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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  • Teisho: Case 70, Book of Equanimity: Shinsan Asks about Nature

    MCZCAugust 16, 20181 min read

    "... this moment ... is without content—it is unborn and, simultaneously, undeniably present ..." Description: In this powerful talk Henry begins by conveying that, however perplexing they seem to be, the subject matter of all koans is right here, right now. In Case 70, Master Shinsan and Master Shuzan are having a dialogue, or mondo. Shinsan begins, “After you have clearly known the unborn nature of life, why are you still attached to life?” The koan is showing us...

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  • Message from Henry: Unexpected Potential

    MCZCAugust 14, 20182 min read

    ...in taking out the meditation part of the old traditions and marketing it to a new population, without the general context of the tradition, can sometimes lead to unstable practice. When Asian meditation masters first started coming to the West in the early 20th century, for the most part they were practitioners who understood meditation as a means to enlightenment. But around the mid to later 20th century, the notion started to emerge that practice could...

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  • Mindful Awareness

    MCZCAugust 11, 20181 min read

    All conditions and experiences are valid for practice. Buddha’s teaching on mindful awareness practice is broad: it covers a lot of bases. Be mindful of body posture, of short breath, long breath, of pleasant sensation, unpleasant sensation, sensation that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, of perceptions and interpretations, of reactions and impulses. And of mind-states: desiring mind, wrathful mind, confused, distracted, scattered mind, contracted mind, and so on. One way to look at this is that he...

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  • Rohatsu Sesshin Talk 6 of 6: A Guide to the Museum Called “Me” (Part 3)

    MCZCAugust 9, 20181 min read

    "... our life, our very existence becomes an ongoing service ..." Description: This teisho is the sixth and final talk from the 2017 Rohatsu sesshin. Henry revisits the four levels of “the museum called ‘me,’” discussed in Parts 1 & 2, in order to clarify a few points. The element of “stop and see” is intrinsic to every level. Every level is complete and nothing is lacking, which may make us feel that we are done, that “this is...

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  • Message from Henry: Do We Need a Teacher?

    MCZCAugust 7, 20182 min read

    ...a guide who knows the terra incognita that lies beyond our known world... One model in the west: sit in a big auditorium and have someone talk to you for hours and share some nice ideas, and you will become a different, better person. You just have to go to a lecture. You don’t really have to do anything. It’s all about sitting there and hearing the right ideas. Especially if they tell you things you already...

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  • Peace

    MCZCAugust 4, 20181 min read

    If you're at peace in yourself then people are interesting in and of themselves. When you're not at peace in yourself then, it’s more likely that people may seem to to be potential means to an end. ~ Henry Shukman Image: Feathers by tookapic, CC0 Public Domain, Pixabay.com

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  • Rohatsu Sesshin Talk 5 of 6: A Guide to the Museum Called “Me” (Part 2)

    MCZCAugust 2, 20181 min read

    "... the gate of ease and joy ..." ~ Dogen Description: This teisho is the fifth talk from the 2017 Rohatsu sesshin. (The fourth talk was a “silent teisho.”) Henry recaps the guide to first two levels of “the museum called ‘me,’” presented in the first talk of this sesshin and discusses the subsequent levels. The third level is characterized by deep states of absorption or “the journey toward becoming one.” The fourth level is  traditionally called awakening...

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  • Message from Henry: No Mind

    MCZCJuly 31, 20181 min read

    The whole world is... a projection of mind. Often in life it can happen that we find what we’re looking for. If we’re out to spot unkindness and hypocrisy, we’ll surely find them in this world. And if we’re out to see kindness and integrity, we will find them just as surely. From a Mahayana point of view, it’s not so odd. The whole world after all is a projection of mind, as the Lotus Sutra says. So...

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  • Rohatsu Sesshin Talk 3 of 6: Case 69, Book of Equanimity: Nansen’s “Cats and Cows”

    MCZCJuly 28, 20181 min read

    "... a state of stillness, peace and freedom ..." Description: This teisho is the third talk from the 2017 Rohatsu sesshin. It begins with the various ways human beings have addressed the problem of suffering, citing the solutions proposed in the words of both Hakuin and John of the Cross. This leads into Case 69 of the Book of Equanimity, with a focus on the line, “All the buddhas of the three worlds do not know that there...

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  • Sitting Still, by Henry Shukman

    MCZCJuly 28, 20181 min read

    Sit still and present moment awareness sooner or later will switch on. It's nice. It wants nothing. It is fulfilled, at peace. Nothing needs to be different. A sense of richness of experience, even while doing nothing. And it is even possible for it to accommodate unease. It acknowledges and embraces anything, with grace and patience, and with its own quiet sense of fulfillment, and sees no need that anything be gone, or be different. By sitting still and...

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  • Message from Henry: Tree Dharma

    MCZCJuly 24, 20181 min read

    Listen to the trees. Hear what they’re saying: let it all go, just let it go. Then you can join us. Their speech is one long invitation. All the planning, scheming, all you think of as your mind, your life, your hopes, dreams and fears – let them go, just give them up. Then you can join us, say the trees. Let us fill your world. Let our world be yours. Then the world you believe is in...

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  • Photo from our 2018 Summer Sesshin

    MCZCJuly 20, 20180 min read

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  • Rohatsu Sesshin Talk 2 of 6: Humility Conquers All

    MCZCJuly 20, 20181 min read

    Description: This teisho is the second talk from the 2017 Rohatsu sesshin. The central topic is humility. Henry begins with the story of Father Foucauld, a French monk living in Algeria in the early 1900s, which calls to mind the latin motto, humilitas vincit omnia, or humility conquers all things. This directly relates to the six paths of suffering discussed in the first talk. Buddha is always present in each realm, representing the way out of any...

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  • Message from Henry: Car Model

    MCZCJuly 17, 20182 min read

    Realization is taking away the deepest assumptions in our programming Trying out a car as an analogy: do we try to get the car running better by driving down different streets, into other territories? Or do we get it better by parking it, opening up the hood and sorting out the valves and plugs, reboring the cylinders. Maybe a new transmission is needed, etc. Same with life: do we just pound down more avenues, or faster down...

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