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.

  • 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...

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  • 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...

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  • 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...

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  • 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,”...

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  • 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,...

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  • Weekend Intro Sesshin Participants

    MCZCJune 29, 20180 min read

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  • 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...

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  • 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...

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  • 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

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  • 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...

    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...

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  • 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...

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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...

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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...

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