date for Father John Dear the last of the Elevator 6 who has yet to be sentenced. John's original Sentencing date of Nov. 7th has been postponed. Despite the fact that the Judge in our case asked that there be no presentencing report the Federal Prosecutor Bill Pflugrath brought to the attention of the Judge that John has done Federal time for an Action he did at an Airforce Base about 10 years ago, he also brought to the attention a column John wrote where he said he would not pay any fine in our case. So now John faces a presentencing interview & then a new Sentencing date will be given & I will keep you ALL informed. It does look as if OUR government is laying the groundwork to put John in jail, where they sent two of John's priestly brothers, Fr. Louie Vitale & Fr. Steve Kelly, just over a week ago to terms of 5 months behind bars, for also following their conscience & saying NO to hate and violence.

We hope that when John does have his Sentencing we can fill the Courtroom in support, but in the meantime that we ALL continue to work for the end of both the Iraqi & Afghani wars and that war no longer be considered as a valid way of settling human differences!

For Fr. John Dear's latest column http://ncrcafe.org/node/1401 about Franz Jagerstater who was just beatified in a ceremony in Austria that John attended. Franz refused induction into the Nazi army & was beheaded as a result. And if you read John's column please ignore at the bottom where it says his sentencing is Nov. 7th that was written before this new info came to light.

I have repeated times without number that nonviolence is the inherent quality of women. For ages men had the training in violence. In order to become nonviolent they have to cultivate the qualities of women. Ever since I have taken to nonviolence, I have become more and more of a woman. - Gandhi

am here in vietnam......
the ghost of war still here
will be for a long long time
inconceivable what we did
dioxin, agent orange
birth defects, cancer

i think of iraq and depleted uranium in our ordinance

yes, i hear, there are fewer wars, fewer dying in wars
but the long term effects of war, physically and psychologically cannot be measured

here are some words in the light of this:

Prayer for the Morning Headlines
    By Daniel Berrigan

    Mercifully grant peace in our days. Through your help may we be freed from present distress. Have mercy on women and children, homeless in foul weather, ranting like bees among gutted barns and stiles. Have mercy on those (like us) clinging one to another under fire. Have mercy on the dead, befouled, trodden like snow in hedges and thickets. Have mercy, dead man, whose grandiose gentle hope died on the wing, whose body stood like a tree between strike and fall, stood like a cripple on his wooden crutch. We cry: Halt! We cry: Password! Dishonored heart, remember and remind, the open sesame: from there to here, from innocence to us: Hiroshima Dresden Guernica Selma Sharpeville Coventry Dachau Vietnam Afghanistan Iraq. Into our history, pass! Seed hope. Flower peace.

dear friends,

i am just settling down after nearly thirty hours of flying....... and trying to comprehend what i have been through this past month. vietnam was powerful enough...... with the people rising from the ashes of war to foster the strongest economy in southeast asia. the journey there was a return for me after seventeen years, to witness so much change, so much resilience. and with tremendous growth, the environmental problems of the past and present are very present. dioxins do not disappear. they have a long life in the soil and flesh and the numbers of those with birth defects is notable. agent orange is something that we laid into the life of vietnam, plus landmines........ and now industry. so pollution is not inconsequential, among other problems. but life in hanoi is bubbling and alive; swimming in the waters of halong bay and phuquoc was healing for me especially, and the time with the mountain people took us deep into our hearts, meeting the children as well as old vietcong who fought to win their war.

i then traveled to nanjing, china, joining my friend kaz tanahashi and other chinese and japanese people, including dear mayumi, for marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre at nanjing. i am too road weary to go into detail, but to say it was like attending a war crimes trial is not an understatement. listening to the testimony of survivors of the massacre tell their stories was near unbearable. watching the japanese people cry in shame was as well heartbreaking. but truly, you must read iris chang's book "the rape of nanjing." it is gripping and terrifying. how could this have happened, a true holocaust in the cruelest manifestation, and so few in the world take note. please read this book. it blew my mind............

i went with kaz to nanjing three times to prepare this gathering. but i had no idea of the magnitude of the atrocities until a few days ago when i heard survivors testify. and to consider that some japanese deny this happened is absurd and disturbing. so this provided a chance for some truth and reconciliation.

kaz asked me to lead the panel on rape as a weapon of war. chinese women scholars presented powerful evidence concerning japanese soldiers torturing and raping chinese women and children and taking girls and women as sex slaves. japanese women spoke of the sexual and moral issues that beleaguer japanese sexist male culture. it was a very heavy and long afternoon. we had already heard testimony of rape and sexual slavery by japanese soldiers of chinese women and children the day before from survivors. and to tell you the truth, i felt for the many japanese men in the audience. the women did not hold back. and i was relieved as a woman to hear such strength from my asian sisters. it was an unbearable five hours of testimony.... a lot to bear witness to and life-changing for me, as i have not known any horror as this.

all the sessions were filmed so i hope to have a copy of this session for the sangha. it speaks volumes as to why i am dedicated to the spirit of zen we carry at upaya..... a practice that does not deny the wounds of war, including the war between the sexes.

i am in palm beach right now, having a soft landing at the kluges till the mind and life meeting begins day after tomorrow. then home to rohatsu. my bones ache. but my heart aches more. the echoes of suffering are everywhere. and these few days of rest are important for me, as i want to give my best during rohatsu, and this includes the aftermath of these days in asia, where the shadow of war is so strong.

i also wondered often if those who come after us will find themselves in baghdad one day, doing what we did this past week......... there can be no reconciliation without truth......

two hands together, roshi

ps: see the flickr site for photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/upaya/

Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living in better conditions.
                                                              - Hafiz

Dear Friends,

As indicated, we are hoping to see many of you at this important zen brain science program. Your contribution to the development of research in this area will be invaluable. Here is a description of what will happen....... Please distribute to your networks and colleagues via your elists, on your websites, and announcements at your organizations. We have few places left in the program and hope that you and your people will be attending.

Thanks for your interest, Joan Halifax

Outline of Zen Brain, Selfless Insight Retreat,

January 16-20, 2008

Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico

www.upaya.org

upaya@upaya.org

505 986 8518

 
Popular and scientific interest in the relationships between Buddhism and neuroscience has dramatically increased, accompanied by the publication of both theoretical proposals and new laboratory investigations relating Buddhist practice to the brain. In this important retreat/seminar, Joan Halifax Roshi and four renowned scientists who have contributed to this growing field of research, and are each long-term Zazen practitioners, will interactively share with participants their perspectives on what has specifically been learned about Zen practice and the brain, how this research is relevant for practice, and how experienced practitioners can help sharpen the research questions being asked. During the retreat, discussion will be integrated with Zazen practice throughout each day.
 
Clinical neurologist and neuroscientist James Austin, M.D. will provide an overview of  brain structure and physiology with high theoretical relevance to understanding many of the phenomena of Zen practice. His books, Zen and the Brain, and Zen-Brain Reflections, have been an extraordinarily rich source of hypotheses for neuroscientists who study long-term meditators. Dr. Austin will also provide retreat participants with a new speculative neuroscientific account of “what may have happened 2500 years ago under the Bodhi tree,” as well as information to help retreat participants appreciate how the tools and methods of modern neuroscience can contribute to our understanding of the transformative processes of Zen practice.
 
Clinical neuropsychologist and neuroscientist Al Kaszniak, Ph.D. will describe recent research in his laboratory focused on emotion response and emotion regulation in long-term Zen and Vipassana practitioners. His presentation will explain how emotion can be studied through both behavioral and psychophysiological research technologies, and will address the potential relevance of this research for understanding the cultivation of compassion in Zen practice. Retreat participants will be encouraged to reflect on how the experiments described relate to their own experience in practice, and propose ways in which future research might more accurately capture this experience.
 
Psychology graduate researcher and cognitive/affective neuroscientist Jason Buhle will present the results of his recent research on attention in Zen meditators, and describe new studies that will be using neuroimaging technology to measure brain activity during practitioners’ performance of specific attention tasks. His demonstration of these tasks will aid participants in examining the relevance of attention experiments for understanding their own practice experience, and in suggesting ways to enhance this relevance. His discussion of neuroimaging technologies (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging: fMRI) will also aim to sharpen the ability of participants to discern among neuroimaging-based claims that they encounter in the scientific and popular press.
 
Pathologist and biomedical scientist Neil Theise, M.D. will explain how complexity theory has provided a new approach for understanding complex biological processes, and how complexity theory has intriguing relationships to Buddhist metaphysics. He will also provide a perspective for understanding how various practices, including meditation, may work at the physiological level in neuronal, neuroendocrine, and cellular process relevant to disease, healing, and regeneration. His discussion will encourage the contemplation of how new models in biology may help to bridge Euro-American medicine and the understanding of bodily phenomena from Asian traditions.
 
Joan Halifax Roshi will both guide Zazen practice periods throughout the retreat and provide reflection upon the relationships of scientific approaches described each day to Zen tradition and practice. Roshi will help participants in contemplative exploration of the interrelationships of Zen and science, and in consideration of how scientific perspectives and research may contribute to the evolution of Zen as a living and changing tradition.
 
In discussion during scientific presentations, and in Council Circle at the close of the retreat, participants will have opportunities to contribute to the formulation of research hypotheses that will influence how the nascent relationship between Zen and the human sciences develops into the future.

Bibliography:
Austin, J.H. (1998). Zen and the brain. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Austin, J.H. (2006). Zen-brain reflections. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Begley, S. (2007). Train your mind, Change your brain. New York: Ballantine Books.
Cahn, B.R., & Polich, J. (2006). Meditation states and traits: EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, pp. 180-211.
Ekman, P., Daidson, R.J., Ricard, M., & Wallace, B.A. (2005). Buddhist and psychological perspectives on emotions and well-being. Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 14, pp. 59-63.
Kaszniak, A.W. (2001).  Some future directions in the study of emotion and consciousness. In A.W. Kaszniak (Ed.), Emotion, qualia, and consciousness. (pp. 517-545). London: World Scientific.
Lewis, M.D., & Todd, R.M. (2007). The self-regulating brain: Cortical-subcortical feedback and the development of intelligent action. Cognitive Development, Vol. 22, pp. 406-430.
Lutz, A., Dunne, J.D., & Davidson, R.J. (in press). Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness. In P. Zelazo, M. Moscovitch, & E. Thompson (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. New York: Cambridge University Press.
 Nielsen, L., & Kaszniak, A.W. (2006). Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: A comparison of long-term meditators and non-meditators. Emotion, Vol. 6, pp. 392-405.
 Nielsen, L., & Kaszniak, A.W. (2007). Conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues in inferring subjective emotional experience:

Recommendations for researchers. 
In J.J.B. Allen & J. Coan (Eds.), The Handbook of Emotion Elicitation and Assessment(pp. 361-375). New York: Oxford.
 Raz, A., & Buhle, J. (2006). Typologies of attentional networks. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Vol. 7, pp. 367-379.
Siegel, D.J. (2007). The mindful brain: Reflection and attunement in the cultivation of well-being. New York: W.W. Norton.
Theise, N.D. (2006). From the Bottom Up: Is science rewriting emptiness with the emerging field of complexity theory? What Buddhists can learn from ants, atoms, and physics. Tricycle, Summer, 2006, pp. 24 – 27.
Theise, N.D. (2005). Now you see it, now you don’t. Nature, Vol. 435, p. 1165.
Walsh, R., & Shapiro, S.L. (2006). The meeting of meditative disciplines and Western psychology: A mutually enriching dialogue. American Psychologist, Vol. 61, pp. 227-239.
 
For more information or to register, contact Upaya Zen Center. Limited registration; early registration advised.
This revolutionary science program is especially important for advanced practitioners and those interested in neuroscience.
From January 4-12, Upaya offers an intensive shikantaza retreat preparatory to the neuroscience program.
Following the neuroscience program, Upaya offers a Zen Sesshin, where we can apply what we have learned.
These programs happen in the context of an intensive monthlong on the science and art of Zen.
 
Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico
www.upaya.org   upaya@upaya.org
505 986 8518