Upaya

Thank you for listening to Upaya's Dharma Podcast, an extraordinary series of talks from some of the finest teachers in the world.

I'm Joan Halifax, founder of the Upaya Zen Center, and we're happy to make these podcasts available to you.

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And, um, does everybody kind of have their accommodations and everything worked out? If anybody has any issues, come see us afterwards and, uh, we'll get you set up.

But we have a wonderful team, and I see name cards.

And who's here for the first time? Who's never been to Upaya before? Wow.

Wow.

It's a Buddhist word that means awareness, but it is upaya.

I've got a funny story about this word.

Upaya is Buddha's way of when he describes awareness.

It's being awareness of this consciousness and awareness of the self and of your reactions and actions and cause and effect and life and death and pain and suffering and love and joy and all of the things.

encompassing your awareness into the capital S self into the deep consciousness self and finding your awareness there and then with that awareness we are to lead our lives in a way that we know is best for Our being our community and everyone around us, you know, and so I had, you know, been diving into some Buddhism when I was a teenager.

heard someone mentioned the phrase skillful means the other day and I really I really like that idea upaya is the word in Pali skillful means and so I wanted to look at that what does it mean how does it work and what as i was thinking about it what came up for me is the one of the definitions of equanimity is an appropriate response to the moment an appropriate response to what's happening rather than just a an autopilot reaction a habitual reaction instead we're present and we respond wisely and oftentimes that's a skillful response and so um That's exactly what skillful means is.

It's this appropriate response to what's happening in the moment.

And the beauty of it is it's not just one size fits all.

We don't stop and think, how do I open a door? We do it on autopilot.

But in particular situations, there may be a need, a call for a pausing.

We hear about skillful means a lot more often in Mahayana teachings, and especially around the Bodhisattva, idea of the Bodhisattva, where the Bodhisattva says, uses any means that makes sense it's appropriate to ease the suffering the bodhisattva is the is the being who wants to you know end suffering for all beings beings are beings are numberless i vow to save them all suffering is you know infinite i vowed to end it suffering is endless i vow to end it and so there's that skillful means of moving through the world how do we attend to each moment um in theravada the older text lineages of the elders which is what i'm practicing teaching the insight tradition it's not um it's not really spoken about so much upaya but the buddha practiced skillful means especially you see it in his teachings where he um you know when he was new to or just enlightened he's thought I can't teach if people aren't going to understand what I have to say and then he realized there were people with just a little dust in their eyes as the saying goes you know some people were really close they had some practice they had awareness and so it wouldn't take much but then there were others other folks who were just new to this totally engulfed in greed and craving and aversion and delusion And so then he would teach to them in a more appropriate way.

It's like you don't teach chemistry and physics to kids in kindergarten because it's not going to land as well as when they're older.

The Buddha adjusted what he did to the needs and comprehension of the folks he taught.