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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  • Guru Viking: Interview with Henry Snukman

    MCZCJune 28, 20211 min read

    Henry was recently interviewed by Steve James on the ‘The Guru Viking Podcast’ which specializes in in-depth interviews with remarkable figures in the world of spirituality and self development. In this interview Henry discusses his upbringing in Oxford, as the son of a don and a graduate of the illustrious Dragon School, and how in poetry he found the liberating aspect of literary life. Henry reveals his first awakening experience, the breakdown that occurred thereafter, and how finding...

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  • Message from Henry: Walking Through Grasses

    MCZCJune 23, 20212 min read

    Walking slowly through grasses - a bit sick, weak, under-fed, with a sore belly - I saw two little birds, then a third. They were hopping, fluttering among the grass. Stopping to reach up and peck at the seeds that overhung from some of the grass stalks, hanging in downy seed-tassels. One paused, switched sides around its stalk, let out two high-pitched, sweet-sounding alerts. I guess because I was coming. Then paused again. Another one flew...

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  • Dharmatalk: Support: Original Love – Support (2 of 3)

    MCZCJune 22, 20211 min read

    "... Support comes in varying forms ..." Description: In this second original love retreat Henry focuses on a simple message: There is help. Henry asks us to hear and receive this message of help. Support comes in varying forms, some obvious, some less apparent. Henry explores these in this talk. And, here's a link to our YouTube video of this talk. Post & Featured Image (edited): Close-up of people holding small sprout with soil in their hands for planting...

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  • Facing the Wall: Dharma Talk with Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCJune 21, 20211 min read

    The dharma compels us to hear the cries of the world as our very own cries, and respond in-kind. Valerie turns to the first encounter between Bodhidharma and Eka (who became the second ancestor), in case 41 from the Gateless Gate: Bodhidharma Puts the Mind to Rest. As she explores the essence of this case, Valerie reads a poem by Henry and a few words from a Zen teacher suffering from Covid who says amidst her...

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  • Message from Henry: Simply Love

    MCZCJune 16, 20211 min read

    The mature human heart learns to live with heartbreak without shutting it down. It’s really so simple. It all begins with love. If we just love, life is simple. How do we get to love? That’s really what practice is for. If it’s not for that, it should at least be preparatory for it. Mindfulness, non-dual awareness, absorption, consciousness as all, radical acceptance, working with hindrances and afflictions -- all these many faces and categories, styles, methods,...

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  • Dharmatalk: Greater Good: Original Love – Support (1 of 3)

    MCZCJune 15, 20211 min read

    "... The focus of this talk ... is about finding Trust ..." Description: How do we find our authentic heart and how do we know what it's called to do for the greater good? The focus of this talk and this Original Love retreat is about finding Trust, a type of trust that reveals deep support intrinsically available to us at all times. Henry briefly contrasts Jiriki - self power, our own strength, that we develop ourselves...

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  • Hyakujo’s Fox: Dharma Talk with Henry Shukman (Video)

    MCZCJune 14, 20211 min read

    Henry concludes a sequence of talks on Case 2 from the Gateless Gate, Hyakujô and the Fox. The law of cause and effect cannot be obscured. Enlightenment is not "checking out." It's not an escape hatch. In fact it is about becoming more immersed in this life. Enlightenment involves entering this moment more and more intimately.. Eventually we understand that awakening is boundless, empty and one (using Yamada Koun's definition of kensho). [embed]https://youtu.be/j-kx-DTAiZA[/embed] Image by azazelok from Pixabay...

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  • Unmon’s Medicine and Disease, Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCJune 12, 20211 min read

    Moved by Lewis Richmond's May 27 talk about illness, Valerie turns to a koan that addresses illness and the heart of the matter: Case 87 from the Blue Cliff Record, Unmon's Medicine and Disease. The implications of this case are vast, no holes, no place to fall, boundless seamlessness, one equanimity. Cannot fall in and cannot fall out The case: Unmon instructing the assembly said: Medicine and disease cure each other; the whole earth is medicine....

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  • Message from Henry: Just This

    MCZCJune 9, 20211 min read

    If you just get one taste of this - some call it the Dharma, or Buddha-nature, or no-name - just one brush with the hem of Kumarajiva’s garment, a swish of the wind of Buddha’s robe, or one little tear-drop fallen from Kwan Yin’s eyelid into your heart, then all the rest of your life becomes a side-show, a series of side-shows.  This is what it’s really all been about. This. And perhaps everything that happened...

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  • Dharmatalk: Just This: Original Love – Introduction (5 of 5)

    MCZCJune 8, 20211 min read

    "... Here and now, this experience we are having right now, is it. "Just this" is original love ..." Description: Henry continues his Original Love exploration, beginning with "Everything is of a single piece" then turns to the fourth level of practice, which is expressed more explicitly in Mahayana Buddhism. It is the place where everything meets or the thing that makes everything one - If everything comes down to One, What does the One come...

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  • Atomic Acorn: Talk Four of Zen Basics Retreat, Valerie Forstman and Henry Shukman

    MCZCJune 6, 20211 min read

    Valerie recaps the last three talks of the Zen Basics retreat and says all leads to Bodhidharma. She looks at Case 1 from the Blue Cliff Record in which Emperor Bu asks Bodhidharma, What is most holy? Bodhidharma replies: Vast and void, no holiness. Valerie explores how this koan is a koan for a lifetime asking us, how can it penetrate, how can it seep into our practice? Where would you find anything like holiness in...

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  • Deep Mind: Dharma Talk with Lewis Richmond

    MCZCJune 5, 20211 min read

    Zen teacher, musician and author Lewis Richmond joins us in our virtual zendo as speaker. Lewis explores illness and the ensuing fear and suffering that occur. He also offers a short and powerful guided meditation which he calls, Deep Mind Reflection. [embed]https://youtu.be/EKzEFsdffrQ[/embed]    

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  • Two Gates: Talk Three of Zen Basics Retreat with Henry Shukman

    MCZCJune 4, 20211 min read

    In this third talk of the Zen Basics Retreat, Henry returns to Bodhidharma and looks into the two entrances or two gates of practice: Principle and Practice. 1. Principle - Acknowledges suffering and peers into "forgotten nooks and crannies of our being." 2. Practice - Examination - we look at the present moment and release unexamined assumptions to the "naked immensity of the moment." [embed]https://youtu.be/IuktzYCY1UU[/embed] Dharma talk recorded on May 22 from the Zen Basics Retreat. Featured Photo by...

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  • Message from Henry: A Moment in the Mountains

    MCZCJune 2, 20211 min read

    The quality of evening in the high mountains - whatever has gone on during the day, now it’s a new, exalted realm, all the creatures feel it. The clouds have cleared and the distant peaks are bright and stark, and the untouchable peace of their world is spread open to all who can see them. A world of powerful calm. The two pairs of grey jays who are here during the day, a little like...

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