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: The Gift

    MCZCOctober 17, 20172 min read

    It’s like one has been given a gift. If you just remember to consult it, it will always give you a right course, in any situation. But you have to consult it. Which means you have to practice. There is a breaking through or falling away that happens, after which this nameless and formless gift sparkles in infinite facets. It has infininte aspects. It shines in countless ways, everywhere we look, and in every sound we...

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  • Teisho: Shukman: Case 1, The Gateless Gate: Joshu’s Dog (Mu)

    MCZCOctober 13, 20172 min read

    "... Everything has its source in zazen ..." "... The more clearly we see what is going on, the more clearly we discover there is only what is going on ...” Description: This teisho is the first talk from the Summer 2017 sesshin. Before looking at the koan Mu, this talk begins, as context, with Bodhidharma’s two “entries”—principle and practice. This theme is echoed in Dogen’s words, “To study the way is to study the self. To study the self...

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  • Message From Henry: Breath Break

    MCZCOctober 10, 20172 min read

    ...the Way is intrinsically fulfilled; the principle of Zen is complete freedom. ~ Dogen Upright, balanced – yet completely at ease. This is intrinsic fulfillment. Rested, relaxed – yet alert with an awareness that penetrates everywhere and embraces all things. This is unbounded freedom. ****** In praise of the Smoking Ban... The “fag break,” so called in Britain – time to step outside and have a “gasper,” meaning a five-minute smoke outside the office, in the carpark, on the fire...

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  • Whole-Hearted Attention

    MCZCOctober 7, 20171 min read

    ...without attention we live only on the surface of existence. The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention.... Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives... Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it. ...without attention we...

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  • Teisho: Ben Connelly: Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara

    MCZCOctober 5, 20171 min read

    Description: In this talk,Ben Connelly, a Soto Zen teacher from the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center and Dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage, discusses his book, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara. Vasubandhu was a fifth century Indian monk who was a prolific author and teacher. He was a profoundly influential but poorly understood figure in Mahayana Buddhism and a key figure in Zen lineage charts. Mr. Connelly’s new book illuminates the practical aspects of Vasubandu’s teachings, which integrate Theravada and Mahayana practices,...

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  • Message from Henry: Shadows

    MCZCOctober 3, 20173 min read

    The brighter the light the deeper the shadow. It’s easy enough to see the mote in another’s eye. Our Lord is infinitely merciful – and we’ll torture you until you do feel his mercy... We venerate the bond between mother and child (witness our icons), but have a child out of wedlock and we’ll take it away from you... Our practice makes us marvelously calm, adept at defusing reactivity, and now no human tragedy moves us…...

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  • Zen: Soto, Rinzai and Sanbo Zen Part 2 of 2

    MCZCSeptember 30, 20173 min read

    If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? —  Dogen Zenji Read Part 1 of this short series for insight into Soto and Rinzai Zen. How has the Sanbo-kyodan (now called Sanbo Zen) influence became the seed for much of what is now experienced as Zen in America? Hakuun Yasutani had his first sesshin with Harada Sogaku Roshi in 1954 and, two years later, experienced kensho at the age of 42. Ten years...

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  • Teisho: The Word “Good”

    MCZCSeptember 28, 20171 min read

    "... beauty, in the zen tradition, is regarded as a hallmark of reality ... Beauty is ephemeral; it is inextricably linked to loss and impermanence ...” Description: In this talk, Henry explores the meaning of the word “good,” beginning with the opening of the Book of Genesis, and moving into the first way that “good” appears in the Buddhist tradition—the word “sukha,” translated to mean “ease” or “happiness,” in contrast to “dukkha,” translated as “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness.” Henry...

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  • Message from Henry: Simple

    MCZCSeptember 26, 20172 min read

    Whenever craving arises, it’s an opportunity. Whenever aversion arises, it’s a chance – to accept, allow, surrender, release. To taste liberation, the reality of this moment, and to step through the gateless gate. Practice is better simple. It responds better (so to speak) to simplicity than to sophistication. Great practitioners may be able to respond spontaneously with great subtlety, as needed, yet they are simple. One example of this simplicity is a readiness to accept and follow...

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  • Zen: Soto, Rinzai and Sanbo Zen, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCSeptember 23, 20175 min read

    “… the very impermanency of grass and tree, thicket and forest is the Buddha nature …” ~ Dogen Dogen is credited with founding Soto (one of three important Zen “schools”) in Japan. But what is Soto? And how does it differ from Rinzai?  These differences are important. Many of the “lost generation” of Westerners who came from Europe and America in the 60’s and 70’s discovered great wisdom from the two great schools of Japanese Zen expressed through...

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  • Teisho: Case 42, Book of Equanimity: Nanyô and the Water Jug

    MCZCSeptember 21, 20172 min read

    "... Absolute happiness, regardless of circumstances, is possible in the existence that the Buddha discovered ...” Description: This talk was given by Sanbo Zen Abbot, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, during a special visit to Mountain Cloud. The center of this talk is the koan, “Nanyô and the Water Jug” from the Book of Equanimity. Ryoun Roshi chose this koan because it simply and profoundly conveys the world that Shakyamuni Buddha discovered 2500 years ago. He emphasizes the fact that...

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  • Message from Henry: Trapping the Moon

    MCZCSeptember 19, 20172 min read

    The self is like a seed that has been planted in this world, whose task is to give itself up, to break, disintegrate, and allow itself to dissolve into the greater life of all things, which it does not know. That’s what life is for. But so little are we taught this these days that awareness of it is all but lost. We assume life and the world in some way belong to the self, are...

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  • Dogen Zenji, Part 2 of 2

    MCZCSeptember 16, 20175 min read

    “… circle of practice-enlightenment is renewed moment after moment …” ~ Dogen Zenji In the previous part we covered some of Dogen’s journey of realization (& Zen in Japan) and closed that with one of Kaz Tanahashi’s summary comments on Dogen’s answer regarding practice … Continuing Kaz’s summary on Dogen: “Dogen accepts this image of a linear process of seeking. But he also talks about the way as a circle. For him, each moment of practice encompasses enlightenment, and each moment of enlightenment encompasses practice....

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  • Teisho: Case 58, Book of Equanimity: ” ‘Getting Despised’ in the Diamond Sutra”

    MCZCSeptember 15, 20172 min read

    "...any notion of recognition or good reputation becomes unnecessary ...” Description: The center of this talk is the koan, “‘Getting Despised’ in the Diamond Sutra,” from the Book of Equanimity. It also appears in the Blue Cliff Record. This koan is an excerpt from the Diamond Sutra, the Mahayana sutra which expresses, most closely, the spirit of Zen. Henry begins by pointing out that this koan is particularly relevant for Westerners because of our levels of shame...

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