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: Inside Out

    MCZCJuly 8, 20201 min read

    Today's message is an excerpt from Henry's memoir One Blade of Grass describing as aspect fo his path of training. Read Great Peace (last weeks message) to put this week's piece in context.  In those early days, it was like being born again--or not again, but for the first time. Finally I knew what my life was. Not in the metaphysical or ontological sense, but in terms of the old Zen language. When one monk "awoke" under the promptings of...

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  • Dharmatalk: Seeking to Satisfy Dissatisfaction

    MCZCJuly 7, 20201 min read

    "When there really is just this, there is no place for thirst, or craving"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. We begin to address the Second Noble Truth: that the cause of suffering is craving, or Tanha in Pali, which literally means “thirst.” Seeking to satisfy the everyday pangs of thirst in our lives leads us to an unending cycle of craving for an end to craving. This will never happen. But when we learn to...

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  • Flower Sermon

    MCZCJuly 4, 20201 min read

    Once upon a time the world honored one was at Vulture Peak.  Before a vast crowd of lay practitioners, nuns, and monks, angelic creatures, and even gods, he held up a single flower and twirled it. Of the assembled crowd only the disciple Mahakashyapa, responded, breaking into a wide grin. The Buddha, lord of wisdom, physician of the heart, announced... I have the eye treasury of the true Dharma, the marvelous mind of nirvana,  the true form of no-form, the subtle gate of the Dharma.  This...

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  • Message from Henry: Great Peace

    MCZCJuly 1, 20202 min read

    Today's message is an excerpt from Henry's memoir One Blade of Grass describing as aspect fo his path of training. Click here to read Zen Death (a previous installment) to put this week's piece in context.  A war was over. It wasn't clear if I had won or lost--but presumably lost. The contents of the war, its causes and rationales, its bitterness and rage, had already become vague memories. It was a great absolution. ...Eihei. Eihei. Eihei.  Great peace. Great...

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  • Dharmatalk: Developing Compassion with Equanimity

    MCZCJune 30, 20201 min read

    "Suffering can be the door, or the path, to practice and training"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. Continuing the discussion of the first of the Four Noble Truths: How can we transform our reactions to the various states of suffering (fear, grief, anger) that we experience on a daily basis? Develop compassion with equanimity. This is important advice for us when sitting. Find the difficult feeling in the body, accept and allow it to be....

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  • Falling into Beauty

    MCZCJune 27, 20201 min read

    I don't regard my life as insufficient. Inside the brushwood gate there is a moon; there are flowers. ― Ryōkan Photo: Circle of life... a contemporary Enso circle by Rosa Bellino

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  • Message from Henry: Absolute Inclusivity

    MCZCJune 24, 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. Zen may undermine false assumptions, but its goal is to help us live more helpfully - not in servitude to an imaginary tyrant called "me," but in the service of others. In the core of "ancestral Zen," this happens through the collapse of the prior notion of who we are.  It's hard to believe that what is then revealed...

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  • Dharmatalk: Aligning with Reality

    MCZCJune 23, 20201 min read

    "Who is it who dies?"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. The themes are: dukkha, dissatisfaction or suffering; Buddha’s instruction on illness and death; the eight worldly conditions; and the characteristics of existence. How have humans typically approached the problem of suffering? The role of practice at various levels of experience is examined. For the introduction to this basic Buddhism series, please visit Venus Twinkling.   Post & Featuredimage: Life and death by taviphoto, purchased from depositphotos, for use only on...

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  • Message from Henry: Thoughts on Wisdom

    MCZCJune 17, 20202 min read

    Some ways of looking at the term wisdom... 1. Basic practice: it is wise to begin where we are: always from things just as they are. Beginning in acceptance. Human foibles, world troubles: we start by accepting that they are as they are. From there the work begins, of improving things: that’s wisdom too. 2. Responding appropriately. Unmon said: “One preaching, in accordance.” It is only one teaching, but it always accords with what is arising. “One...

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  • Dharmatalk: The Problem of Suffering

    MCZCJune 16, 20201 min read

    "Buddha understands suffering so well"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. It begins with the story of Sujata who nourished Siddhartha Gautama with milk-rice under the banyan tree. The focus of the talk is the First Noble Truth—there is suffering. Cultivating the space of awareness through practice can help to free us from our attachment to this aspect of our experience and suffer less. For the introduction to this basic Buddhism series, please visit Venus Twinkling.   Post & Featuredimage:...

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  • Message from Henry: Stop and Be

    MCZCJune 10, 20202 min read

    Out of inaction, out of stillness, out of quiet ... new and more considered behaviors can emerge We know we will die. We know that humans will cease to be -- either asteroids, or the sun expanding, or our own activities, will make this planet uninhabitable sooner or later. Granted this, why not make the most of existing, while we can. Why not work to make the world beautiful for all beings, the best we can. Various...

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  • Dharmatalk: Buddha Was A Woman

    MCZCJune 9, 20201 min read

    "Why does Buddha have to be a man?"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. It addresses the absence of women in most early Buddhist texts and explores the story of Mara who tries to prevent Siddhartha Gautama from awakening. There is also further discussion of the Middle Way, the Buddha’s first teaching, which can be understood as surrendering to things as they are. For the introduction to this basic Buddhism series, please visit Venus Twinkling.   Post & Featured image:...

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  • Message from Henry: Zen Death

    MCZCJune 3, 20202 min read

    Today's message from Henry is a short excerpt from Henry’s path of training as recounted in One Blade of Grass.  We pick up where we left off last week.  Click here to read last week's message. It's hard to know what exactly happened, but when I look back on it, there's simply nothing. Not even an awareness of nothing. A gap. But not even a gap. Blackness. But not even that. It's hard to know what to call...

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  • Dharmatalk: Been All Along

    MCZCJune 2, 20201 min read

    "Life only happens now"  Description: Ongoing series on basic Buddhism. With a focus on how Buddha, the Awakened One, became Buddha, the Dharma teacher, it begins with reflections on the first two phases of practice and initiates a discussion of the Buddha’s first teaching, the Middle Way. For the introduction to this basic Buddhism series, please visit Venus Twinkling.   Post & Featured image: Rapid mountain river in autumn by saharrr, purchased from depositphotos, for use only on our website/social channels (this...

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