Teachings

  • Message from Valerie: An Invitation to Serve

    Valerie ForstmanJanuary 25, 20232 min read

    Mountain Cloud sangha members are currently coming together once each month to prepare and serve a delicious meal at the Interfaith Shelter, known as Pete’s Place, here in Santa Fe. For members interested in further engagement with vulnerable segments of our community, we have an opportunity to serve with fellow practitioners in Upaya’s Street Ministry project.  Upaya’s Street Ministry focuses on supporting member’s of Santa Fe’s community who are experiencing homelessness. Volunteers in the Street Ministry not only...

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  • Going Back To The Source: Seeing With Complete Vision {VIDEO Clip}

    MCZCDecember 13, 20142 min read

    This is the 7th short video clip (4:03) from the conversation between Stephen Batchelor and Henry Shukman, on June 4, 2014, at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico on “Going Back to the Source.”  The entire talk's video (1:03:15) can also be viewed on our YouTube channel. Their dialogue covers : Eastern and Western thought, the great doubt, dismantling of knowing, ancient greeks and buddhism, zen and classical philosophy, seeing with clarity, humanist enlightenment in the west, roots of...

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  • Message from Henry: Original Face

    MCZCDecember 11, 20142 min read

    Happiness and sorrow, hope and despondency, joy and misery, satisfaction and frustration – the original face is at ease with all of them. Couple of thoughts.... Happiness is all very well but it’s no substitute for the original face. Nor should it be mistaken for it... Happiness and sorrow, hope and despondency, joy and misery, satisfaction and frustration – the original face is at ease with all of them. In the recent sesshin I said something along the lines...

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  • What Is Real?

    MCZCDecember 10, 20143 min read

    "... Zen is quite clear: “picking up one atom of thought brings the whole universe into being,” ... " Sometimes it seems to really hit us that this planet hanging in space with sibling planets and its niece the moon is real. There's really a ball of fire hanging out in the medium we call space, powering all of this. A few weeks ago I was sitting outside at night when I looked up at the slip of the...

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  • Going Back To The Source: Transcending The Law of the Excluded Middle {VIDEO Clip}

    MCZCDecember 8, 20143 min read

    This is the 6th short video clip (5:49) from the conversation between Stephen Batchelor and Henry Shukman, on June 4, 2014, at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico on “Going Back to the Source.”  The entire talk's video (1:03:15) can also be viewed on our YouTube channel. Their dialogue covers : Eastern and Western thought, the great doubt, dismantling of knowing, ancient greeks and buddhism, zen and classical philosophy, seeing with clarity, humanist enlightenment in the west, roots of...

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  • Relief From Suffering

    MCZCDecember 5, 20143 min read

    "To awaken is to realize for ourselves that our suffering was never ever separate from awakening." We tend to think of relief from suffering as a direct tending to the suffering. In other words, the model is along the lines of a sick person whose symptoms are addressed by the physician’s care. The symptoms need alleviation and treatment. I have anxiety, please alleviate my anxiety; I am full of sorrow, please heal me of my sorrows....

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  • Going Back To The Source: The Dharma Is Clearly Visible {VIDEO Clip}

    MCZCDecember 3, 20145 min read

    This is the 5th short video clip (4:46) from the conversation between Stephen Batchelor and Henry Shukman, on June 4, 2014, at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico on “Going Back to the Source.”  The entire talk's video (1:03:15) can also be viewed on our YouTube channel. Their dialogue covers : Eastern and Western thought, the great doubt, dismantling of knowing, ancient greeks and buddhism, zen and classical philosophy, seeing with clarity, humanist enlightenment in the west, roots of...

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  • Going Back To The Source: Classical Philosophy and Zen {VIDEO Clip}

    MCZCDecember 1, 20144 min read

    This is the 4th short video clip (3:58) from the conversation between Stephen Batchelor and Henry Shukman, on June 4, 2014, at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico on “Going Back to the Source.”  The entire talk's video (1:03:15) can also be viewed on our YouTube channel. Their dialogue covers : Eastern and Western thought, the great doubt, dismantling of knowing, ancient greeks and buddhism, zen and classical philosophy, seeing with clarity, humanist enlightenment in the west, roots of...

    Watch the video
  • Message from Henry: Continuous Practice

    MCZCNovember 29, 20144 min read

    Dogen talked about “continuous practice,” but by this he didn’t mean “learning to practice all the time.” He meant that practice itself is happening continuously and universally. The whole universe, all existence, is practice. Many of us come to practice, to the dojo – the “place of the way” – because our lives aren’t how we want them to be. We don’t feel the way we want, the world doesn’t behave the way we want, and...

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  • Winning and Losing

    MCZCNovember 22, 20144 min read

    There is a place where all is well, and thus there is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. Where we are free in a way that is unimaginable. Where there is abundance of love in every moment. A few thoughts about our practice…. First, letting go. To be free we don’t try to let go of things. Instead, we let go into things, into our experience, not of our experience. That’s how we let go of...

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  • About Suffering They Were Never Wrong: How Zen Relieves Suffering

    MCZCNovember 22, 20141 min read

    Episode Description: Zen's approach to suffering is extraordinary and brilliant. In a chain of koans concerning the early Chan masters, this talk examines that approach, and helps us to experience our self and our suffering in an entirely new light. This talk was given by our resident teacher, Henry Shukman, on September 28, 2014. Image Credit: Light bulb-My hands, by Jason Hickey, CC BY 2.0, from flickr.com: https://goo.gl/BjxQNc Featured Image Credit: by Jastoycagando, CC0 Public Domain, from www.pixabay.com...

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  • Message from Henry: The Very Reality

    MCZCNovember 20, 20142 min read

    The very Mahayana, the very reality, is just this waking up, drinking a cup of tea, driving the kids to school, going to work ... “Gloria dei homo vivens” ... the glory of God is the living human being. Please forgive a bit of a garbled ramble… Basically, this being human, this is the full fact of the Mahayana. The great vehicle is busy being each of us. So, as it is you, me, she, he, each...

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  • A Quiet Self

    MCZCNovember 18, 20143 min read

    Sometimes people say their sitting is still and deep, and that there really isn’t much sense of self active in their experience. That's great: it’s growing samadhi. We could call it the start of “extinguishing,” where the process of “emptying” is getting under way. At the same time, it’s not at all the same as “realizing.” When we “realize,” things change fundamentally. In our practice of Zen, we’re not merely trying to get the “self” to be...

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  • Message from Henry: Two Thoughts

    MCZCNovember 13, 20144 min read

    As Dogen said: "I went to China. Body and mind fell away. I found the Dharma. I went with empty hands, and I returned with empty hands." INTENTION Someone recently asked whether Zen doesn't encourage the seeking of a certain kind of experience, and even an attachment to it, with its talk of kensho. It's a good question. Kensho – seeing reality or our actual nature – is basically what happens when all seeking and attachment have fallen...

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  • Going Back To The Source: In order to see the ground {VIDEO Clip}

    MCZCNovember 10, 20144 min read

    This is the 3rd short video clip (4:32) from the conversation between Stephen Batchelor and Henry Shukman, on June 4, 2014, at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico on “Going Back to the Source.”  The entire talk's video (1:03:15) can also be viewed on our YouTube channel. Their dialogue covers : Eastern and Western thought, the great doubt, dismantling of knowing, ancient greeks and buddhism, zen and classical philosophy, seeing with clarity, humanist enlightenment in the west, roots of...

    Watch the video
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