Teachings
You can find all of our weekly Dharma talks for free right here on this page, as well as on our YouTube channel and podcast. Live talks take place every Thursday from 5:30–7:00pm MT, both in-person and on Zoom (sit.mountaincloud.org — password: mountain22). Members receive access to some special archival materials.
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Along the Stream, Doing Nothing, by Guy Zimmerman
September 7, 20158 min read
Insight arrives through an act of not-doing rather than through an effort of will, in other words, as if the insight were already there, beneath the hyper-active operations of the self Of fascination and its opposite Behind the house in New Hampshire where we lived when I was young there was a steep, overgrown hillside, and, at the bottom of the hillside, a wide parking lot. Marking the far end of the lot a stream...
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Mountains and Waters
September 6, 20151 min read
Mountains and waters right now are the actualization of the ancient Buddha way. Each, abiding in its phenomenal expression, realizes completeness. Because mountains and waters have been active since before the Empty Eon, they are alive at this moment. Because they have been the self since before form arose they are emancipation realization. * * * Sansui-Kyo - Mountains and Waters Sutra by Eihei Dogen Zenji Image and creation by Rosa Bellino
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Thoughts about Practice: Non-abiding
September 5, 20152 min read
...thoughts are not unimportant, but they’re not so important; feelings are not unimportant, but they’re not so important. -Dogen Our minds ordinarily are always “going somewhere”, aiming for something then digging in and attaching themselves to it. Some masters speak of “non-abiding mind” – a mind that doesn’t seek an object to attach itself to. We could equally call it a mind that doesn’t go anywhere. Mind that rests. That stays still and watches; it...
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Case 12, Book of Equanimity. Jizo plants the rice field
September 3, 20151 min read
Episode Description: Henry opens this teisho with a lovely look at the gift of the five precepts. He then provides an evocative exploration of the koan, “Jizo Plants the Rice Field”. We examine the core Zen question, “Where have you come from?” as the discussion moves onto various views about the “Three Worlds” of desire, form and no-form, ending with the Mahayana view that all these “three worlds” are inherently illusory. Yet the Bodhisattva ideal is...
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How does an Awakened Person Perceive the World, Part 4 of 4
August 31, 20157 min read
I came to realize clearly that mind is nothing other than rivers and mountains and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and the stars. -Dogen Click to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of David Loy's How does an Awakened Person Perceive the World? Nonduality Traherne’s account builds upon itself, becoming more moving and profound, until it reaches a climax: “The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people...
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Case 11, Book of Equanimity. Unmon’s Two Sicknesses
August 27, 20151 min read
Episode Description: Henry explicates Master’s Unmon’s teaching on the “Two Sicknesses.” Learn about Master Unmon’s early practice and awakening under the two masters Bokushu and Seppo. Find out how Unmon’s “two sicknesses” are actually four diseases, which give us a kind of road-map of training in meditation. Henry correlates these sicknesses with the famous Zen Ox-herding pictures, and shows how Master Unmon’s profound teaching is pointing us toward “traceless enlightenment.” Post Image Credit: Enlightenment , by Hartwig...
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How does an Awakened Person Perceive the World? Part 3 of 4
August 24, 20154 min read
If the doors of perception were cleans’d, everything would be seen as it really is, infinite. -William Blake Although form is not other than emptiness, it’s also true that emptiness not other than form. -Heart Sutra Read Part 1 and Part 2 of David Loy's, How does an Awakened Person Perceived the World? Emptiness “Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared…” Traherne does not mention God, except...
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Progress / Regress
August 22, 20152 min read
...this Way is a path: every moment is a path. One of the marvels of the Zen way is that you can actually never regress on the path. You can’t lose ground. You can’t fall back or drop back or reverse the progress. But it can surely feel like it. We could look at this two ways... First, whatever is arising at any moment is always the path itself, the Way. How could there be...
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Think Not-thinking
August 20, 20151 min read
Episode Description: Henry shares some thoughts on Yakusan's famous dialogue on meditation. A monk asks, “What do you think about when you meditate?” Yakusan answers, “Think not-thinking.” Henry relates this to master Dogen’s own profound awakening, in which he experienced “body and mind falling away,” and to the many writings and teachings that flowed from this life-resolving experience. Henry then turns to the Stoic Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius’s writings on peace of mind, and shows how...
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How does an Awakened Person Perceive the World? Part 2 of 4
August 17, 20154 min read
Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day… -Traherne Click here to read Part 1 of David Loy's exploration, How does an Awakened Person Perceive the World? Light and Ecstasy The world that Traherne describes is incredibly beautiful and blissful. The trees ‘transported and ravished’ him, their unusual beauty made his heart leap ‘and almost mad with ecstasy.’ And he is specific about the nature of that loveliness, referring again and again to the...
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