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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  • Talking about Zen Koans: Deconstructing Yourself Podcast

    MCZCAugust 19, 20211 min read

    Henry Shukman talks with host Michael Taft about Mountain Cloud Zen Center, Henry’s series on the Waking Up app, meditation for awakening vs. meditation as a “band aid,” the role of psychotherapy in spiritual practice, the power of working in the “old way,” the path of working with Zen koans as the journey of a lifetime. Click here to listen to this engaging conversation with Henry and Michael. Michael Taft was a guest speaker in our virtual...

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  • Message from Henry: Mindfulness

    MCZCAugust 18, 20212 min read

    ...a taste of our mindfulness developing and expanding. Mindfulness... it can be like creating a warm loving home inside yourself. Whenever an uncomfortable feeling comes up, an edge of fear, hurt, irritation, anxiety, stress, restlessness, annoyance, hurry, or overwhelm, or despondency -- when they arise in the heart, the warm home is quickly activated, the lights go on, the central heating fires up, ready to welcome the discomfort and give it a space to be. Maybe...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Silent Way

    MCZCAugust 17, 20211 min read

    "... Sitting is the vehicle for discovering innate “awakened-ness.” ..." Description: Case 1 of the Book of Equanimity offers a beautiful example of how an awakened person might expound the dharma from the Zen perspective. We cannot hope to understand it through verbal teachings, rational guidelines or instructions. It has to come through experience, and can be demonstrated in even the most simple, mundane action. The lecture is followed by questions from sangha members about awakening through...

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  • On-Site sits in our Zendo – Details and Schedule Here

    MCZCAugust 15, 20211 min read

    Mountain Cloud has re-opened our zendo doors for selected in person daily sits.  We ask that all who attend our weekday sits, inside our zendo, be fully vaccinated, two weeks past their final Covid-19 vaccine. Please show your vaccine card the first time you come to sit with us and we will record your name. In keeping with current New Mexico Health Department and CDC guidelines, masks are required inside the zendo. Monday 7:00-8:00am  Meditation 5:30-6:30pm  Meditation Tuesday 7:00-8:00am  Meditation 5:30-6:30pm  Meditation Wednesday 7:00-8:00am   Meditation 5:30–6:30pm...

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  • Falling in a Boundless World: Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCAugust 15, 20211 min read

    In this talk, Valerie takes up Gateless Gate, case 5, “Kyogen’s Person Up a Tree,” continuing to explore the theme of suffering, beauty, and the great opening this practice invites. From the Suffering and Beauty: How the Heart Opens Retreat. [embed]https://youtu.be/pPE9VE0ZPiw[/embed]

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  • Guru Viking Podcast Features Henry Shukman – Zen’s True Miracle

    MCZCAugust 13, 20211 min read

    Steve James (the Guru Viking) is joined by Henry Shukman for a second interview.  Click here for the first interview. In this interview Henry reveals what he calls Zen’s true miracle, and shares his own personal journey of healing childhood trauma in the context of spiritual awakening and integration of enlightenment. Henry also explores the two purposes of Zen koan training, contrasts different models of enlightenment, and explains how to awaken in the midst of intense suffering...

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  • Dharma Transmission: Henry Shukman (Video)

    MCZCAugust 13, 20211 min read

    This talk continues the exploration of the koan of "Buddha and the Flower." It examines how koan practice  can help us in our lives, and what "dharma transmission" might really mean. From the Suffering and Beauty: How the Heart Opens Retreat. [embed]https://youtu.be/epBsbn_wTww[/embed]

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  • Message from Henry: Dual and Non-Dual

    MCZCAugust 11, 20211 min read

    We’re not really free until we are no longer attached to the non-dual, as opposed to the dual. To be free, relaxed, responsive, attentive, and full of love for this life, this world, and this moment, we have to come to see that the dual and the nondual are in fact one, and always have been. In fact, the real project of “awakening” to the non-dual has been some kind of a set-up - a joke...

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  • Dharmatalk: Being Open to Help – Q&A

    MCZCAugust 10, 20211 min read

    "... Practice wears thin the veil between non-awakened and awakened experience ..." Description: The questions raised after this Sunday sitting and lecture touch upon kensho, or Zen awakening, and what might be the causes and conditions for it. A practitioner asks about how the true self and the no-self are reconciled in Zen. The session closes with a look at what wisdom and love, both of which may result from kensho, may show us about our original...

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  • Buddha Holds up a Flower: Henry Shukman (Video)

    MCZCAugust 8, 20211 min read

    This talk examines the koan, "Buddha holds up a flower" from the Gateless Gate collection.  Henry takes a turn through the strange world of spin-bowling in the English game of cricket, in order to shed light on the weird world of Zen koans. From the Suffering and Beauty: How the Heart Opens Retreat. [embed]https://youtu.be/8qNuVam2Leo[/embed]  

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  • Ocular Distortion: Dharma Talk by Michael Taft (Video)

    MCZCAugust 7, 20211 min read

    Podcaster, writer and eclectic meditation teacher Michael Taft explores ocular distortion and awareness. What's the view we see the world through, and how does it distort reality? Our everyday view of the world is invisible to us in that we don't realize that we see through a distorted view. To see the distortions, we have to look at our own mind and ask; what thoughts, feelings and beliefs are forming our everyday view? And even...

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  • Coming Home to Mu: Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCAugust 6, 20211 min read

    Valerie takes up Mu as a way of exploring the matrix of suffering and beauty, and the fulcrum, the zero point that opens the heart beyond any boundary. From the Suffering and Beauty: How the Heart Opens Retreat. [embed]https://youtu.be/qiD5yWC48r8[/embed]  

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  • Message from Henry: Ensnared

    MCZCAugust 4, 20211 min read

    So easily we get caught in fantasies of self-advancement and self-protection, of self-satisfaction. How hard it can be to recognize that we have been “ensnared” or caught in loops of desire, in silken skeins of aversion. They arrive in subtle ways, surreptitiously, and before we know it we are fleeing or pursuing dreams, and battling imaginary obstacles to our imaginary fulfillment. Not realizing the fulfillment is here already. Message from Henry is from our August 2, 2021...

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  • Dharmatalk: Being Open to Help

    MCZCAugust 1, 20212 min read

    "... to learn to surrender to forces beyond our control ..." "... From the Zen point of view, every moment is holy ..." Description: In continuing the discussion about levels of Zen practice, tHenry looks at the level of tariki, “other power.” Whether we adhere to a religious outlook or not, it is easy to see how our existence depends on the functioning of many and various organisms and processes. Amidst the widespread uncertainty of the pandemic, we are...

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