The Gay Buddhist Forum by GBF

The Path to Freedom in an Ever-Changing World
How can we find lasting peace when everything in our lives—from our favorite shops to our own bodies—is constantly changing? In this talk, Walt Opie explores impermanence, the "bedrock" of Buddhist teaching, showing us how our suffering often comes from fighting a reality we cannot change. He explains that our brains are hardwired to look for "signs"—characteristic marks that help us recognize things—which trick us into believing life is more permanent than it really is. Through poetry and the wisdom of teachers like Ajahn Chah, Walt illustrates that when we accept "the glass is already broken," we create a "safety valve" for our hearts that prevents them from bursting when life shifts.
Walt offers several concepts to help us wake up from the "dream state" of daily life:
Equanimity: Being in harmony with the way things are instead of fighting reality.
Signlessness: Intentionally ignoring the "signs" or labels we usually construct from our senses, which helps us stay focused during meditation.
Bare Awareness: Training ourselves so that in the seen there is "just the seen" and in the heard "just the heard," stripping away the mental layers that cause us stress.
The Present Moment as a Gate: Using the image of a simple sandwich to remind us that liberation is found by fully showing up for whatever is happening right now.
By following his lead, we can learn to be "neither here nor there," allowing the world to catch our hearts off guard and blow them wide open.
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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Rev. Liên Shutt explores how the Buddhist path of wisdom can help us fully celebrate and embody our identities as queer people. 
The concept of prajna (wisdom) is not an abstract theory, but as an interactive way of being that honors our lived experiences. Liên breaks down the traditional three levels of wisdom and maps them onto the queer journey, showing how we move from simply seeking information about our identities to reflecting on our shared stories and, finally, to an embodied presence. The "perfection of wisdom" is found in how we carry ourselves—without defensiveness or shame—fully alive in the moment and comfortable in our own skin.
Drawing on her own history—from navigating the "cluelessness" of her youth to finding belonging in the queer Vietnamese community of the Bay Area—she describes the transition from being an "object" defined by society to reclaiming oneself as a "subject". 
Liên emphasizes that the heart of meditation practice is discernment, which allows us to recognize the stories we tell ourselves and choose a path of kindness instead. She invites listeners to view their queerness as a gateway to understanding the interdependence of all things, highlighting several key frameworks for this development:
Three Levels of Wisdom:
Learning/Knowledge: Absorbing information and searching for representation.
Reflection: Processing experience through shared coming-out stories, community symbols, and discussion.
Meditation (Bhavana): Developing an "embodied wisdom" that allows one to live fully and authentically without apologies.
Subjectivity and Value: Moving beyond the internalized idea that being "different" is bad, and instead realizing that all phenomena—including ourselves—are worthy and valuable subjects.
Non-Egocentric Awareness: Practicing a "looseness" of self where our queerness is seen as both deeply personal and part of a larger, collective whole.
Discernment as a Tool: Using mindfulness to notice when we are becoming reactive and instead consciously "turning toward" kindness and friendliness
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Liên Shutt (she/they) is a priest lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Soto Zen traditions in the U.S., Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. She was a founding member of the Buddhists of Color in 1998 and currently is the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an inclusive, anti-oppression sangha and non-profit in the SF Bay Area. She lives on Ohlone land, currently called Oakland, with her partner, exploring waterways and forests as often as they can. Visit https://accesstozen.org/ for ways to connect and practice together.
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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  
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CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Eve Decker explores the vital necessity of cultivating joy not as a way to ignore suffering, but as a spiritual practice to maintain internal balance and equanimity. It is an internal ease independent of external circumstances. By embracing her personal mantra, "right now it's like this," Eve invites us to meet the present moment with intimacy and kindness, rather than reactivity or denial, whether it involves a beautiful sunrise or deep grief. 
Eve offers a roadmap for navigating the obstacles to well-being while actively "inclining the mind" toward joy. Much of our distress arises from the "Eight Worldly Winds," the fluctuating pairs of praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, and fame and shame. To move toward a "lightness of being," we must learn to hold all of these without being swept away. Several practical shifts help with this:
Regulating Despair: Cultivating joy to balance the human tendency to fall into "doom," which she describes as a state of being out of alignment with reality.
Identifying Obstacles: Recognizing "foreboding joy" (the fear of experiencing joy because it might end) and the "shoulds" of societal conditioning that block self-compassion.
The Power of Gratitude: Actively acknowledging simple gifts—such as the many hands involved in bringing food to a plate—to neurologically prime the brain for well-being.
The Bliss of Blamelessness: Living a life of integrity and non-harming, which creates a sense of safety for others and a lightness of spirit for oneself.
Mindful Presence: Using mindfulness as a foundation to stop reacting to discomfort and instead rest in the "sweetness of loving ourselves."
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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 & Compassion,” and “Awakening Joy - The Music.”
Find her at https://evedecker.com/
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To support our efforts to share these talks with LGBTQIA audiences worldwide, please visit https://gaybuddhist.org/
There you can:  
 Donate 
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 Enjoy over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995
CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

Finding a sense of lightness and joy ? Mary Stancavage explores the vital necessity of cultivating joy as a spiritual practice to maintain internal balance and equanimity in a world marked by violence, cruelty, and despair. 
Drawing on the wisdom of The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, she argues that joy is an internal ease that remains independent of external circumstances. By embracing her personal mantra, "right now it's like this," Mary invites us to meet the present moment—whether it holds a beautiful sunrise or deep grief—with intimacy and kindness, rather than reactivity or denial.
Mary provides a roadmap for navigating the obstacles to well-being while actively "inclining the mind" toward joy. She explains that much of our distress arises from the "Eight Worldly Winds"—the fluctuating pairs of praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, and fame and shame—which we must learn to hold without being swept away. To move toward this "lightness of being," she suggests several practical shifts:
Regulating Despair: Cultivating joy to balance the human tendency to fall into "doom," which Mary describes as a state of being out of alignment with reality.
Identifying Obstacles: Recognizing "foreboding joy" (the fear of experiencing joy because it might end) and the "shoulds" of societal conditioning that block self-compassion.
The Power of Gratitude: Actively acknowledging simple gifts—such as the many hands involved in bringing food to a plate—to neurologically prime the brain for well-being.
The Bliss of Blamelessness: Living a life of integrity and non-harming, which creates a sense of safety for others and a lightness of spirit for oneself.
Mindful Presence: Using mindfulness as a foundation to stop reacting to discomfort and instead rest in the "sweetness of loving ourselves."
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Mary Stancavage has practiced meditation, yoga, and cultivated a spiritual practice for over 35 years and in 2009 was empowered to teach Buddhadharma. She teaches classes, retreats, coaches and mentors individuals and has facilitated several Year-to-Live groups. She has served as a volunteer hospital chaplain and been involved with leadership in several non-profit organizations over the years both in meditation and in the social justice arena. 
She is currently a member of the Guiding Teachers Council for Insight Community of the Desert, and is a Board Member of both Meditation Coalition and CLUE: Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. For the last several years, Mary has investigated what it means to live with an undefended heart and more information on this can be found on her website, https://marystancavage.org  
Fun fact: Mary has an MA from UCLA and spent several seasons working as an archaeologist in Syria.
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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 
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 Enjoy over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995
CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter

How can we prevent our hearts from hardening against a brutal world and instead use our own imperfections as a bridge to connection?
Joe Goode addresses this by arguing that while political or social resistance is necessary, the act of opposition can unintentionally cause us to harden, losing touch with the vulnerability where love and intimacy live. He suggests that instead of trying to "fix" ourselves or bypass suffering, we should practice loving the "broken bits" of our own minds—our regrets, meanness, and anxieties—much like a parent loves a mischievous or hurting child. By shifting away from the idea of a "fixed" or isolated self, Joe explains that we can cultivate a soft heart that nurtures interdependence rather than individuality.
To move these concepts from the mind into the body, Joe leads a series of experiential practices that blend breath, sound, and movement to serve as a "balm" for the "imperfect and vulnerable" self. He teaches that the aging or incomplete body is not a problem to be solved but a tool for deepening our connection to reality. His framework for this embodied practice includes:
Tender Attention: Holding a finger to represent a specific negative thought or recurring doubt, breathing into that "vulnerable body" and offering it special care rather than animosity.
The Soothing Sway: A side-to-side rocking motion used as a "universal calming action" to quiet the mind and accept the "fearful, broken, or less-than self".
Interdependent Sound: Vocalizing specific tones (such as "m," "ah," and "ee") to feel the physical vibration in the bones while simultaneously "pouring" one’s sound into the collective "envelope" of the room.
Receptive Clearing: Using the heat of the hands to clear "extra thoughts" from the eye sockets before opening the palms to receive "spacious thinking" and "fresh possibilities".
Ultimately, Joe suggests that by treating the body as a "single sensing organ," we can discover that being fully present in our physical form and movement is no different than meditation itself.
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Joe Goode is the artistic director of The Joe Goode Performance Group, and a professor in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley. He has had a meditation practice since 1979, and has incorporated Buddhist principles and meditation practices into his choreographic works. His work blends theater, dance, and spoken word, to focus on the fallibility and imperfection of being human, believing that the creative impulse is a step toward the alleviation of suffering.
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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 over 900 recorded talks dating back to 1995
CREDITS
Audio Production: George Hubbard
Producer: Tom Bruein
Music/Logo/Artwork: Derek Lassiter