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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  • Dharmatalk: Right Concentration

    MCZCNovember 3, 20201 min read

    "... start to experience the intrinsically fulfilling wellbeing of the lotus flower ... permeated from its roots throughout the tips of its petals with the same cool water in which it thrives in perfect stillness ..." "... Whatever needs to drop away drops away by itself ..." Description: Final talk in the series on basic Buddhism. The final fold in the Noble Eightfold Path is samadhi. This word sometimes gets translated as concentration, but it really means something...

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  • Meeting Mu, Dharma Talk by Henry Shukman

    MCZCNovember 2, 20201 min read

    Developing mindfulness is like creating a warm loving home inside yourself. In Henry's final talk prior to the election he acknowledges that the eyes of people all over the globe are watching our country. It's important to remember that the purposes of the Mahayana (our Zen Practice) is the reduction of suffering. Whatever outcome this election brings - this purpose goes on. The grand project of the great vehicle carries on. Henry speaks also about awakening, Mu...

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  • Dharmatalk: Bringing the Mind Home

    MCZCOctober 29, 20201 min read

    "... mindfulness ... is a practice of becoming okay with what we have ..." "... We have to let be, to let go ..." Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. The practice of mindfulness is not about adding something into our already busy lives that’s going to pick us up and make us feel better -- it’s more a matter of becoming okay with what we have, and learning to meet the present moment and appreciate it just...

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  • Message from Henry: Bach to Koans

    MCZCOctober 28, 20203 min read

    ...a cascade of releases, a domino effect...all might drop away. Body, mind, world, all give themselves up. And we see them for what they are. Listening to unaccompanied Bach -- in particular, some performances by Itzhak Perlman given in London in the 1970s. How prodigiously difficult the pieces are, yet generations of violinists, for the last 300 years, have been held to account by them, and have risen to their challenge, and become skilled enough not...

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  • Zen’s Middle Way, Talk 1 from October’s Original Love Retreat

    MCZCOctober 27, 20201 min read

    How could we ever be anywhere but at square one? .... it's always here -  just like this - and we are always equipped to find it. Henry opens this first talk from the Original Love 3 retreat by acknowledging the gap between basic mindful awareness practice and authentic awakening practice. Zen allows for both, it's the middle way that embraces mindful day to day practice with sudden awakening where body and soul fall away. Henry describes...

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  • Sangha Meeting Notes: October 17, 2020

    MCZCOctober 25, 20207 min read

    October 17 Sangha Meeting Minutes Financials In May, Damon reported that our initial budget loss of nearly $50,000, caused by the cancellation of many 2020 events, had been reduced to less than $20,000. Since that meeting, members of Mountain Cloud have been endlessly generous. Through donations and tireless efforts put forth by many individuals, the predicted budget loss of 2020 has turned into a surplus of over $30,000. This additional funding will help Mountain Cloud begin the...

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  • Samadhi, Henry Shukman

    MCZCOctober 25, 20201 min read

    The Sanbo Zen lineage has traditionally focused on kensho (sudden awakening) experiences which offer a complete, though often brief, shift in how we see reality. To attain this shift, practitioners sit on a cushion and meditate with little instruction. This changed in the 1940s when Zen opened to western seekers and laity. An early introductory document written during this time period listed three aims for Zen, the first of which is samadhi (translated as bringing...

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  • Message from Henry: Kensho

    MCZCOctober 21, 20201 min read

    Kensho: opening up the bottom of the barrel will require getting disoriented. We have to let go of our ordinary bearings. There is really no other way. We are moving from a 3-D view of the world to a 4-D or 5-D one, or perhaps a zero-D view. We can't do that without disorientation. The trick is simply to let go, leap and be done with it.   From our October 19, 2020 Newsletter Image: Shelf abstract by HOerwin56, from...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Process of Letting Go of Everything

    MCZCOctober 20, 20201 min read

    "... You can only see it when you are it ..." Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Human beings tend to get constantly captivated by their “default mode network," which can generate a continuous stream of internal commentary. To really be able to be present without an outward task: that is the basic meaning of the kind of mindfulness we are cultivating. Zen is a process for humans to realize their capacity to awaken out of their...

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  • Solitary and Poor, Dharma Talk by Valerie Forstman

    MCZCOctober 18, 20201 min read

    Enjoy this dharma talk from our October 10-11 Introduction to Mediation Retreat. Valerie Forstman explains what a teisho is, explores some of the great benefits of sitting meditation and introduces a koan, Case 10 from the Gateless Gate, Sozan and poor Seizai. [embed]https://youtu.be/08BWbxnn55c[/embed] Image: Cloud by Geralt from Pixabay.com

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  • Message from Henry: Love and Wellbeing

    MCZCOctober 14, 20201 min read

    Everything that you do - you only see if it’s been good and right when you view it from the perspective of love. We have to get to the vantage of love first, before we start evaluating and checking. *** Tolstoy. He's like us: a lay practitioner convinced that even ordinary life, married or single, with work, with family, with friends, has the capacity to yield a boundless wellbeing. Such a thing is already hidden within our...

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  • Fierce Compassion, Dharma Talk by Valerie Forstman

    MCZCOctober 13, 20201 min read

    Valerie's dharma talk probes Case 23 from the Blue Cliff Record, Hofuku and Chokei on an Outing. Hofuku says "This very moment is awakening. Exactly," responds Chokei, "but it's regrettable." [embed]https://youtu.be/0x9_Q7V4-TM[/embed] This talk was recorded on October 8, 2020 in our virtual zendo. Find this and many other talks and discussions on the Mountain Cloud You Tube Channel.

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  • Dharmatalk: The Zone of Phenomena

    MCZCOctober 13, 20201 min read

    "... The principle of zen is: body and mind fall away ..." Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Having reached the fourth aspect of mindfulness, which is the seventh fold of the Noble Eightfold Path, which is itself the fourth of the Four Noble Truths, we find that dharma gates are indeed countless. Buddha gave this, his first teaching upon having attained enlightenment, to those who required a gradualist guide to awakening. In zen, beneath the surface...

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  • Message from Henry: Maps

    MCZCOctober 12, 20201 min read

    Early 16th century maps of the Americas confidently show a somewhat circular landmass with a lake in the middle, called Lago Manoa, on the shore of which stands the capital city of the continent, El Dorado. There are even street plans of the Golden City.  These maps reveal what the cartographers didn't know – vast tracts of coastline and interior that had yet to be discovered by the western Europeans. But they also reveal what they...

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