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.

  • Dharmatalk: Case 78, Book of Equanimity: Unmon’s “Rice Cake”

    MCZCJanuary 31, 20191 min read

    "... Everything is a treasure ..." Description: Koans are anecdotes from the lives of enlightened masters. The focus of this talk is a koan that conveys the mind of Master Unmon. In Case 78, a monk asks Unmon what it means to “go beyond Buddha and the ancestors” -- a quote that the monk has read. Unmon responds simply: “Rice cake.” The talk explores the meaning of the monk’s question, and the dynamic power of Unmon’s...

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  • Message from Henry: No Preference

    MCZCJanuary 29, 20192 min read

    What if we just don’t have to live up to anything? Can you feel the gentle tide of well-being, of ease, of contentment, that then starts to flow in, like warm water over dry sand - a force we had forgotten even existed, and here it comes. And all the beached hulls and hulks that had forgotten they were built to float rediscover their long-lost buoyancy…. ***** Fuketsu said: “If you pick up a speck...

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  • Dharmatalk: Case 77, Book of Equanimity: Kyozan: As His Profession Requires

    MCZCJanuary 24, 20191 min read

    "... Infinite love is the whole story ..." Description: What is a koan? This talk begins by addressing this question. Koans aid us in the investigation of what it is to be alive. This unfolds into a discussion of Case 77 and what it offers to us. There is a dance happening between Kyôzan and the monk and they are both aware that it is all empty. Post & Featured image: Love by johnhain, Pixabay License.

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  • Message from Henry: The Force of Awakening

    MCZCJanuary 22, 20192 min read

    ...we can awaken to the fact that all aspects of our experience, and our responses and reactions to experience, are empty, hollow and insubstantial... Once our practice has passed a certain point, it's as if nothing can withstand the force of the present moment, of the Dharma, of now. It's as Tahui said: the Dharma is a hot stove, and all phenomena are snowflakes that vanish when they come near it. *** To be Buddhist...

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  • Dharmatalk: Case 76, Book of Equanimity: Shuzan’s Three Verses

    MCZCJanuary 17, 20191 min read

    "... Your you-ness is what is utterly beloved, from beginningless beginning ..."   Description: This talk begins with a discussion of the five hindrances: desire; aversion; sloth and torpor; restlessness and worry; doubt. It goes on to explain how our task is not so much to get rid of them as to be aware of them. This leads into an examination of Case 76, where Master Shuzan is telling it like it is—practice has nothing to...

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  • Message from Henry: Making the Buddha but Forgetting the Soul

    MCZCJanuary 15, 20195 min read

    It's not enough for the zendo merely to be ‘living'... A ‘true Zen spirit’ must now be breathed into it. It is important, in other words, for the living breath of Zen to be pulsing away in this zendo.  ~ Koun Yamada Roshi  [caption id="attachment_10161" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Rohatsu 2018 at Mountain Cloud Zen Center[/caption] On one of my first trips to Germany I had the good fortune to open up an old issue of Kyosho, the...

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  • Dharmatalk: Koan Study: Why Bother?

    MCZCJanuary 10, 20191 min read

    "... a glimpse of another order of things, in an experience of awakening from the “dream” of what we have taken our lives to be ..." Description: This talk is about why and how we study koans. Practice often begins with mindfulness training, with the breath as our focus as well as other aspects of present-moment awareness. Koan study is encouraged once we’ve had a glimpse of another order of things, in an experience of awakening...

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  • Family Matters: Welcoming the New Year 2019 by Ruben Habito

    MCZCJanuary 7, 20198 min read

    Dear Brothers and Sisters of our Sanbo Zen Community, Let me begin by citing from an inspiring sermon I heard at a Eucharistic celebration on the Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday, 30 December 2018, at St. Johann’s Basilica, in Saarbrücken, Germany. Given the theme of the day, the preacher, as to be expected, spoke about family and its vital role in making (or breaking) us in becoming who we are as human beings. He...

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  • New Year’s Message from Henry

    MCZCJanuary 5, 20192 min read

    Dear Friends, When we find the Dharma, we don’t need anything else. Wealth, status, good name, comfort -- they lose whatever hold they may have had. In effect, they vanish. Once we really find the Dharma, we don’t even need life any more. We don’t even need the Dharma any more, because at last it’s clear what it has been all along. As the practitioner Jeff Shore says in his article “Rinzai Zen in the...

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  • Dharmatalk: A Well That Has Not Been Dug

    MCZCJanuary 3, 20191 min read

    In a well that has not been dug, water is rippling from a spring that does not flow; There, someone with no shadow or form is drawing the water. Description: This talk focuses on one of the first koans in the koan training: In a well that has not been dug, water is rippling from a spring that does not flow; There, someone with no shadow or form is drawing the water. We can find with...

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  • Message from Henry: Analogues of Awakening, Part 3 of 3

    MCZCDecember 31, 20184 min read

    ...self and world instantly vanish in one true awakening ... No consciousness remains. None of the previous message (click here if you missed part 1 and part 2) would be considered “awakening” in the Zen tradition, valuable though they may be. Now we start approaching the bounds of what Zen would call "awakening." 1) The first of these could be the sudden apprehending that underneath this world of apparently separate things, within this world of...

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  • Dharmatalk: Love is the Teaching

    MCZCDecember 27, 20181 min read

    It is empty, nameless, all-embracing love Description: The Blue Cliff Record is a classic collection of koans compiled by Setcho (Xuedou) in 1028. Each koan has a corresponding verse composed by Setcho, and the focus of this talk is Setcho’s beautiful verse to Case 2: In one there are many kinds. In two there are not two. Post & Featured image: Rose by Sushuti, CCO Public Domain.

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  • Message from Henry: Analogues of Awakening, Part 2 of 3

    MCZCDecember 25, 20183 min read

    ...being open to releasing our hold on habit-patterns of the mind, allows a broader picture to show itself.  In this three part series, Henry writes about the analogues to awakening.  If you missed last week's post, click here to read part 1 in this series. Analogues... Getting into the body and learning to relax, finding hidden tension patterns and having them release – that can open up new peace, energy, and new ways of being,...

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  • Dharmatalk: Case 75, Book of Equanimity: Zuigan’s “Everlasting Truth” (Part 2)

    MCZCDecember 20, 20181 min read

    Description: This talk continues the discussion of Case 75 and the wonder of practice. Zuigan has asked Ganto if there is an unchanging, everlasting reality. This can be taken as the central question of a lifetime. Ganto tells him that “it” -- the unchanging truth -- has already changed. We can never experience the world that Ganto inhabits through our understanding. Yet it is embodied in the koan, and embodied in the great masters. This...

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