Paths of Practice: Conversations on Journeys into Buddhism

• Paths of Practice with Phoenix Song

  *Disclaimer: this episode features brief mention of self-harm.Phoenix Song is a queer, nonbinary Korean American adoptee teacher, performer, writer, and healer featured in SF Magazine’s Best of the Bay for yoga music. Phoenix was initiated on the spiritual path at Plum Village with Thich Nhat Hanh and is a dharma teacher at East Bay Meditation Center and Spirit Rock. They believe that everyone can sing and love to help people free their voices and rhythm in private and group classes. Much of Phoenix’s life has been about exploring identity issues and healing ancestral, racial, sexual, and gender wounds. They offer tools that have helped them by leading ancestral healing, grief, and diversity/solidarity workshops and trainings that use expressive arts and somatic processes. To learn more about their sound healing offerings, classes, and performances, please visit phoenixsongmusic.comWe discussed how breath impacts your speaking voice and your singing voice, their profound experience during an ancestral healing ritual at Plum Village, focusing on voice work after recovering from dengue fever in India, the invitation to ask yourself “what season am I in?”, crafting rituals for others and for yourself, and the importance of taking your time.

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• Paths of Practice with Vickie Chang, PhD

  The daughter of Chinese immigrants born and raised in the SF Bay Area, Dr. Vickie Chang first encountered the dharma through the doorway of mindfulness meditation in 2008. She graduated from the Spirit Rock Dedicated Practitioner’s Program and has benefited from extended periods of retreat at Spirit Rock and IMS. She lived in a Taiwanese Guanyin Pusa monastery and worshipped at the feet of Arunachala. Most influential in her practice has been her relationship with the land, culture, and people of Tiruvannamalai, India, northern New Mexico, and the Divine Buddha Temple in Taiwan. Her main teacher is the Earth/body and her path is love. She is a psychologist and works in West Oakland and Berkeley.For more information about Dr. Chang, please visit: https://www.vickiechangphd.com/We talked about coming across a statue of Guanyin Pusa while working at a horse barn in Montana, learning how to listen deeply to the Earth at Spirit Rock, living at the Divine Buddha Temple in Taiwan and visiting Arunachala in India, racial trauma and facilitating conversations around Asian diaspora in America, and the importance of being open to the mystery and spontaneity of life with support from like-minded people.

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• Paths of Practice with Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda

  Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda is a Buddhist Monk who received novice ordination in 2018 as Sister True Moon of Clear Grace in the Plum Village Vietnamese Zen tradition headed by the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. In 2020, she received higher ordination and carries forward both the Theravada and Mahayana lineages of her preceptor, Venerable Dr. Pannavati Karuna of whom she was transmitted the name Dayananda.The Dharma has been her greatest source of insight and transformation to heal from injustice and suffering of all kinds. She shares these learned truths to help others unlearn deeply embedded beliefs that have kept them away from the liberation of such sufferings in daily life. She shares these integrative skills, understandings, wisdom traditions and worldviews to help alleviate suffering for self and all beings.For more information about Venerable Dayananda and Sangha House NOLA, please see the links below:https://travelingnunk.org/https://www.sanghahousenola.org/We discussed viewing marketing as an opportunity for practice while developing a slogan (or mantra) for Sangha House NOLA, participating in the MAAFA 25th anniversary Commemoration and healing with the Ancestor Tree at Congo Square, traveling around the US in a van called "The Great Aspiration," and the importance of accepting the invitation to “come and see for yourself” and let the dharma work in you.

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• Paths of Practice with Ram Appalaraju

  Ram Appalaraju has served on the boards of nonprofit organizations for over eight years after retiring from the high-tech industry where he worked for 35 years. Ram has been studying Buddhism under Gil Fronsdal and is currently in the Insight Meditation Center’s Dharma Leaders Training. He also graduated as a chaplain and an eco-chaplain from the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies. He now teaches as a faculty member at Sati Center’s Eco-Chaplaincy program and is one of the organizing team members at IMC’s Earth Care community group. He also serves as a Buddhist chaplain and Mindfulness Meditation teacher at Santa Clara County Jails and is currently pursuing Clinical Pastoral Education.Ram has been practicing Buddhism for over 14 years and has engaged with several underprivileged and marginalized communities, teaching meditation and offering support. He is deeply committed to social and ecological causes and serves various groups in nature-based education through science and spirituality. He currently serves on the board of Insight Meditation Center at Redwood City and teaches at the San Jose Insight Meditation Sangha. Ram has also studied Vedanta at Sri Ramakrishna Mission and Chinmaya Mission for over 20 years.Ram serves as president of Insight World Aid. For more information about Insight World Aid, please see the following link:https://insightworldaid.org/We talked about Ram's dual practice of Vedanta and Vipassana and how they inform and influence each other, his decision to transition away from a ‘spreadsheet life’ to foster a spiritual life, the importance of watering the seeds within us that help us see the dignity in ourselves and others, as well as eco-chaplaincy and how we are inextricably linked to the Earth and its well-being.

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• Paths of Practice with Yogi Lama Gursam Rinpoche

  Yogi Acharya Lama Gursam Rinpoche was born in India and received a monastic education from the age of six. He went on to study at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees. He graduated at the top of his class, receiving honors from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Thereafter, he taught language and philosophy at the Drikung Kagyu Institute in Dehradun, serving His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche for six years.In 1995, he was invited to teach in the United States. He has taught and travelled extensively for more than 25 years. In addition to teaching in numerous Dharma Centers, he taught in schools, prisons, mental health and addiction settings, and in animal hospitals. He completed a traditional three year retreat and created The Bodhicitta Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization which aims to support the flourishing of Dharma activity. His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche has officially recognized The Bodhicitta Foundation as an affiliate of the Drikung Kagyu Lineage.As part of his ongoing activities, Lama Gursam maintains a regular retreat and teaching schedule internationally. Online classes are offered multiple times per week for the study and practice of authentic Dharma texts, some of which are translated into Spanish and Chinese. Every year, Lama goes on retreat in various mountains and holy places, including some of Milarepa's caves and Bodh Gaya. He also leads pilgrimages to holy places in India and Nepal.Lama teaches in English, and always tries to focus on the practical application of the Dharma in everyday life. For more information about Lama Gursam and his offerings, please visit https://lamagursam.org/We discussed Lama Gursam's experience meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Gursam’s personal connection to Milarepa, visiting sacred caves in the Lapchi mountains, making time for walking meditation while traveling, the Bodhicitta Foundation, organizing and leading pilgrimages to sacred sites, and the importance of applying the Buddha's teachings to the real world.

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