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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  • Is Zen Buddhist? Dharma Talk by Henry Shukman

    MCZCAugust 11, 20201 min read

    In this dharma talk, Henry describes the tragic results of racism and exceptionalism in America and offers hope through Zen practice and how Zen relates to Buddhism. [embed]https://youtu.be/jV9UojZE6VY[/embed] Find this and many other talks on the Mountain Cloud You Tube Channel.  Recorded on June 4, 2020. Featured image: White stones, public domain photos, Pixabay.com

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  • Dharmatalk: Gathering in to a Single Point

    MCZCAugust 11, 20201 min read

    "There isn’t any phenomenon at all that isn’t teaching or preaching the Dharma" Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Buddha taught that in order to cultivate Right Orientation, which is the second step on the Noble Eightfold Path, one must start with an intention toward renunciation, not generating any ill-will, and being a source of harmlessness. By doing so, our sense of humility deepens and we learn to let go of identification with the self. We...

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  • The Power of Mu, Dharma Talk by Maura Noone

    MCZCAugust 5, 20201 min read

    Senior Sanbo Zen student and long term MCZC sangha member Maura Noone offered a dharma talk, The Power of Mu, on Thursday evening July 30. Please watch this moving talk about the transformative impact of Mu and Zen practice. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E34akjFbh8&t=3s[/embed] Check out our other videos on the Mountain Cloud YouTube Channel.

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  • Dharmatalk: Embarking on the Noble Eightfold Path

    MCZCAugust 4, 20201 min read

    "Right View is not so far away" Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Setting out on the Noble Eightfold Path, we begin with Right View. By developing an awareness of the roots of wholesomeness and unwholesomeness, we may orient ourselves toward proper conduct, skillful practice, and ultimately the cessation of suffering. The modern Zen practitioner may cultivate this sort of understanding by dropping any agenda and engaging in activities purely for the sake of doing them,...

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  • Message From Henry: Slow Down

    MCZCAugust 3, 20205 min read

    Becoming a meditator, opening up to a life in Zen, could be viewed as slowing down the car, parking it, getting out of it, and walking. Going through life at a pace where we can actually experience the sensory detail of every step we take. Imagine you're walking down an old track up a long valley. There are tufts of grass at the roadside, and you notice them clearly. There are stones underfoot embedded in the...

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  • Message from Henry: The Fertile Void

    MCZCJuly 29, 20202 min read

    One touch and it sucked away the universe. Another, and all things were born. 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 to put this week's piece in context.  There's an enlightenment poem by Yamada Koun with the line: All my karmic sins were extinguished as if in a bolt of lightening. An ancient ax strikes the cranium. Suddenly it appears: the bare fact...

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  • Dharmatalk: Subitist and Gradualist Awakening

    MCZCJuly 28, 20201 min read

    "This precious me. My me. This has been an invention" Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Continuing the discussion about the cessation of suffering, we examine two approaches toward awakening, the subitist, or sudden approach, and the gradualist one. Many Zen teachers, especially those using koans, assume the subitist approach. From a more gradualist perspective, we may through dedicated practice learn to reduce the causes of the negative emotional states that can generate stress and lead...

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  • Ryokan: Temporary Dwelling

    MCZCJuly 25, 20201 min read

    [caption id="attachment_21250" align="aligncenter" width="516"] Ryokan 1758-1831, self portrait[/caption]   Where you have beauty you have ugliness, too. Where you have right you will also have wrong. Knowledge and ignorance are each other’s cause. Delusion and enlightenment produce one another. It’s always been so, It didn’t start now. You get rid of this, then grab hold of that. Don’t you see how stupid it is! If you’re determined to find the innermost truth, Why trouble about the changing face of things? **** Traveling and traveling, I arrived at the mountain of...

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  • Message from Henry: Marvelous and Ordinary

    MCZCJuly 22, 20201 min read

    Today's message is an excerpt from Henry's memoir One Blade of Grass describing as aspect of his path of training. Read Wondrous Being to put this week's piece in context.  The drama was over. The whole thing called "my life" had been just that: a drama, a story. A dream. I had woken from it. It had ended. Yakusan, in the ninth century, likened awakening to a snake shedding it's skin and the true body being revealed. The whole "skin" of...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Cessation of Suffering

    MCZCJuly 21, 20201 min read

    "Unshakable is the liberation of my mind" ~ Shakyamuni Buddha Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. The Third Noble Truth concerns the cessation of suffering. When Buddha gave his first sermon, he was sparing in his description of this Noble Truth in comparison to the three others, teaching that the cessation of suffering, also known as Nirvana, doesn’t cause or lead to anything. It is rather a release of all the causes that have always led to...

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  • Question Mark ?

    MCZCJuly 18, 20201 min read

    ? A question mark Standing firm, Defending it's ground A question mark That it will never allow itself to become a full stop Not till its questions are answered! But slowly So slowly that it doesn't even notice The question mark is becoming more flexible Slowly, ever so slowly … it is unraveling Its bends and edges get straightened out, The curves become gentler And the question mark becomes A line at first, then the line becomes a dot … Till – one day – The dot disappears all together Leaving empty...

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  • Message from Henry: Wondrous Being

    MCZCJuly 15, 20202 min read

    This is not mind, this is not Buddha, this is not a thing. Today's message is an excerpt from Henry's memoir One Blade of Grass describing as aspect fo his path of training. Read Inside Out to put this week's piece in context.  This kind of state, according to the old way of thinking, would obviously wear off after a while. Yet, year after year, if anything, the wonder and gratitude grew, the space of the heart welling up daily with...

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  • Dharmatalk: Letting Go of Clinging

    MCZCJuly 14, 20201 min read

    "Loss brings us to our senses. It actually gives us our life"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. In continuing the series of talks about the Four Noble Truths, we examine clinging from a traditional and a modern perspective. Craving to always be right, we may cling to fixed viewpoints and become rigid in our attitudes and ideas. Holding on to things, we create stress and tension in our bodies, which we can make it our...

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  • Lost in the Forest of Mind

    MCZCJuly 11, 20201 min read

    Lost in the forest of mind running  from shadow to shadow looking for the light I never dared to open my eyes to... Running without aim running always till the dreams that at once comforted me become nightmares Lost in the forest of mind with tomorrow as the only hope... finally the shadows hunted me down and tied be to the ground ... still Still... I finally looked up and saw the beauty of your face smiling a smile that I knew was mine. Photo and Poem by Rosa Bellino...

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