Dharmically Speaking is about preparing and delivering dharma talks — Buddhist homiletics, if you will. It explores the intersection of public speaking and dharma teaching:
- the role of dharma talks in guiding practice
- close reading and exposition of texts
- talk preparation and delivery as a practice
- sources and resources for talk preparation
- the specific needs of practitioners as an audience
- platform skills and delivery
- and other relevant topics
Lots of information is available from the links along the right side of the screen. Hermeneutics is related to how we extract meaning from a text. Homiletics is about the preparation and delivery of talks on the practice of religion. Practice and Personality explores the link between personality type and the spiritual journey, and helps illustrate the variety of needs and values the sangha is listening for in a talk. Presenting points to general information about public speaking. The texts linked from Teachings on Teaching show how the Buddha himself taught the dharma, as well as offering important insights from our ancestors that illustrate how the dharma has historically been taught. Several Translation Resources are provided for folks working in canonical languages. Finally, Useful Links is a roundup of miscellaneous relevant information.
About me: I’m a novice ordained in the Soto Zen tradition in 2005. I’ve held various temple offices, served as a board member for three different American Zen centers, and spent a year and a half as the volunteer administrative director of another. I’ve visited Japan six times, spending time practicing in a local temple with the laypeople it serves. I did my hossenshiki there in 2005, and in 2008 I did a two-month practice period (ango) at Shogoji, a training temple in rural Kyushu.
My 2007 master’s thesis was on the development and leadership of the American Zen sangha; I’m now back on campus studying Japanese language as a non-degree student, and I’ve also had several articles published in Buddhist magazines. I’ve spent my professional life in communications functions ranging from TV news production to nonprofit marketing to presentation training and coaching. I’ve learned that just as a dharma center differs significantly from a secular nonprofit, dharma talks differ significantly from other kinds of presenting. This site is designed to serve as a gathering and collecting point for a variety of resources for preparation and delivery.
[...] can download the full Piya Tan text the Dharmically Speaking [...]