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.

  • The Wholeness of Brokenness, with Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCDecember 14, 20211 min read

    Valerie looks at the art form of kintsugi as a cipher for the human heart then takes up case 22 of the Blue Cliff Record, “Seppo’s Poisonous Snake,” to explore the great homecoming that is possible when we meet things just as they are. This talk was given at our November 2021 Zazenkai. [embed]  

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  • The monk who sat for many years without awakening, Henry Shukman (Video)

    MCZCDecember 12, 20211 min read

    Has civilization institutionalized the three poisons - greed, hatred, and delusion? The extent to which we see life through our many delusions, we are contributing to ongoing suffering. We come to a practice like Zen to sit still, reflect, and seek wisdom. The basic point, since the beginning of Buddhism, is to end suffering. Henry reflects on how koan practice addresses suffering and presents a koan in which a student sits for many, many kalpas...

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  • Homecoming: Dharma Talk with Will Brennan (Video)

    MCZCDecember 12, 20211 min read

    Listen to this dharma talk about Buddhist practice from Will Brennan, long time Mountain Cloud sangha member who has recently been appointed assistant Sanbo Zen teacher. Enjoy this delightful talk by Mountain Cloud's newest teacher. [embed]  

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  • Message from Henry: What’s the Point?

    MCZCDecember 8, 20211 min read

    If a line is the shortest distance between two points, awakening is the shortest distance between all points. Awakening makes all points one. It makes all things one. How can it not break your heart?

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  • Dharmatalk: Sound of Silence

    MCZCDecember 7, 20211 min read

    "... the silence that is our very essence ..." "... The reality of silence knows no birth and no death ..." Description: In this talk, Migaku Sato Roshi discusses how the reality that we have the potential to awaken to in Zen is universally available to all human beings. Some indeed have this experience without doing any meditation practice. Migaku Roshi surmises that Paul Simon may have been describing such an experience when he wrote...

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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...

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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,

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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]

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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]  

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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] Featured image: Photo by Heneli & Flower on Unsplash

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