The Gay Buddhist Forum by GBF – Details, episodes & analysis

When we feel stuck or overwhelmed by society, how can we find joy and courage?

Steven Tierney asks us to challenge the notion that we are stuck with no way out. He emphasizes that rather than avoid the difficult, we can find a way through by embracing Buddhist teachings and practices.

This can include:

1. Living with Intention:
   • Drawing from Victor Frankl and Thich Nhat Hanh, he underscores the importance of embodying the teachings and living with intention.
2. Joy and Bliss in Buddhist Practice:
   • He examines the concept of the "jhanas" or advanced meditative states that lead to joy and bliss, cautioning against quick fixes or commercialized paths to spiritual fulfillment.
3. Investigation and Self-Understanding:
   • Emphasizing the importance of self-investigation (Dharma Vaya), Steven discusses how understanding our true selves, beyond societal expectations or prohibitions, is crucial for personal growth and finding joy.
4. The Role of Courage:
   • He also highlights the role of courage in living authentically and taking action in the world. Steven connects courage to joy, suggesting that joy naturally arises from deep self-understanding, while courage is needed to express this joy in the face of external challenges.
5. Moving Through Pain:
   • He encourages us to face pain fully, without becoming a victim of it, and move through it as a path to deeper understanding.

______________

Steven Tierney (Kai Po Koshin) is a Dharma transmitted teacher in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. Steven has a new Sangha: Oceans Compassion Sangha and also practices with Gay Buddhist Fellowship, Meditation in Recovery at SFZC, Great Spirit Sangha, SFLGBTQA Sangha, and the Hartford Street Zen Center.

Steven believes that we can find wisdom, compassion and awakening wherever good people come together for practice, healing, service and joy. Dr. Tierney is a psychotherapist in private practice and Professor Emeritus in Counseling Psychology at CIIS.

He is a Certified Addiction Specialist and has been named a Diplomate in Clinical Mental Health by the American Mental Health Counselors Association. He is also a certified suicide prevention and intervention trainer, providing workshops, classes, and consultations. Steven can be reached at 415-235-1061 or steventierneysf@gmail.com

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

What core Buddhist teachings are reflected in all other wisdom traditions?

As stated in the Kālāma Sutta, known as the Buddha's "charter of free inquiry," Donald Rothberg encourages us not to believe anything simply because we are told to, but rather apply our own experience and discernment. 

He encourages us to embrace the very practical core teachings of Buddhism and consider how those resonate with other religious traditions. 

He explores the foundations of our teachings in familiar Buddhist language, framing them in terms of: 

1. Ethics
2. The heart practices (compassion, loving-kindness, joy, etc.)
3. Wisdom

He then looks at the essence of each and how they can be expressed very simply in ordinary, practical language that goes beyond Buddhism.

WATCH the full talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZLIg05F38
______________
Donald Rothberg, Ph.D., is a member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Center, a guiding teacher for the Marin Sangha in San Rafael, California, and a regular teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California, Southern Dharma Retreat Center, InsightLA, and New York Insight.

He teaches retreats and groups on concentration and insight meditation practice, lovingkindness practice, transforming the judgmental mind, mindful communication, working skillfully with conflict, and socially engaged Buddhism.

He has practiced insight meditation since 1976, and has also received training in Tibetan Dzogchen, body-based psychotherapy, and trauma work. He has helped guide many six-month to two-year training programs in socially engaged spirituality, both Buddhist-based and interfaith, and is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in Dialogue.

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

How can Buddhist philosophy help us address the everyday suffering we encounter in a human body - the accidents, falls, missteps, mistakes, broken bones and broken hearts?

In this talk, Laura Burges recounts her own experience following a recent fall and injury.  She shares practices and reminders that can be helpful when we experience "The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" of which Hamlet spoke.  

Among these are:

1. Notice that you are safe in this moment.
2. Love your inner child and past.
3. Remember impermanence and that our troubles will change 
4. Respond rather than react - stop and take 3 deep breaths.
5. Don't take things personally.
6. Find the things you can say yes to.   

______________
Ryuko Laura Burges, a lay entrusted dharma teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, teaches classes, lectures, and leads retreats in Northern California. She received monastic training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Laura co-founded the Sangha in Recovery Program at the San Francisco Zen Center and is the abiding teacher at Lenox House Meditation Group in Oakland. Shambhala Publications offers her Buddhist children’s books, Buddhist Stories for Kids and Zen for Kids. Her most recent book from Shambhala is The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction. Laura lives in San Francisco.

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

What is it about retreats that can facilitate wholeness?

At the heart of the retreat process is our inner life and various stages of development. These stages can lead us through purification of not only the body, mind and heart, but also our very identity and who we conceive ourselves to be. As we come to know both our inner and outer story it points to what brought us to the dharma. Retreats can lead us to unify the inner with the outer and bring us closer to wholeness.

Listen in as Amida helps us examine this inner life, the stages of development, and the four pillars of retreat:

1. Silence
2. Fasting
3. Solitude
4. Watchfulness

Amida Cary directs the Retreat Guide Training and the Retreat Concentration of the Inayatiyya Inner School of North America. She supports a network of retreat guides and oversees training for those interested in becoming retreat guides. A primary focus is encouraging retreatants to enter deeply into the transformative process. Amida has immersed herself in the study of the ancient art of alchemy and the Sufi retreat process with Pir Zia and Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, and has taken and guided many retreats. She worked closely with Pir Vilayat developing and publishing his curriculum. Amida helped Pir Zia found the Suluk Academy and served as a mentor and teacher within it. Currently she lives in New Mexico where she is exploring the path of light and rewilding a small patch of land in her environs.
______________
Watch the video version at:
https://youtu.be/pwV4V426IU8 

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Padmatara began meditating in 1989 and became interested in Buddhism in Brighton, England around the same time. She was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2005. She loves to share her practice with others through teaching and study, especially on retreats. She has also trained as a focusing guide - a kind of mindful, body-oriented therapy. Padmatara became Center Director of the SFBC in 2010, and shares the role of chair with other members of the Council. 

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Conflict can exist internally and externally to ourselves. How can we bring mindfulness to the experience of this conflict? If we allow compassion for this conflict to enter our hearts, how does this express itself both internally and externally? As an adolescent, I found that I was expressing violence externally and causing others pain and suffering. I recognized that I didn't want to cause others pain, and found a way to be compassionate to myself. 
______________ 
René Rivera is a meditation teacher, restorative justice facilitator, and leader, working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, mixed-race, trans man. René teaches heart-centered, trauma-informed meditation, at the East Bay Meditation Center and other meditation centers. He has co-led the first residential meditation retreats for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people. René is a restorative justice facilitator for the Ahimsa Collective, working to heal sexual and gender-based violence.

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Bob Isaacson is president and co-founder of Dharma Voices for Animals, an organization of those committed both to practicing the teachings of the Buddha (the Dharma) and to speaking out when animal suffering is supported by the actions of those in Dharma communities and by the policies of Dharma centers. He has practiced the Dharma in the Vipassana/Theravada tradition for more than 17 years. Bob currently teaches the Dharma, leads two sanghas, and leads day-long and weekend retreats in the San Diego area, having been trained in Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader program. He was a civil rights-human rights attorney for 25 years, specializing in defending people against the death penalty. 

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Eve Decker has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1991, and has taught groups, daylongs, and short retreats since 2006, particularly at Spirit Rock, the East Bay Meditation Center, and elsewhere in the Bay Area. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and of Spirit Rock’s Path of Engagement and Community Dharma Leader training programs, and has been trained in the Hakomi approach to body-based psychotherapy. Eve is also a singer/songwriter who has combined the power of music and dharma practice. Her most recent CDs are “In: Chants of Mindfulness and Compassion,” and “Awakening Joy - The Music.”
 Find her at www.evedecker.com/

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Bill Weber is a senior Vipassana practitioner and a graduate from Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program. He has twenty-five years of extensive retreat practice and currently practices at home with his husband or sits with a small group of gay men. He is also a documentary filmmaker and video editor, whose latest projects are “To Be Takei” and “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin.”

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Ann Gleig is an associate professor of Religion and Cultural Studies at the University of Central Florida. She is the author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity (Yale University Press, 2019). She is currently working on a collaborative book with Amy Langenberg on sexual misconduct and abuse in contemporary Buddhism, which is under advance contract with Yale University Press. Learn more about Ann, with links to many of her published articles, at https://philosophy.cah.ucf.edu/faculty-staff/profile/569

______________
To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:

• Donate
• Learn how to participate live
• Find our schedule of upcoming speakers
• Join our mailing list or discussion forum
• Enjoy many hundreds of these recorded talks dating back to 1996

CREDITS
Audio Engineer: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter