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: 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...

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  • 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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  • 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...

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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’....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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