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.

  • Cottage Opening Celebration Photos

    MCZCMay 8, 20181 min read

    Saturday May 5 Celebration   Ryoun Roshi cuts the ribbon... Sit and short talk with Ryoun Roshi   Interior Photos...     Chris Wuest manager/overseer of the entire project. Thank you Chris. Many bows!  

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  • Message from Henry: Cup of Tea

    MCZCMay 8, 20181 min read

    There is a hump we can get over, a corner we can turn, and it's getting less mysterious by the week, as contemplative neuroscientific research keeps after it. *** The practice is multi-valent. It can meet any number of different angles and perspectives from which we might plug into it, and any number of different reasons for doing it, and any number of different intentions with which we may approach it. *** Is this the...

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  • The Nonduality of Good and Evil, David Loy

    MCZCMay 5, 20185 min read

    If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? —Alexander Solzhenitsyn Because it emphasizes mindfulness of our thought processes, Buddhism encourages us to be wary of antithetical concepts, not only...

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  • Between the Human Animal and the Animate Earth (Part 1b of 6)

    MCZCMay 3, 20182 min read

    "... when we speak, the world is speaking through us ..." Description: This is the first in a three-part series of spontaneous conversations between Henry and David Abram. David is a cultural ecologist, geo-philosopher, and performance artist and the author of Becoming Animal and The Spell of the Sensuous. His writings have catalyzed the emergence of several new disciplines, including the burgeoning field of Ecopsychology. He is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, recently held...

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  • Message from Henry: Delusion

    MCZCMay 1, 20181 min read

    ...all things without exception are in fact impermanent, and incapable of providing lasting peace... Are we hardwired for joy, wonder, appreciation, gratitude, and caring, compassion, love? Basically, yes. But we are also misled and deluded by the three poisons, desire, aversion and delusion. We have to be freed of them in order to taste intrinsic primordial joy. Of the three poisons the third, delusion, is in a sense the strongest and most pervasive. Without it,...

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  • Arrested by Light

    MCZCApril 28, 20181 min read

    I was suddenly arrested in the long, crunching path of the ridge by an exceedingly pointed awareness of the light.  The moment I paused, the full impact of the mood was upon me. I saw more clearly than I’d ever seen before, the minute detail of the grasses, the small flotsam of the forest, the motion of the high clouds streaming above the peaks. I dreamed that for a moment... time stood quietly and the...

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  • Between the Human Animal and the Animate Earth (Part 1a of 6)

    MCZCApril 27, 20182 min read

    "... the sacredness of our human inter-being with the rest of nature ..." Description: This is the first in a three-part series of spontaneous conversations between Henry and David Abram. David is a cultural ecologist, geo-philosopher, and performance artist and the author of Becoming Animal and The Spell of the Sensuous. His writings have catalyzed the emergence of several new disciplines, including the burgeoning field of Ecopsychology. He is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction,...

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  • Message from Henry: Ordinary Marvel

    MCZCApril 24, 20182 min read

    A superior vessel takes longer to make (old Japanese proverb) It’s good to have devotion to your teacher, but not to the point of quitting if for some reason you lose them. The Zen way requires a teacher but is not about the teacher. Our commitment is to the Way. The teacher is only another expedient means. To make the ordinary the marvel that it is: Zen training. *** Sometimes the old Zen masters said that...

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  • Are Human’s Special? Part 3 by David Loy

    MCZCApril 21, 20186 min read

    Let one’s thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world — above, below, and across — without any obstruction, without any hatred, without any enmity.  ~ Metta Sutra We are featuring some of David Loy's recent writing on our website to introduce you to this thoughtful and brilliant Zen teacher, writer and environmental activist. David will be offering an Eco-Dharma lecture and Workshop at Mountain Cloud, May 18-20.  Click here for details about the Eco-Dharma weekend. ...

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  • Teisho: A Map of Zen Training (Part 5)

    MCZCApril 19, 20181 min read

    "... There is no self, no witness, and no world and it is marked by a sense of deep relief and joy ..." To reach satisfaction in all, desire its possession in nothing.                      John of the Cross Description: This is the fifth and final talk from the Fall 2017 sesshin. To wrap up the journey through a map of Zen training, Henry begins by pointing out that John...

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  • Message from Henry: Healing

    MCZCApril 17, 20182 min read

    The real healing is the dropping away of the unreal self... Recently while teaching in San Diego, during a question-and-answer session, someone asked about the healing aspects of practice. I said something like: first there's the wound of separation, that we feel separate from all else. That "heals," in a sense. But it happens through the practice dealing us a greater wound, an infinite wound, an absolute gulf of a wound. As a result of...

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  • Are Human’s Special? Part 2 by David Loy

    MCZCApril 14, 20184 min read

    ...we are creatures that know we are creatures; moreover, we are creatures that create, and know that we create. We are featuring some of David Loy's recent writing on our website to introduce you to this thoughtful and brilliant Zen teacher, writer and environmental activist. David will be offering an Eco-Dharma Workshop at Mountain Cloud, May 18-20.  Click here for details about the Eco-Dharma weekend.  Click to read Part 1 of this essay on our website....

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  • Teisho: A Map of Zen Training (Part 4) & Case 64, Book of Equanimity: Shuzan’s “Bride”

    MCZCApril 12, 20181 min read

    "... the most important thing about Zen training. It is the experiential discovery that we are not alone, we are not individual, we are not separate from anything ..." Zazen is the gate of ease and joy.                                           Dogen Description: This teisho is the fourth talk from the Fall 2017 sesshin. Sitting is a life-long settling down process. We...

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  • Message from Henry: Enter Practice

    MCZCApril 10, 20182 min read

    Perhaps with the disenchantment of old formal religious institutions many of us are left with a reflex toward the sacred ... without having ... frame of reference ... Enter Practice.  Koans are ingenious teaching devices. You can’t “get” them but by radical shifts in perspective. As a means of spiritual training they are superb: they give us one aspiration after another; they gauge our clarity; they scour and scrape the mud-encrusted windshield of our vision....

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