As many know, Windhorse co-sponsored a series of talks this past weekend by author and Zen teacher David Loy along with Urban Dharma and Malaprops. Thankfully, each talk was a thorough success, generating impressive turn-outs and inspiring some vitally important discussions.On Friday night at Malaprop’s Bookstore & Café, David gave a talk to a large assembly of listeners crammed into virtually every space available. He spoke on the intersections of Buddhism, social activism, and the modern world. Malaprop’s events are known to draw hard-hitting and difficult questions and here it was no different. Meeting the challenge, David gave insightful answers, and delivered what was ultimately a fitting preface to the deep explorations that took place in the following day’s workshop.
The workshop, which is to be the first in our “Gold in the Midst of Fire” series, was held at Urban Dharma on the next morning. In this event, David returned to the theme of the previous night’s talk and entered into greater depth on such topics as Buddhism’s appropriation into the corporate world, the institutionalization of suffering, and the reasons behind our collective, perpetual sense of lack or dissatisfaction. Emphasizing the transformative possibility of Buddhism beyond the personal, the workshop stimulated discussions that were alternately foreboding and empowering. 
These conversations also served to foreshadow an expanded vision of Windhorse’s place in the future of Dharma practice.
To take further advantage of David while he was here, we gladly accepted his offer to give Sunday’s dharma talk. This one offered a bit of a change of pace: shifting from Buddhism’s place in the modern world to its place in the general evolutionary process of the universe, David talked on the idea that evolution is the process of the universe waking up to its own fundamental creativity as the source of all forms. Thanks to all the publicity from Friday and Saturday’s events, the zendo was truly packed, with mats lining the carpet in the zendo and enough food brought to feed a small army!
The dharma talk from Sunday is available on our website here, and David’s talks from the workshop will be listed shortly.
To attract more participation Windhorse has to become more “magnetic”. Speaker programs like David Loys is exactly how to do it. Well done..