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: Peace

    MCZCSeptember 9, 20201 min read

    Practice is not just about clearing the mind, or tasting stillness, or coming into stillness. The point isn't a negative: to be without thoughts or without movement. The point is to know the peace, fulfillment, the gentle joy, the intrinsic wellbeing, that is here already, before we have done anything. The stillness, the quiet – these are merely the means for finding that.   Message from Henry is from our September 7, Newsletter Image: Boy by sasint, from Pixabay.com...

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  • Dealing with Desire, Talk 2 of 4

    MCZCSeptember 8, 20201 min read

    How will we know when we have mastered desire? Tranquility marked by a sense that we are lucky to be living whatever life we happen to be living. ~ Dr Bill Irvine Second Talk from the Original Love One Retreat. Henry continues to explore the many facets of original love through zen practice and present moment awareness. Henry talks about the nuts and bolts of practice such as the five hindrances and three poisons, with a...

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  • Dharmatalk: Right Livelihood

    MCZCSeptember 8, 20201 min read

    "... It’s almost as if there’s no point practising unless we attend to how we’re living ..." Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Buddha taught that when following the way of Right Livelihood, we should not engage in occupations that may promote harm. It isn’t always easy in today’s world to advance in a profession that does not in some way thrive on, or at least encourage, greed, hatred and ignorance. Even those who pursue careers dedicated...

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  • Message from Henry: Invitation Toward Discovery

    MCZCSeptember 2, 20201 min read

    When we’re sitting with a koan, at some point there can be a shift, when we start to feel something positive about the koan – a sense of hope, promise, contained in the koan – a sense that it contains something immensely good about life that we can’t quite yet see, but can come to see. It can be almost as if we start to fall in love with it. We may not yet know how...

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  • Love in Present Moment Experience, Talk 1 of 4

    MCZCSeptember 1, 20201 min read

    Henry opens this first talk in the August Original Love 1 Retreat by looking at the word Love, one of the most loaded, variously understood and widely used word in the English language. Henry explores a facet of Love that and manifests as a deep inner journey into who we really are. Henry describes this journey as having four interwoven levels. [embed]https://youtu.be/LA0xl2P2v_E[/embed] Find this and many other talks and discussions on the Mountain Cloud You Tube Channel. Image: Blue...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Reorientation of Intention

    MCZCSeptember 1, 20201 min read

    "... Right Action is part of the undertakings that are necessary if we are to pursue the path of awakening ..." Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Right Action in the Noble Eightfold Path was first described by Buddha in terms of abstaining or refraining from causing any harm. We can also consider it in positive terms and think instead about things we can do to generate wellbeing. As practice deepens, we may discover that the...

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  • The New Bodhisattva Path, Talk by David Loy

    MCZCAugust 25, 20202 min read

    David Loy finds hope for new possibilities within our many global challenges....  We may ask, how do we find hope and what can we possibly do? According to a Zen Koan, when the master is asked what are all the awakened people doing? the response is simple:  Responding appropriately.  David adds, our practice isn't about transcending the world, but rather being more fully in it so we can respond appropriately. What is it about the Buddhist tradition,...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Integrity of Our Words

    MCZCAugust 25, 20201 min read

    "... we discern how to act morally as we tread between the Oneness that we encounter in meditation and the multifariousness of the world we live in ..." "Thank you very much, I have no complaints" Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Right Speech means abstaining from uttering falsehoods, from saying malicious or harsh things, and from engaging in gossip. We maintain the precepts of Buddhism when we guard our tongues from harmful slander. Adhering to this...

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  • Message from Henry: A Simple Friend

    MCZCAugust 25, 20201 min read

    Can we befriend the one square yard of our sitting mat? That is the challenge, and the invitation.  The wall before us. The seat beneath us, that we sense in the lower body. Sounds all around, close and far off, and in between. Breath lightly coming and going, thoughts coming and going. Feelings stirring like weather systems in the space of the heart. Tasting a restful awareness, a quiet attentiveness. Tasting the savor of stillness, of a...

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  • The Mysterious/Unsolvable Zen Koans: Henry interviewed by Kevin Rose

    MCZCAugust 18, 20201 min read

    A koan is a riddle or puzzle that Zen Buddhists use during meditation to help them unravel greater truths about the world and about themselves. Zen masters have been testing their students with these stories, questions, or phrases for centuries. Listen to this August 4 podcast interview/discussion with Henry Shukman on the Kevin Rose Show. Kevin interviews Henry Shukman, associate master of Sanbo Zen at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center. They discuss Koans, meditation, enlightenment, and more....

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  • Dharmatalk: Expanding Altruism

    MCZCAugust 18, 20201 min read

    "I want to devote my life to the wellbeing of the world" Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Do we have free will to act morally, or is our behavior merely a function of our social conditioning? We find that if we orient our behavior correctly, in accordance with the second step in the Noble Eightfold Path, our practice gets strengthened by the sense of wellbeing that our actions bring about in the world. We discover...

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  • Message from Henry: An Ordinary Morning Sit

    MCZCAugust 18, 20202 min read

    When I get quiet, when I meet the quiet already here, it seems there is no end to the beauty of it I hear a small plane crawling across the sky over the city, kind of scratching through the air. Now and then dogs bark. Something is moving in the grass outside the window – I hear a light scuffle. Then I notice these sounds have stopped. Their absence is peaceful. Because the room is on the west...

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  • Message from Henry: Fully Awake

    MCZCAugust 15, 20202 min read

    A fuse has blown, there is only silence. Today's message is an excerpt from Henry's memoir, One Blade of Grass, describing an aspect of his path of training. Read Marvelous and Ordinary and The Fertile Void to put this week's piece in context.  I had been like a best stuck inside a haystack, pushing and thrashing, not knowing if it was getting anywhere. my teachers cajoled me, but not even they could tell me the way out. Eventually I burst out of...

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  • Zen, Neuroscience and Moral Awakening – Henry Shukman

    MCZCAugust 14, 20201 min read

    ... this practice is infinite, we want to share it and help to relieve suffering. That's really all this practice is about. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-n6NSHR6U[/embed] Find this and many other talks and discussions on the Mountain Cloud You Tube Channel.  This talk was recorded on August 13, 2020. Featured image: Michaelangelo Abstract, PublicDomainPictures, Pixabay.com

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