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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  • Message from Henry: Systematizing

    MCZCMarch 6, 20182 min read

    (Koans) are a lucky-dip of insights, experiences, tastes and transformations, from 2,500 years of practice. I recently read a statement from a teacher who developed a methodology of dialoguing, around “koan questions,” that they say will promptly bring about a “taste of the actual liberating experience of no self.” Apart from the doubts one might have about any system that promises something like the above in one (costly) session, I want to pick up on something else:...

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  • Teisho: Ruben Habito: All Beings Are Buddha – Guest Episode

    MCZCMarch 1, 20183 min read

    All beings are by nature Buddha, As ice by nature is water. Apart from water, there is no ice. Apart from beings, no Buddha   "... we are, and have always been, immersed in an infinite reality ..." ~ Ruben Habito Description: This talk was given by Ruben Habito Roshi, founding teacher of Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, TX. Its central theme is the first line of Hakuin Zenji’s Song of Zazen, “All beings are by nature Buddha.” Ruben explores what it...

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  • Message from Henry: Out of the Woods

    MCZCFebruary 27, 20181 min read

    Cherish your errors. They mulch your humanity. There’s a British saying: you’re not out of the woods just yet. Meaning: you’re not yet fully free of whatever trouble you may be dealing with. This practice we follow at Mountain Cloud can get us “out of the woods” in a thorough kind of way. What then? Then we may see there’s really no point in being out of the woods. No need! Then it’s no bother at all to us...

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  • Teisho: Case 64, Book of Equanimity: Shishô’s “Succession”

    MCZCFebruary 22, 20181 min read

    "... no difference between “swept away” and “not swept away,” between form and emptiness, between deluded and awakened ..."   Description: The Zen tradition embodies a basic fact or reality of our human experience, and says there are two entries or gates into it, as expressed by Bodhidharma—by “principle” and by “practice.” Henry talks about these two gates and elaborates on a prior discussion about quantitative and qualitative practice. In Case 64, Master Hogen poses the koan’s central question: “‘The...

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  • Message from Henry: Authorization

    MCZCFebruary 20, 20182 min read

    ...the lineage of overlapping, long-lasting relationships have nurtured a way of being, in each successive pupil... There are different kinds of authorization in spiritual teaching in the West today. One is by commerce, the marketplace. If someone has followers who pay for their workshops, buy their books, etc., that is proof enough – they are "authorized" by their buyers. Often books become a kind of commercial certification. If there's a book, whoever wrote it must be bona...

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  • Teisho: Case 63, Book of Equanimity: Joshu Asks About Death (Part 2 of 2)

    MCZCFebruary 15, 20181 min read

    "... study our experience and ... see how things truly are - this is called kensho ..."   Description: This talk begins with a discussion of the Three Refuges: buddha, dharma, sangha. It unfolds into further discussion of Case 63 and how Zen practice views awakening, or enlightenment. When we study our experience and suddenly see how things truly are—this is called kensho. In this koan Jôshû refers to this as a person “who has died a great Death.” It...

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  • Message from Henry: Ferries

    MCZCFebruary 13, 20182 min read

    It wouldn't make sense to keep venturing forth in different craft. Better to board one ferry and get over the water. Master Sheng Yen said he had met students who went to many masters, thinking they could get more that way, as if each teacher could give them one dollar, so if they saw ten they would have ten dollars. Whereas in fact the teacher is more like a physician, and if you receive treatments from...

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  • Three Fruits of Zen

    MCZCFebruary 10, 20183 min read

    ...if we really lived out the reality glimpsed in a moment of realization, and in every instant of our lives were free of all last shreds of clinging or grasping...then we might indeed be something like "perfect." Traditionally there are said to be three fruits of zazen. The first is concentration—meaning in part simply the ability to hold our mind steady on a given task or object, but also more than that... ...a con-centering, a gathering together...

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  • Teisho: Case 63, Book of Equanimity: Joshu Asks About Death (Part 1 of 2)

    MCZCFebruary 8, 20181 min read

    "... Zen training involves letting go of anything special, profound or dramatic—it is just this, moment by moment ..."   Description: This talk begins with a discussion of two purposes of practice: 1) to calm the reactive nervous system, cultivate present-moment awareness and experience states of deep meditative absorption; 2) deep investigation into the nature of our existence. In Case 63, when Jôshû asks Tôsu, “What if a man who has died a great Death comes back to life?” he...

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  • Message from Henry: Ongoing Training

    MCZCFebruary 6, 20182 min read

    This ineffable teaching is very new in the West. Why would we not get all the guidance we can? Since the whole universe is an experiment in learning, it's good for a teacher to continue their own training. Whatever efforts they put into it will be in service of their students, and will directly benefit them. If the teacher is still in a relationship with a master of their own that requires some humility, well and...

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  • Three Treasures of Zen

    MCZCFebruary 3, 20182 min read

    Three elements have long been considered integral and indispensable to Zen training – Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Often referred to as the three treasures, they form the foundation of our practice and correspond, more or less, to our sitting practice, our understanding of the teachings, and our sitting together as a group. Buddha  It was Buddha himself who originally used zazen (“sitting meditation”) to resolve the “great matter” of human life, accomplishing the task with his great...

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  • Teisho: Losing Our Way, Finding The Way

    MCZCFebruary 1, 20182 min read

    "... Right view is about getting clear about how things actually are ..."   Description: Henry relates a story about getting lost on a walk in the Black Forest in Germany, while following a path he thought he knew fairly well. Compared to the clear map in his head, everything seemed to be different than it should be. This experience brought to mind right view. This is the first element of the Eightfold Path, which was relayed by the Buddha...

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  • Sangha Meeting Minutes, January 27, 2018

    MCZCJanuary 30, 20186 min read

    Sangha Meeting Minutes January 27, 2018       Attending:  Rachel Belash Nancy O’connor, Chris Wuest, John Braman, MaryAnn Bennett, Christy Hengst, Henry Shukman, David Holt, Michael Waldron, Kathryn Stedham, Paul Cooley, Tony, Melissa Miller, Sondra, Sean, Henny, Bill Bruce, Peg Froelich, Gudrun Hoerig, Jim Norton, Karen K, Lucie Brennan, Will Brennan, Connie H, David Stevens, Ann Maxwell, Johanna The sangha unanimously approved the minutes from the October 2017 Sangha Meeting. The sangha unanimously approved the current Board of Directors. Chris Hebard has...

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  • Message from Henry: Value of Practice

    MCZCJanuary 30, 20183 min read

    ...the possibility of unconditional openness that practice can lead us to is one where ... beneath all the surface troubles of life there is actually a well-being. Last week’s message on the value or utility of practice may have come across as a bit baffling so I want to say a little more on the purpose of practice. Clearly, few people are going to take up a practice of meditation without a reason or purpose. And yet,...

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