Teachings

You can find all of our weekly Dharma talks for free right here on this page, as well as on our YouTube channel and podcast. Live talks take place every Thursday from 5:30–7:00pm MT, both in-person and on Zoom (sit.mountaincloud.org — password: mountain22). Members receive access to some special archival materials.

  • Message from Henry: Just This

    MCZCAugust 13, 20191 min read

    No before or after. No over there, no over here. Just this. Time and space - vanished, gone. Only this. You could say: only peace, but that already spoils it. It has flavors: Silent. Still. Quiet. Infinitely soft. Utterly solid. Infinitely powerful, energetic, dynamic. Infinitely flowing, a churning waterfall of beauty and softness. Infinitely supportive, no matter how much support may be required, here it is, perfectly supporting. Unconditional, unconditioned. Yet it has one condition...

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  • The Heart of a Rose

    MCZCAugust 10, 20191 min read

      The Heart Of a rose So soft So easy to break Let it break it open Open to Life Open to sorrow Open to joy And yet Your open Heart Is never  touched Never soiled By the ups and downs of Life Yes Let your Heart be Broken open Now Before It breaks in thousands peaces Each piece lost In a world Unable to Love Be broken Be open Be Loving Now My dear Heart My dear Love. [Rosa...

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  • Dharmatalk: Case 85, Book of Equanimity: The National Teacher’s Gravestone (Part 1 of 3)

    MCZCAugust 8, 20191 min read

    "... In the crystal palace there is no one who knows ..." Description: This is the third talk of the Fall 2018 sesshin. It begins with more practice pointers, including the advice to be aware of any expectation or disappointment with regard to a mind that is wishing to attain something. The talk develops into a look at Case 85 from three perspectives: worldly unhappiness, worldly happiness and non-worldly happiness. Note: There is a period of...

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  • Message from Henry: Seismic Dharma

    MCZCAugust 6, 20191 min read

    I had a dream recently in which Mountain Cloud was a great truck on which many of us were traveling - almost like a ship - riding through seismically active mountains. Volcanoes and fumaroles would steam and rupture and shake the earth - and on we went, riding through it all. In the words of Mumon and Dogen: the Dharma shakes the earth. And the Dharma-vehicle is untouched.   Message from Henry is from our...

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  • Dharmatalk: Tolstoy and the Dharma

    MCZCAugust 1, 20191 min read

    "I knew that feeling of love which is the very essence of the soul for which no object is needed." ~ Prince Andrei, War and Peace Description: This is the second talk of the Fall 2018 sesshin. After some additional, helpful sesshin tools for wearing down the self, this talk unfolds into a discussion of the piercing and beautiful wisdom for Zen practitioners contained in the pages of Tolstoy’s “map of the human soul” War...

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  • Message from Henry: Zen Whisperer

    MCZCJuly 30, 20192 min read

    ...we are allowing an inner wellbeing, fulfillment, peace ... to start to show itself. The old religious idea of making one’s heart and mind a fit dwelling place for God - it’s a lovely analogy for practice. In practice we are learning to cultivate a healthy and “clean” inner space.  We might think of it like this: the three pillars of bodily health are diet, exercise and sleep, according to some experts. Of course, these...

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  • The Swinging Door, Shunryu Suzuki

    MCZCJuly 27, 20191 min read

    What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. When we practice zazen our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is limitless. We say "inner world" or "outer world," but actually there is just one whole world....

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  • Dharmatalk: A Path of Peace (Practice Pointers)

    MCZCJuly 25, 20191 min read

    "... When we allow what is, space magically appears ..." Description: This is the first talk of the Fall 2018 sesshin. Specific pointers to aid us in allowing deeper states of meditation are discussed, beginning with two ways we can practice with the mind: disciplined focus on our chosen object of awareness, and backing off entirely, letting it all just be. Post & Featured image: Kingfisher Bird by Timo Schluter, Pixabay License.

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  • Message from Henry: Clean and Sober

    MCZCJuly 23, 20191 min read

    "...the path of practice is a dis-intoxication, a dis-enchantment from false views." One of the German words for “clean” is sauber, which is related to the English word “sober”. Buddhism has embedded metaphors of purification and “cleaning up.” Purifying primarily refers to scrubbing away the defilements or impurities of afflictions and delusions that cause negative emotions, erroneous views and our clinging and grasping. Sober, of course, means “not intoxicated” in English. In some recovery circles...

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  • Casa, by Rosa Bellino

    MCZCJuly 20, 20191 min read

      Casa a place I must leave I know Each step carved on the wheel of life a circle that never ends a circle of ever new vistas in a world I do not yet know and yet... Casa a place I know must return to as I walk on the path that will bring me back home where I belong where it all began       Casa the place I comeback to in...

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  • Dharmatalk: Maura Noone: Allow It All

    MCZCJuly 18, 20191 min read

    "... Allow whatever's happening ... and let this practice just swallow you up ..." Description: In this heart-felt and profound account of some of the ways that practice has helped her, Maura Noone, a Senior Student at Mountain Cloud, shares some of the challenging circumstances of her life, and shows in clear and illuminating ways how the Zen practice of being still and of taking koans deep into our meditation, has transformed her life. Full...

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  • Message from Henry: Oiling the Wheel

    MCZCJuly 16, 20191 min read

    Lubricants of compassion, humility and gratitude... Some wonderful lubricants that can help with our dukkha, our suffering, our resistance - that help to oil the wheel misaligned on its axle - are humility, gratitude and compassion. If we awaken any one of them in the heart, our practice will come to life in new ways. Try it.   Message from Henry is from our July 15, 2019 Newsletter Image: Fantasy Wheel by Kellepics,  Pixabay License

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  • How Buddhist is Modern Buddhism? Book Review and Analysis by David Loy

    MCZCJuly 13, 201911 min read

    Ultimately, the fundamental issue is not Buddhist interaction with scientific reductionism or Romanticism but how the Buddhism that is emerging might best address the individual and collective dukkha [suffering] of our time. Buddhism was the first major missionary religion, and by all accounts it seems to have spread peacefully. The merchants and monks who transported the dharma did not accompany conquering armies or attempt to defeat the local gods. Most often, Buddhism engaged with native...

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  • Dharmatalk (Guest): Ruben Habito: World in a Grain of Sand

    MCZCJuly 11, 20191 min read

    To see a World in a Grain of Sand; And a Heaven in a Wild Flower ~William Blake Description: This talk was given by Ruben Habito Roshi, founding teacher of Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, TX. Beginning with William Blake’s poem, “Auguries of Innocence,” we are invited to glimpse our true nature. Words and concepts can only point to this reality— but in stillness, with open hearts, we can become it. The basic guidelines of...

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