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: Case 99, Book of Equanimity: Unmon’s “Bowl and Pail”

    MCZCApril 28, 20201 min read

    "You can’t see the Way; you can discover that you are the Way" Description: In Case 99, a monk asks Master Unmon, “What is the dust-dust samadhi?” This term, also translated as moment-by-moment samadhi, is explored at various levels in this talk. Unmon’s response to the monk is simple and beautiful, conveying a world where there is no separation. Post & Featured image: Natural green background with selective focus by Krivosheevv, purchased from depositphotos, for use only on...

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  • Sharing One Breath

    MCZCApril 25, 20201 min read

        Kono iki ya                                       Ah this breath Mae wa dare no ka                        Whose breath was it before? Hitotsu no ki                                    One Spirit.   Text and photo by Rosa Bellino

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  • Message from Henry: The Big Matter of Thinking in Meditation

    MCZCApril 22, 20203 min read

    Most of us identify thoroughly with our thoughts... I know who I am through the way I think. Thoughts are not a problem, not an issue. They come and go. No problem. Meditation is not about “not thinking.” However, it can be powerfully helpful to get clearer about what thoughts actually are, and how we usually relate to them. Most of us identify thoroughly with our thoughts. We own them, they are ours, and in some sense they...

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  • Dharmatalk: Spreading the Love

    MCZCApril 21, 20201 min read

    "... The Way is always waiting to show itself in every single moment ..." [caption id="attachment_18780" align="aligncenter" width="940"] Great Wall of China in Jinshanling, Hebei Province, China[/caption] Description: Beginning with some reflections on the book American Veda, this talk unfolds into a discussion of the Zen poem “Shin Jin Mei,” written by Sosan. The first line reads “The Great Way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose.” Practice allows us to become aware...

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  • Why I Wrote a Book about Why I Stopped Writing Books, Part 2 of 2, by Henry Shukman

    MCZCApril 18, 20208 min read

    ... a resolving of the conundrum I had felt life to be...The nub...in my ribcage that had been with me as long as I could remember, which I identified as the source of the writing, full of angst and hope, yearning and pain... had gone. Click to read Part 1 - if you missed it. Often I felt my body hadn’t been made for this world at all. I was born into burning skin, a nettle shirt....

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  • Message from Henry: Promises of Practice

    MCZCApril 15, 20201 min read

    The promise of Zen koan practice is that it is actually possible for each of us to have some taste of the boundless nature of every moment -- of this moment now. It’s not guaranteed -- but at least we know that we don’t have to be strange, unusual, still less “special” or weird people for this to happen. It’s also possible to then bring the boundless love that wells up from that “sourceless source” into...

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  • Dharmatalk (Guest): Ruben Habito: Zen Eye on Good Friday

    MCZCApril 14, 20201 min read

    "... And suddenly the darkness turned into a bright and luminous light ..." Description: In this brief Zen talk on Easter weekend 2020, Ruben Roshi walks us through a famous Zen koan from the "Gateless Gate", transposing the characters to the Montepulciano region of Italy, and brings us to the wordless "wine of astonishment" that awakening allows us all to drink. Listen and be inspired! Post & Featured image: Bright lights in darkness — Photo by I_g0rZh, purchased from depositphotos, for...

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  • Why I Wrote a Book about Why I Stopped Writing Books, Part 1 of 2, by Henry Shukman

    MCZCApril 11, 20208 min read

    I realized there was another way of being human...the land itself could be your home. We were earth-born creatures. Why shouldn’t one be at home anywhere on earth? Not many people know that I ever wrote books, and even fewer would know or care that I stopped writing them. Fewer still would be interested to know that in spite of stopping, I decided to un-stop long enough to write one more about why I had stopped—which might...

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  • Message from Henry: The Training

    MCZCApril 7, 20202 min read

    ...the training knows better than we do. Occasionally I experience a little worry about what I as a deluded former poet and writer with a long struggle in his meditation practice could possibly have to offer as a guide in practice. But then I remember there is a kind of answer: the training I have been through. Something that is definitely not personal to me. And the wisdom inherent in that training, which my teachers embodied...

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  • Message from Henry: The Training

    MCZCApril 7, 20202 min read

    ...the training knows better than we do. Occasionally I experience a little worry about what I as a deluded former poet and writer with a long struggle in his meditation practice could possibly have to offer as a guide in practice. But then I remember there is a kind of answer: the training I have been through. Something that is definitely not personal to me. And the wisdom inherent in that training, which my teachers embodied...

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  • Dharmatalk: One Infinite Gratitude

    MCZCApril 2, 20201 min read

    "... Zen practice offers stillness and silence ..." "…dissolving the great Gordian knot of self ..." Description: Gratitude for Buddha, Dharma and Sangha unites all the divergent streams of Buddhism. This talk touches on Transcendental Meditation and The Beatles, Emerson and Thoreau, and Swami Vivekananda. Zen practice offers stillness and silence and the potential for truly discovering the core fact of our existence, here and now. Post & Featured image: Beautiful Sunrise Ship morning background by Deerphoto, purchased from depositphotos,...

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  • Message from Henry: Now What?

    MCZCApril 1, 20201 min read

    There used to be a voice in me that would say: So what now? But now what? It used to speak up regularly when I emerged from a retreat where I’d gone deep in practice. Or I’d be blown away by some kind of experience of unity or boundlessness, and sooner or later this voice would pipe up, saying: Now what? Like: OK, whatever it may be you have just experienced, what is the follow up? What...

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  • Message from Henry: Wal-Gazing

    MCZCMarch 27, 20203 min read

    ...we simply meet it, allow it, receive it, as a thing, a phenomenon, an apparition. At certain times in its long history the Zen form of Buddhism has been known as the “wall-gazing school”. Bodhidharma, said to have brought “Dhyana” or “Zen” Buddhism from India to China in the sixth century, was sometimes known as the “wall-gazing brahmin”. For nine years he sat in his solitary cave gazing into the rock wall, staring into a boundless...

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  • Dharmatalk: Case 98, Book of Equanimity: Tozan’s “Intimate with It” (Part 2 of 2)

    MCZCMarch 26, 20201 min read

    "Zen is a template for letting go ..." Description: This talk revisits the three bodies of Buddha and maps them onto the various approaches to Zen practice, including mindfulness. The Dharma-body is the subject of every koan; each one communicates the true fact of existence. Tôzan’s answer to the monk’s question in Case 98 does just this. Post & Featured image: Silhouette of bird flying and broken chains at sunset sky background by choat, purchased from depositphotos, for...

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