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 65, Blue Cliff Record: A Non-Buddhist Questions Buddha

    MCZCJune 16, 20181 min read

    "... Buddha is showing us who he is by remaining still, showing us the core of our own heart ..."   Description: The first part of this talk centers on Case 65, which also appears in the The Gateless Gate. The questions arise: What is a Buddhist? What is a non-Buddhist? What is awakening? In this koan, Buddha is showing us who he is by remaining still, showing us the core of our own heart. The non-Buddhist...

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  • Message from Henry: Setcho’s verse to Case 2 of the Blue Cliff Record, Part 2

    MCZCJune 12, 20182 min read

    In a way, our whole life as we’ve known it has been one great distraction... Click here if you missed part 1 of Setcho’s Verse to Case 2 of the Blue Cliff Record. Thus Setcho’s verse continues: Where the skull’s consciousness comes to an end, how could joy arise? The withered tree is giving a dragon’s roar. Though dead, it is not dried up. In other words: all vanishes, all. And yet, the most baffling thing, from the abyss of nothing,...

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  • The Dharma of Deconstruction, by David Loy, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCJune 9, 20184 min read

    For Nagarjuna, the world as we commonly experience it is a linguistic construct. The fundamental insight of what is known as the “linguistic turn” in twentieth-century Western thought is that language shapes our experience. Some of the most influential modern thinkers challenge our usual assumption that using language is merely a matter of attaching names to things that already exist in the world. In a very important sense, language creates the world as we know it. This...

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  • Teisho: A Love So Great

    MCZCJune 8, 20181 min read

    "... What is this activity? ... the principle of ultimate compassion, of love ..." The bodhisattva doesn’t control themselves, they’re controlled by the needs around them. Description: Henry references several koans from the Book of Equanimity in this talk, which begins with the distinction between a dharma talk and a teisho. This leads us into Case 7, Yakusan Ascends the Rostrum, and Case 67, Wisdom in the Kegon Sutra, and Case 66, Kyûhô’s ‘Head and Tail’. The question arises:...

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  • Sangha Meeting Minutes: June 2, 2018

    MCZCJune 6, 20189 min read

      Thank you to all who attended our June 2 sangha meeting. Attendees are listed at the end of this report. We have three sangha meetings per year. We are now publishing the minutes on our website and will continue to post them on our bulletin board.     Opening sit at 10am followed by the approval of the January sangha meeting minutes. Teacher's Report (see below for the complete report written by Henry for the meeting) Construction Update Chris Wuest reported....

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  • Message from Henry: Setcho’s verse to Case 2 of the Blue Cliff Record, Part 1

    MCZCJune 5, 20182 min read

    Setcho’s verse to Case 2 of the Blue Cliff Record says... In one there are many kinds. In two there are not two. The Prajna Paramita Sutra says: Prajna Paramita’s children “who clearly and blissfully see the emptiness, insubstantiality and transparency of all apparent self-existence, while continuing to abide in the very depth of loving concern, remain active in the destiny of all lives.” From the one reality of all-gone, infinite things and infinite possibilities arise. Maybe we can...

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  • Between the Human Animal and the Animate Earth (Part 2b of 6)

    MCZCMay 31, 20182 min read

    "... the sacredness of our human inter-being with the rest of nature ..." Description: This is the second in a three-part series of spontaneous conversations between Henry and David Abram. Henry and David continue to explore the sacredness of our human inter-being with the rest of nature. David is an ecologist, geo-philosopher, and writer. David describes a geo-philosopher to be someone who reflects under the influence of the earth. He is particularly interested in the ecology of sensory experience—how...

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  • Message from Henry: One with the World

    MCZCMay 29, 20182 min read

    The world arises as consciousness arises. This world matches us, suits us, meets us. The world is as it is because we are as we are. It’s not two systems. Self and world are a single system. It’s not that we don’t have to function in the world. We have to eat food, drink water, keep warm and dry, if we are to survive. But we are not in fact individuals in the world, in spite of...

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  • What is Eco-dharma, by David Loy

    MCZCMay 26, 20183 min read

    ...practicing in nature, clarifying the ecological implications of Buddhism, and using that understanding to engage in the eco-activism... Ecodharma is a relatively new word, and its meaning is by no means fixed. The term combines the teachings of Buddhism and related spiritual traditions (dharma) with ecology or ecological concerns (eco). A bit more specifically, ecodharma can be understood as a new development in contemporary Buddhism, in response to the ecological crisis that now threatens civilization as...

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  • Between the Human Animal and the Animate Earth (Part 2a of 6)

    MCZCMay 24, 20182 min read

    "... the sacredness of our human inter-being with the rest of nature ..." Description: This is the second in a three-part series of spontaneous conversations between Henry and David Abram. Henry and David continue to explore the sacredness of our human inter-being with the rest of nature. David is an ecologist, geo-philosopher, and writer. David describes a geo-philosopher to be someone who reflects under the influence of the earth. He is particularly interested in the ecology of sensory experience—how...

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  • Message from Henry: A Single Love

    MCZCMay 22, 20182 min read

    It is for love that the whole universe sprang into existence and it is for the sake of love that it is kept going.   ~ Meher Baba Some psychologists say we all have an “unconditioned self,” and it knows: “I am loved.” We also have a conditioned or learned self which doubts that it is loved. “Am I loved?” it wonders. And further: “Am I loveable?” It then creates the myth: “If I have enough, know enough, experience...

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  • Teisho: Case 67, Book of Equanimity: Wisdom in the Kegon Sutra

    MCZCMay 21, 20181 min read

    Koans are dark to the mind but radiant to the heart    Description: This talk centers on Case 67, which is taken from the Kegon Sutra. The Buddha says, “Now I see all living beings everywhere, and I see that each of them possesses the wisdom and virtue of Tathagata.” Henry explains the word Tathagata and points to the wonder of practice, which may allow us to see “all living beings everywhere.” In Zen training, we can discover that...

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  • Fully Human

    MCZCMay 19, 20181 min read

    To be fully human – that’s the project. To do that, the key is dropping the self, being liberated from a constricted notion of self, forgetting self, seeing through self and its two attendants, greed and aversion. ~ Henry Shukman   Image: Ocean woman by Nerivill, CC0 Public Domain from Pixabay.com

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  • Message from Henry: True Zero

    MCZCMay 15, 20182 min read

    Who knows true zero? English trees in wind: leaves shaking and shimmering. The woods are like tinsel. So many shades of green. So many layers. A beech stirring in the wind, ashes giving a hoarse roar, an end-of-season rosebush waving weakly, a willow with its wands dangling and dawdling, as if trying to point to the east but too weak to do so. Then the wood up on the brow, all the crowns swaying like sponges...

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