Showing posts with label gil fronsdal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gil fronsdal. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Berkeley Zendo on Vipassana insight?



Linda Galijan is the Berkeley Zen Center’s first female abbot (Facebook)

"I never get lost because I don't know where I'm going" - Zen Master Ikkyū, 15th century.
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At the BZC altar (Nathan Dalton)
BERKELEY, California - Saturday, August 29, 2026: The Berkeley Zen Center's Abbess Linda (Shinchi Linda Galijan Rōshi) will set off for a monthlong vipassana (Buddhist four-dimensional insight as sati) retreat under her root teacher Gil Fronsdal.

Her other root teacher was BZC Founder Mel Weitsman, a direct transmitted disciple of Shunryū Suzuki, who also founded two affiliated temples, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center). For the weekly Saturday Dharma talk, Abbot Linda as she is referred to, extolled the virtues of Theravada Insight Meditation, also known as vipassana, stating that while it is different than Zen's shikantaza, it is just the same. That is to say, they coordinate and aid one another to bring about the same realization (kenshō) or “clear seeing.” Vipassana literally means “special or clear seeing.”

Is satori “insight”? Not quite but not altogether different, both being a kind of iteration of wisdom (prajñā), clearly seeing into the true nature of experience -- directly perceiving what is ever-present but usually unseen: The Three Marks of Existence.
Prof. Jason Arday (anglicanmainstream.org)
These weekly Dharma talks, and we've attended a few now, generally amount to nothing, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, but seeming very deep for their Taoist-style nothingness or pointlessness. It may just be that they land later, filled with wisdom and no rush to make any obvious point. Last Saturday (8/22/26), an elderly Zen abbess from Santa Cruz, a long-time professor at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC.edu), gave a wonderful talk about social suicide, literally. She discussed her intimate familiarity with plagiarism and academic scandals in the social sciences as brought up by the tragic case of an accused person-of-color at Cambridge University in England. Accusations by a right-wing troll led to an investigation of Black Prof. Jason Arday (RIP), who was humiliated by the accusation and chose to end his life in ignominy. This is tragic, our Zen speaker explained, because far worse is done by seasoned senior white professors who weather the storm, which usually comes to nothing, no retraction, no dismissal, no punishment. It seems to be the way of hubris and academic progress. She would know because she sat on many a committee to deal with such issues as well as being part of the peer-review process, which even when it turns up plagiarism by professors usually comes to naught.

Bodhisattva Dolly Parton passes away at 80
But this talk was different, better, more substantive, less fluffy white rice, more solid and gomashio-sprinkled tofu, as it were. Why?

The jokes keep coming, little nudges about this and that, never getting too heavy to "stink of Zen," but at the end of it was a reverie about the newest, latest to be recognized bodhisattva, The Dali Parton. Abbot Linda praised "Buddhist Rebecca Solnit." Who knew the feminist woman who can't pronounce "women"* was a Buddhist? News to us.
The enso in Zen is like a zero, circle
Everyone giggled and enthusiastically nodded along in recognition of the recently passed country music star, humanitarian, lover of humankind, and philanthropist. This is in accord with the local NPR affiliate in the Bay Area playing the first of a 9-part Radio Lab (by the great Jad Abumrad) series on Dolly: Creator of 'Dolly Parton's America' podcast discusses her life and legacy | KALW
  • *How to correctly pronounce "women": /wih-minn/
What's so great about Buddhist insight?
What's the point of Buddhism, Dick Gere, insight? - Why not just worship His Holiness, Lisa?
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When one knows-and-sees, the heart lets go.
Then a longtime member of the sangha asked, "What do they do in vipassana meditation?" Abbot Linda perked up and outlined the fourfold setting up of mindfulness the historical Buddha talks about in the two Satipatthana Suttas, the greater and shorter "Four Foundations of Mindfulness Discourses." One make the heart/mind serene by sitting and attending to the breath until it is concentrated [and absorbed or in a zen state called jhana if possible. Then one emerges and turns attention to other aspects of the body]. One then progresses, turning attention to feelings (the three categories of sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral). Thereafter, attention is placed on mind.

No, Bart, just sit! Don't you dare have a goal!
Finally, one gives one-pointed attention to dhammas or mental phenomena usually categorized in Buddhist lists like the Five Hindrances and Four Ennobling Truths. [This is generally the way vipassana is understood, cultivating liberating insight by clearly seeing these four categories of "things." For in seeing them clearly, it is very difficult to identify and remain attached to the wrong views of self, satisfaction, and permanence. One instead sees things as they truly are -- hurtling towards destruction, unable to ever satisfy or fulfil, and utterly impersonal. In seeing this, the heart/mind lets go, stops clinging and grasping at ephemeral phenomena, and arrives at release, sometimes glimpsing the awe-inspiring freedom of nirvana. That's satori, that's kensho, that the first stage of enlightenment the Buddha called stream-entry.]

Sitting with Gil Fronsdal
How to see? Stillness and silence
This September 2026 vipassana retreat offers an experienced Zen and Insight (Vipassana) meditators a period of intensive residential practice guided by Gil Fronsdal. The teaching and practice orientation will be “Shikantaza Through the Support of Insight,” Shikantaza or “just sitting” being the core Soto Zen practice. The schedule will include mindfulness in complete noble silence with morning, afternoon, and evening formal sitting (zazen); formal ōryōki mindfulness meals (taking the least amount of food); work periods; and daily meditation instructions and nightly Dharma talks. There will also be formal and informal meetings with teachers. Participants commit to stay on for the duration (except by arrangement or emergencies). The retreat includes a 30-day sesshin (接心, lit. means “gathering heart/mind” but is usually translated as “Silent Zen Retreat Intensive”).
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Saturday, July 1, 2017

The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (talks)

Addie deHilster, La Crescenta
There are some topics we've been discussing recently, like this segment of a talk by Martin Aylward.
It's entitled "No Wrong Experience," which addresses embodied attention and how to mindfully investigate what's arising moment by moment.
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This week, there was also a brief overview of the teaching called the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. These are ordinary, innate qualities (we all have them) we develop and keep in balance through practice:
  1. mindfulness
  2. investigation
  3. energy
  4. joy
  5. tranquility
  6. concentration
  7. equanimity.
The way to liberation? Bojjhangas.
Jack Kornfield from Spirit Rock has an excellent article on the subject of enlightenment factors:
With an emphasis on their ordinariness and also good is this by Gil Fronsdal:
What does the term bodhi -- as in Bodhi Tree -- mean, "awakening" or "enlightenment"? It's the same thing! Whatever our aspiration for practice might be, these seven factors are wonderful, accessible qualities to cultivate. More
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