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.

  • Zen: A Long Hard Path

    MCZCAugust 13, 20151 min read

    Episode Description: In this talk, Henry explores the dedication required for long term Zen practice. He quotes Rilke’s words, “Everything in nature tries to become itself against all opposition,” and considers Gustav Mahler’s “Song of the Earth,” which centers around a set of Tang dynasty poems. Henry places Zen in the historical context of the Tang period in China, when many of the koans we study originated. The Tang period was culturally rich but also catastrophic,...

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  • Message from Henry: Five Skandhas

    MCZCAugust 12, 20153 min read

    When like and dislike do not arise, the Way stands clear.  - from the Shinjinmei These are the five “skandhas” or “aggregates”: matter or form (rupa), sensation or feeling (vedana), perception or recognition (sañña), mental formations or reactions (sankhara), consciousness (viññana). The five skandhas are not just basic elements of experience, but constitute stages in a process, according to early Buddhist psychology. Basically, they break down the process by which sensation leads to action. The...

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  • How does an Awakened Person Perceive the World? Part 1 of 4

    MCZCAugust 10, 20154 min read

    The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown.  -Thomas Traherne David Loy explores the nature of reality, and ourselves, when we experience the world as it really is. How does an enlightened person perceive the world? Obviously, that’s an important question for non-dualists including Advaitins and Buddhists. ‘Waking up’ – attaining moksha or nirvana, experiencing satori, realizing your true nature, etc. – is the ultimate goal for both,...

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  • What Matters Most

    MCZCAugust 8, 20152 min read

    All Zen asks of us is that we become quiet and still with ourselves, and find out who we really are. I would like to urge each of you to look into your heart and ask yourself what matters most in this brief span of years we have been granted. It won’t be long before each of us is shuffling off this mortal coil… Some ancient worthies have said that only three questions really matter:...

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  • Case 7 Book of Equanimity. Master Yakusan Ascends the Rostrum, Part 2 of 2

    MCZCAugust 6, 20151 min read

    Episode Description: This talk continues with Case 7, “Yakusan Ascends the Rostrum,” exploring Yakusan’s own process of transformation. It begins by reflecting on how revolutionary Zen practice is -- an overturning of how we think things are. Yakusan offers a great example of how to proceed in this revolution: “Sit down and be silent.” Henry discusses how Zen lacks an object to venerate, unlike theistic religions with their deities. For Yakusan, the object of veneration is...

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  • Message From Henry: Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction

    MCZCAugust 5, 20153 min read

    In the end the world becomes too dry and narrow under the rule of the self – hence we are driven to blow open the prison door. Just coming back again and again to the one thing that is surely here and now – the in-breath, the out-breath. Learning to settle more and more in the reality of here and now. We get lost in labyrinths of the mind, in what Buddha called prapanca, or...

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  • Zen and the Art of… Art

    MCZCAugust 3, 20157 min read

    Zen art suggests a new way of seeing, a new way of being, that cuts to the core of what it means to be fully human and fully alive. -- John Daido Loori Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506) -this is an example of a Zen landscape done during the Muromachi period. Sesshu trained as a professional painter in China and returned to Japan as a professional painter. Ever since Robert Persig’s 1974 iconic novel Zen and the Art...

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  • When Heaven Meets Heart

    MCZCAugust 1, 20151 min read

    “When heaven meets heart a flower blooms unborn and undying it lives with a care till it turns the heard towards the ground and bows in gratitude” Photo and poem by Rosa Bellino, used with her permission

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  • Message from Henry: A Little Reflection on Zen History

    MCZCJuly 31, 20154 min read

    Dogen said, “Practice is enlightenment; enlightenment is practice.” Tahui said: “There never was any delusion, nor any realization.” These statements are completely clear, yet we shouldn’t mistake what they mean. They are speaking from the perspective of complete awakening. Outside of that point of view, what they’re saying does not make sense. In a sense, there is a kind of dividing line right at this point between Soto Zen and Rinzai Zen. Soto, following Dogen,...

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  • Case 7 Book of Equanimity. Master Yakusan Ascends the Rostrum, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCJuly 30, 20151 min read

    Episode Description: In this teisho, Henry helps us on our journey of letting go of ourselves by introducing us to great Master Yakusan’s “speciality.” Henry explores the true path of Zen and probes the question: What is this existence? Yakusan’s noble silence in the koan offers an infinite, supreme and endless answer to this question. Post Image Credit: Anzio by Moyan Brenn, CC BY 2.0. Featured Image Credit: Zen Stone Garden, by t_s_l, CCO Public Domain...

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  • Message from Henry: Thoughts on Zen Training

    MCZCJuly 29, 20154 min read

    To be on that path is enough. If we try to hurry it, we only slow it down. The awakening experience that Zen recognizes is not one where we check out from this world. Rather, we see into the nature of this world composed of self and other, just as it is. As we come closer to the nature of things as they are, we discover them to be more than we had previously thought....

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  • Real

    MCZCJuly 27, 20153 min read

    The purpose of this training is in fact to lead us to a sudden clear recognition of reality. Zazen is many things: here is another... It allows us space in which to explore other ways of experiencing difficult feelings than our normal strategies. Typically most of us first try one of two things to deal with difficult feelings—either to fix whatever we deem to be causing them, or if that doesn’t work or isn’t possible...

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  • Light and Dark: Koans and Dreams, Part 4 of 4

    MCZCJuly 25, 20154 min read

    Whatever is the way to wholeness, to healing, to true helpfulness for ourselves and others, it surely cannot ignore suffering, any more than it can ignore illumination by unnameable love. Click to read Light and Dark: Koans and Zen Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 Is There a Difference? The way I see it now, that experience could not have happened, or would have taken much longer to happen, had I not done the...

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  • Case 6 Book of Equanimity. Master Baso’s Black and White

    MCZCJuly 23, 20151 min read

    Episode Description: Henry examines this fascinating koan in which a monk asks Master Baso, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?” or, more specifically, what did Bodhidharma really hope we would discover when he brought the Zen meditation school from India to China?  The talk briefly examines the “4 Propositions” and “100 Negations” of Buddhist philosophy, which are mentioned in the koan, and gives us some background on the characters in the case,...

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