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.

  • Message from Henry: Loving Things

    MCZCSeptember 8, 20212 min read

    Did you have a particular pair of jeans or cords as a kid that you loved? That you hated to be parted from? Or a shirt, a jacket, a T shirt? Did you ever get that feeling that somehow this article of clothing was part of you, and helped you be you? Or maybe you felt it with a bike. We just couldn’t believe how marvelously that bike, with its knobby tyres and mud-streaked forks,...

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  • Dharmatalk: Enlightenments – One Mountain

    MCZCSeptember 7, 20211 min read

    "... Many flavors of awakening exist, constituting one mountain range ..." "... If you’re lucky enough to get up the mountain, you’ve still got to come down again ..." Description: A novice asks his master, “What is the way?” The master responds, “Ordinary mind.” This koan expresses how ultimate reality can be found in something as commonplace as a cup of coffee. When someone experiences awakening in Zen, they will not need to look beyond their...

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  • Dharmatalk: Most Intimate, So Near

    MCZCAugust 31, 20212 min read

    "... a world that is so near to us yet so well able to maintain itself that we needn’t do anything to influence it ..." "... Zazen has been described as silently not influencing anything ..." Description: Koans can provide helpful perspectives for dealing with the uncertainty of current world events. In this talk, Valerie Forstman discusses Case 20 from the Book of Equanimity, in which Jizo tells his student that not knowing is most intimate....

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  • Extinguishing the flame, Igniting the world: Valerie Forstman (Video)

    MCZCAugust 27, 20211 min read

    Valerie continues the theme of suffering and beauty from our recent July virtual retreat, taking up the awakening story of Patacara, a renowned woman disciple of the Buddha, teacher, and foundational figure in early Buddhism. This talk was delivered in our virtual zendo on August 19, 2021. [embed] Featured Photo by Ketan Wagh on Unsplash

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  • Dharmatalk: Deepening of the dharma – Meditation, Talk, and Q&A

    MCZCAugust 24, 20211 min read

    "... subjectivity of deeper states of meditation ..." "... What is the price of rice?’ Why is that the totality of the human experience of awakening?” ..."   Description: Following a guided meditation, a discussion of one of the Vedic Upanishads points out how the old Zen masters, whose terse teachings come down to us through the koans, expressed profound truths by referring to very mundane things. Questions from sangha members then pertain to the subjectivity...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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]

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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...

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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]

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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...

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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...

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