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...

    Read more
  • Rohatsu Sesshin Talk 1 of 6: A Guide to the Museum Called “Me” (Part 1)

    MCZCJuly 14, 20181 min read

    Description: This teisho is the first talk from the 2017 Rohatsu sesshin. The objective is to outline a guide to two levels of “the museum called ‘me,’” beginning with an excerpt from Hakuin Zenji’s Song of Zazen: Lost on dark paths of ignorance, we wander through the six worlds, from dark path to dark path. Henry examines the six worlds, first in their traditional framework and then, in a more personal way. The second level is...

    Listen to the talk
  • The Power of the Fact, by Yamada Ryoun Roshi

    MCZCJuly 14, 20184 min read

    Above and below the heavens there is only myself, alone and sublime. ~ Shakyamuni Buddha Two thousand four hundred and forty-five years ago Gautama Siddhartha discovered the true fact concerning his own existence and became Shakyamuni Buddha (the Awakened One, the wise man of the Shaka clan). (Note: here I am following the accepted time frame of his life span as being from 463 to 383 BCE. with his awakening occurring at the age of 35.) Shakyamuni used these...

    Read more
  • Message from Henry: Genuine Kensho

    MCZCJuly 10, 20184 min read

    Kensho is a revelation, meaning that it reveals a whole other order of things. We may feel: OMG, how wrong I’ve been all my life! Most of us will not have had a thoroughly transformative experience at the start of our koan study. It may feel that way at the time, but it is rare for the initial breakthrough experience to be thorough-going. Nevertheless, an initial breakthrough needs to have at least one of three clear...

    Read more
  • Zen and the Quantum Computer, by Yamada Ryoun Roshi

    MCZCJuly 7, 20184 min read

    In December of 2015 an historical news conference was held in America’s Silicon Valley, sponsored by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Google, and D-Wave Systems Company of Canada. For over two years this consortium had been using the Quantum Computer of D-Wave and carrying out performance tests. They announced their results at the news conference. “The D-Wave computer can compute at a speed one hundred million times faster than any other computer.” “A hundred million...

    Read more
  • Teisho: The Circle of the Way

    MCZCJuly 6, 20181 min read

    "... the point of all of this is to be of service, each in our own unique way ..." Description: Henry begins by talking about a recent workshop at Mountain Cloud with noted calligrapher and translator of Dogen, Kaz Tanahashi. Dogen is a national treasure in Japan, both expressing and shaping the collective soul of the country, just as Pushkin in Russia. Inspired by a talk given by Kaz, Henry discusses Dogen’s notion of the Way as...

    Listen to the talk
  • Message from Henry: A Gentle Practice

    MCZCJuly 3, 20182 min read

    It’s a gentle practice – sitting together in the quiet, in the semi-dark. Yet by stripping us of our illusions about ourselves, it invests us with power – with a quiet, great power that is not our own. The things we seek in spiritual practice are not sense-objects. They are not things we can perceive with the senses. “If you try to seek the Tathagata through sights and sounds you are on a false path,” says...

    Read more
  • Infinite, Eternal

    MCZCJune 30, 20181 min read

    The Tao is infinite, eternal. Why is it eternal? It was never born; thus it can never die. Why is it infinite? It has no desires for itself; thus it is present for all beings.   The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead. She is detached from all things; that is why she is one with them. Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.     Text: Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching: A...

    Read more
  • Weekend Intro Sesshin Participants

    MCZCJune 29, 20180 min read

    Read more
  • Between the Human Animal and the Animate Earth (Part 3b of 6)

    MCZCJune 29, 20181 min read

    "... We live in the vast earth, breathing inside this great mystery, having an immediate experience of co-creation in every moment ..." Description: This is the third in a three-part series of spontaneous conversations between Henry and David Abram. Henry begins with a reading from Becoming Animal and David reads a poem from Henry’s collection, Archangel. Henry and David continue to explore the sacredness of our human inter-being, or inter-breathing, with the animate earth. This generous and fertile conversation,...

    Listen to the talk
  • Message from Henry: Collapse

    MCZCJune 26, 20181 min read

    Suddenly the view, the frame, the box within which all was understood, shatters and collapses. Zuigan asks his master Ganto a question. Ganto responds: “If you ask, you’re lost. If you don’t ask, you’re lost.” Master Sekito once told his student Yakusan: “Words can’t touch it. No-words can’t touch it.” Therein the Zen impasse. Not yes, not no. The great impasse of existence. The great binary: one or zero. Zen must push us into this impasse, because it’s...

    Read more
  • The Tao is like a Well

    MCZCJune 23, 20181 min read

    The Tao is like a well: used but never used up. It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities.   It is hidden but always present. I don’t know who gave birth to it. It is older than God.   Text: Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Perennial Classics), HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Image: Concentric wave by geralt, CC0 Public Domain from Pixabay.com

    Read more
  • Between the Human Animal and the Animate Earth (Part 3a of 6)

    MCZCJune 21, 20181 min read

    "... We live in the vast earth, breathing inside this great mystery, having an immediate experience of co-creation in every moment ..." Description: This is the third in a three-part series of spontaneous conversations between Henry and David Abram. Henry begins with a reading from Becoming Animal and David reads a poem from Henry’s collection, Archangel. Henry and David continue to explore the sacredness of our human inter-being, or inter-breathing, with the animate earth. This generous and fertile conversation,...

    Listen to the talk
  • Message from Henry: Well-Being Without Conditions

    MCZCJune 19, 20182 min read

    ...it may just be the greatest happiness, a well-being without conditions, and without limit. How hard it is to be released from the rule of the self? Yet... sense of self is like a reflection on water. It’s less than a molecule thick. A reflection actually has no thickness at all. It has no substance. It’s an imaginary overlay on a process that itself is transparent. Yet the image entrances us. It’s actually the greatest hindrance...

    Read more
  • The Dharma of Deconstruction, by David Loy, Part 2 of 2

    MCZCJune 16, 20188 min read

    For Nagarjuna, shunyata is simply a shorthand way to express the interdependence of all things. Nothing has any “self-existence” or “self-presence” because everything–including all concepts–is dependent upon everything else. Click to read Part 1.   Western philosophy’s turn toward examining the role of language in shaping experience, can one find in it, as in Buddhism, an acknowledgment of the possibility of profound spiritual liberation? Well, not quite, but there are some intriguing similarities. Friedrich Nietzsche was one...

    Read more
footer support banner image

Support Mountain Cloud

You can show your gratitude for Mountain Cloud events, retreats, podcasts and other teachings by making a one-time gift, or by becoming a supporting member.

Donate to Mountain Cloud Become a Member