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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  • Dharmatalk: The Great Matter

    MCZCNovember 30, 20211 min read

    "... What holds us back from experiencing the boundless freedom of who we truly are? ..." Description: In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in 2020, Valerie takes up a koan in which a master asks a student struggling to attain liberation, “Who is binding you?” After searching, the student realizes, “No one.” In the face of all the bindings that constrain us and our fellow human beings today, we may   remember Master...

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  • Keichu’s Cart: Dharma Talk with Henry Shukman (Video)

    MCZCNovember 24, 20211 min read

    Henry takes us into Keichu's Cart, case eight from the Gateless Gate. Keichu was a legendary cart maker. What happens if the wheels and both axels are removed from the cart, what would become clear about the cart? What might it be to remove a wheel, if the cart is you - as you ordinarily function? Consider what the two wheels might be: dualistic pairs that we take for granted, high and low, life and...

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  • Dharmatalk: Bearing Witness from Deep Realization of Inseparability

    MCZCNovember 23, 20211 min read

    Description: Henry talks about the corona-virus pandemic and endemic racism in America and what our practice offers as a solution to racism; bearing witness from deep realization of inseparability. And, here's a link to our YouTube video of this talk. Also, check out our Upcoming Events: Original Love Weekend Nov 27-28. Rohatsu - Virtual Retreat Dec 6-12. Post & Featured Image (edited): Coronavirus Outbreak by lightsource, purchased from depositphotos, for use only on our website/social channels (this image is not...

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  • Message from Henry: The Numinous Ordinary

    MCZCNovember 17, 20212 min read

    In awakening Zen style, it seems there must be some sense of being plugged into the main electricity supply. Suddenly there’s a much larger reality, of immense power and scope, that puts all our life up till now in a thoroughly different perceptive, such that its scale becomes diminutive. But then again, at the same time that it puts our “known” life in a different light, and diminishes its sway over us: it also invests any...

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  • Dharmatalk: Is Zen Buddhist?

    MCZCNovember 16, 20211 min read

    "... Zen is a mechanism for letting go ..." "... One fruit of wisdom is not being so caught up in having our desires met ..." Description: Zen draws its tradition from both Buddhism and Daoism. Many of the ancient masters rejected the notion that awakening could happen gradually. They insisted that the reality of shunyata (emptiness) must be realized in personal experience, encompassing everything in its scope. Regardless of how we classify it, Zen is a...

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  • St John of the Cross – To Reach Satisfaction in All

    MCZCNovember 15, 20212 min read

    Poem Maura Noone quoted in her talk on Thursday November 18, from John of the Cross. TO REACH SATISFACTION IN ALL To reach satisfaction in all, desire its possession in nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to possess all, desire to possess nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to the pleasure you have not, you must go by a way in which you enjoy not. To come to...

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  • Gone with the wind – Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCNovember 15, 20211 min read

    In this final talk of the Circle of the Way retreat, Valerie takes up case 31 of the Blue Cliff Record, “Mayoku Circles the Dais,” as a way of exploring the intrinsic wholeness of this world that Nansen calls “nothing but a whirling of the wind.” Our practice invites us to taste this with every breath, every step; nothing lacking, nothing extra. [embed]https://youtu.be/k5swStf9sr4[/embed]

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  • According to my capacity – Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCNovember 15, 20211 min read

    This second Circle of the Way Retreat talk opens with images of circles, including the enso attributed to Kyozan, all pointers to the freedom and compassion of practice-awakening. Valerie then turns to case 77 in the Book of Equanimity, where Kyozan and a very adept monk are at play on our behalf, freely using the circle to illumine this empty and infinitely capacious world. [embed]https://youtu.be/GQYETU3UgUU[/embed]  

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  • Round, round, rounder than a mirror – Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCNovember 12, 20211 min read

    In this first talk of the Circle of the Way retreat, Valerie takes up case 69 from the Blue Cliff Record, “Nansen Draws a Circle,” as an invitation to find our place in what Dogen calls “Continuous Practice” right where we are. [embed]https://youtu.be/r1bvw2AD6Sw[/embed] Featured image: Photo by Heneli & Flower on Unsplash

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  • Message from Henry: Fully Human

    MCZCNovember 10, 20211 min read

    Some say we’re human so we can awaken. But what if that’s only phase one? Phase two would be: we awaken so we can be human.  This could be the implication of Zen’s ten ox-herding pictures, which are a map of the spiritual path, a Pilgrim’s Progress from early-medieval China. The first four or five pictures are about getting clear. Clearing away the dust and debris that obscure our “true Dharma eye.” Then pictures five to ten...

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  • Sangha Meeting Minutes from October 30, 2021

    MCZCNovember 9, 202116 min read

    October 30, 2021 Sangha Meeting Minutes The meeting was held on zoom. 48 attendees were present. Agenda approved by those present Minutes from the May 15, 2021 sangha meeting were also approved. Teacher’s Reports Henry and Valerie’s reports are attached at the end of these minutes. Interim Executive Director’s Report Our new website is practically ready to launch. At the very latest it will launch in January, hopefully before. The new site is beautiful and much improved. The launch is in the capable...

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  • Dharmatalk: Sosan, Doshin and Mu

    MCZCNovember 9, 20211 min read

    "... The capacity to awaken is not something you have. It’s what you are ..." Description: In this talk given jointly by Valerie and Henry on the last day of Mountain Cloud’s May 2020 4-day retreat, we consider the experiences of two of the early Chinese Zen patriarchs, Sosan and Doshin, both of whom sought liberation from the sense of unease that is part of the human condition. Zen, and particularly Mu practice, offers us a...

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  • Original Love Weekend: November 27-28

    MCZCNovember 5, 20212 min read

    Original Love Weekend Retreat November 27-28 10am - 3pm MT Online only Recordings available for people who can’t attend live This is a thrilling and potentially life changing weekend, where we’ll be immersing ourselves in practices and perspectives designed to help us get tastes of Original Love itself. We’ll be investigating our deeper nature in four different dimensions - the four different “zones” of the Original Love program: Mindfulness and Self-Love Finding Support Flow States, Meditative Absorption, and Samadhi Awakening In practice, these four different dimensions...

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  • Message from Henry: At Rest

    MCZCNovember 3, 20211 min read

    I read somewhere that Einstein once said that the “happiest thought in the universe” was that bodies moving through space experience themselves as being at rest.  Take us. We’re traveling at 1,000 mph right now (if we’re on the equator; slightly less on other latitudes), as our earth revolves on its axis. We’re also hurtling through space at around 64,000 mph on our annual orbit of the sun.  Here we are, perfectly at rest. Message from Henry is...

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