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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  • Message from Henry: The Non-Domesticated Dharma

    MCZCFebruary 24, 20214 min read

    We allow the vast unknown, the beyond-wild energy of the Dharma to take us over. Attempts to domesticate the Dharma seem misguided and sad. The true Dharma is wild, powerful and unknowable. It can’t be domesticated. Nor can it be commercialized. Any efforts to turn it into a lifestyle product end up selling something different. The Dharma slips out. It can’t be put into any kind of human category, let alone one from which we could...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Intersection of Yoga and Zen

    MCZCFebruary 23, 20211 min read

    "... who we are in the present moment--this very moment ..." "... Housebuilder, I have seen you! You will never build your house here again  ..."   Description: In this dialogue, which took place at the Esalen Institute in January 2020, yoga teacher Tias Little and zen teacher Henry Shukman talk about the similarities and differences between these two great traditions. Both yoga and zen share an emphasis on inquiry. When we inquire deeply within our bodies and our...

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  • Video – Maria Reis Habito, Nansen Kills the Cat

    MCZCFebruary 22, 20211 min read

    Guest speaker Maria Reis Habito's teisho explores Case 14 from the Gateless Gate, Nansen Kills the Cat. She looks at this koan from a compassionate perspective about how to become "unstuck." Maria is Sanbo Zen teacher at the Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, TX and international program director for the Museum of World Religions in Taiwan. [embed]https://youtu.be/om1F2_M5F1Q[/embed] Visit the Mountain Cloud YouTube Channel for many more videos. Cat Clipart image from Pixabay.com...

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  • Message from Henry: The Deep Middle

    MCZCFebruary 17, 20212 min read

    There’s more gratitude in the middle, and with that comes more humility, more of a sense of the bounty around us, and naturally enough, more desire to act out of kindness. I used to think equanimity sounded boring. Being centered sounded dull. Like many artists I swung regularly from exaltation to despondency and back again. I didn’t really want to hang around in the middle, apparently. Yet what meditation can teach us is that the center is...

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  • Dharmatalk: Seeing through the Self

    MCZCFebruary 16, 20211 min read

    "... Nothing changes, but everything changes, through the path of meditation  ..." Description: In these talks, given during the 2020 Esalen meditation and yoga retreat, we consider certain questions about the nature of reality, taken from the Buddhist canon. Several anecdotes pose a simple question, which is something that every human being must reflect on at some level: What is the meaning of my life? The answer may not be what we expect, if it’s given by...

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  • Sangha Meeting Minutes: January 30 2021

    MCZCFebruary 15, 202110 min read

    Board of Director's Update Presented by Sondra Byrnes, Board President We would like to thank Michael Waldron and Chris Hebard for their service on our board. While their terms have come to an end, they will continue to be involved in various capacities at Mountain Cloud. Thank you! Due to these changes, we move to elect three new board members, Josue Damian-Martinez, Sarah Giffin, and Mark Petrick. Sondra Byrnes has been elected as President of the Board with...

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  • Video – Dosho Port: Record of Empty Hall

    MCZCFebruary 14, 20211 min read

    Dosho Port speaks about his new book The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans. [embed]https://youtu.be/-Q-IE1dUZHQ[/embed] Dosho Port teaches with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training and at the Nebraska Zen Center in Omaha, and he has been practicing Zen since 1977. The Record of Empty Hall is his new translation and commentary on a classic collection of koans by Xutang Zhiyu (1185-1269), an important figure in Ch’an/Zen Buddhism. Port illuminates these remarkable koans and...

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  • Video – Empty Hands, Valerie Forstman

    MCZCFebruary 12, 20211 min read

    We are always looking for the lack, like Eka (Huike) searching for his mind - this lack is so convincing and so untrue. It blinds us to who we really are and blinds us to see the astonishing beauty of one and other. In this Dharma Talk, from February 4, Valerie helps us open our eyes to authentic reality.  She reads Thomas Merton's awakening experience and explores an enigmatic line from a verse in the miscellaneous...

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  • Message from Henry: The Seeker

    MCZCFebruary 10, 20213 min read

    Forget seeking, forget not-seeking, forget all sense of gain. Don’t underestimate or undervalue the seeker within you. The seeker is right. There is something worth seeking, something worth finding. Remember Dogen’s words: “I went to China, body and mind fell away, and I found the Dharma.” The Dharma is what the seeker is looking for. The seeker knows intuitively that the Dharma exists, and that it must at all costs be found. It just doesn’t know quite...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Intrinsic Healthy Self

    MCZCFebruary 9, 20211 min read

    "... into the joy of present moment awareness  ..." "... The healthy self lives in the world of form, not desire ..." Description: In these talks, which were given on the second day of the 2020 yoga and meditation retreat at Esalen, we examine more closely how we might uncover Unmon’s bright light. It is not through a cumulative process of building toward any kind of attainment that our negative states of mind may diminish and our healthy selves...

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  • Video – Reflections on Dogen’s Fukanzazengi, Will Brennan

    MCZCFebruary 7, 20211 min read

    Senior student and one of Mountain Cloud's founding members, Will Brennan, offers his reflections on Dogen's Fukanzazengi. [embed]https://youtu.be/108TeHY1s-0[/embed] All dharma talks and Q&A sessions from the Encounter of the Heart Retreat are available on our YouTube Channel. Image: Collage of Dogen and Stillness Speaks image of Kaz Tanahashi’s Enso – Dogen image from Wikimedia, Public Domain, PD-1923.

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  • Video – Love: Encounter of the Heart Retreat, Talk 4, Valerie Forstman

    MCZCFebruary 6, 20211 min read

    In this final talk from the Encounter of the Heart Retreat, Valerie turns to Love, which knows nothing of rank and order. She looks at a koan from Keizan's Transmission of Light collection. Keizan is said to have an inscription at the entrance of his zendo (paraphrased), Anyone who wants to gain enlightenment, do not enter. There is nothing to gain, if there is anything like enlightenment, it's the living dharma right where you are, right...

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  • Video – The Invitation: Encounter of the Heart Retreat, Talk 3, Valerie Forstman

    MCZCFebruary 5, 20211 min read

    "Who would waste the spark from a flint stone?" ~ Dogen Anything could be that spark. Ryoun Roshi says "koans are a message from the oneness world." They offer an invitation into our deepest curiosity. Valerie explores Case 22 of the Gateless Gate: Kashyapa's Flagpole, and Ananda's awakening. [embed]https://youtu.be/gbQuK7ORrLU[/embed] All dharma talks and Q&A sessions from the Encounter of the Heart Retreat are available on our YouTube Channel.

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  • Message from Henry: The Heart of Zen

    MCZCFebruary 3, 20214 min read

    That discovery, of a hidden identity shared by all beings, brought effortless joy. It arose spontaneously from his heart. When Shakyamuni Buddha experienced his great awakening at the age of 35, it did not come through grueling ascetic practices. Rather, after several years of mortifying his flesh under the guidance of various spiritual masters, to the point where he had brought himself close to death, he realized three things... first, he wanted to live, and therefore...

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