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: Zen…

    MCZCSeptember 12, 20172 min read

    The sixth paramita, prajna, the “final” point of training, of a life of practice: naturally, whatever it connotes, it couldn’t be less final... It’s the start of everything. Zen is not about Zen. It doesn’t ask us to be interested in Zen. It doesn’t say: hey, we are all about our beliefs, and these are the ideas you have to be interested in – this person, for example, this savior, this way of thinking, this form of...

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  • Dogen Zenji, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCSeptember 9, 20176 min read

      “In spring hundreds of flowers, in autumn the clear moon, In summer a cool breeze, and in winter the white snow, if your mind is free of vanity, then every season is fine.”   No conversation about Japanese Zen is complete without a discussion of one of the World’s great masters, Eihei Dogen (also known as Dogen Zenji). He has been called the greatest creative thinker in Japanese history. Dogen, born in 1200, introduced Zen to Japan and, later, Keizan Jokin, also known as...

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  • Teisho: Case 57, Book of Equanimity: Gon’yô’s One Thing

    MCZCSeptember 7, 20172 min read

    "... when you experience sight and sound with your whole body and mind, you are swallowed whole, so to speak. We are swallowed by the moment.” Description: The focus of this talk is Case 57 of The Book of Equanimity, “Gon’yô’s One ‘Thing.’” Henry begins by discussing the story of Jôshû’s life and cites James Austin’s article, “Old Jôshû Lives On,” which considers the aging process and recent research into the positive effect of meditation on protective...

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  • Message from Henry: Samu or Work Practice

    MCZCSeptember 5, 20172 min read

    I and Thou. Hence we take good care, the best we can. All life is samu. Samu is to take care of what needs to be taken care of. That is our life and practice. Taking care of the life of beings, and the life of all things. That is this life. That is what it calls for. Taking care of each being with whom we come into contact, allowing it be as it is and grow as...

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  • Retreat to the Mountains

    MCZCSeptember 2, 20171 min read

    [caption id="attachment_7427" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Sonnenhof: A retreat to the mountains[/caption]   A thousand clouds, ten thousand streams, Here I live, an idle man, Roaming green peaks by day, Back to sleep by cliffs at night. One by one, springs and autumns go, Free of heat and dust, my mind. Sweet to know there’s nothing I need, Silent as the autumn river’s flood. Hanshan (literally: "Cold Mountain")   Photo and creation by Rosa Bellino....

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  • Teisho: Shukman: Case 1, The Blue Cliff Record, Bodhidharma’s “Clear and Void”

    MCZCAugust 31, 20171 min read

    "... Sitting is how we embody zen ... It is “the complete continuation of the practice of Bodhidharma in his cave … it is one, unbroken fact.”   Description: The focus of this talk is the first koan of The Blue Cliff Record, “Bodhidharma’s ‘Clear and Void.’” It begins with the story of Bodhidharma, who is traditionally said to have brought Zen meditation practice from India to China. This particular night, Henry wanted to choose a koan that...

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  • Message from Henry: End to Experience?

    MCZCAugust 29, 20172 min read

    ...when a master asks...about... “true nature,” perhaps she is not expecting description... she may be waiting for a shift in experience... even, possibly, an end to experience. Some teachers (this one included) maintain that their Buddhism doesn't make ontological or metaphysical claims about reality. But it can surely sound like it. Even the word “kensho,” for example, means “seeing into your own nature.” In other words, it would seem to claim that there is such a thing...

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  • Dogen: Every Step is Home

    MCZCAugust 26, 20171 min read

    Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm, Without looking for the traces I may have left; A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home, Hearing this, I tilt my head to see Who has told me to turn back; But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home. ~ Eihei Dogen     Generally, this image (bird call) is used in a positive sense,...

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  • Teisho: Koans & Why We Study Them

    MCZCAugust 24, 20171 min read

    "... the world that koans reveal grows evermore in wondrous beauty ..." Description: This teisho centers on koans and why it is worthwhile to study them. Henry likens koan study to a violinist playing a technically challenging piece like Bach’s Chaconne, in that both set a very high standard. Koans are saying to us that the awakening experience is not enough----they want us to go deeper. There is another order of our experience where there is no...

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  • Message from Henry: Pointers

    MCZCAugust 22, 20172 min read

    A few pointers for new students -- and reminders for students of long standing: Please keep a journal of your practice – as brief and irregular as you like. Anything that feels significant at the time could be jotted down. If you are working on koans, please keep a record of each dokusan, and the main points covered. Please be a member of Mountain Cloud – this is a board policy. If you’re living remotely but having regular...

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  • Dogen: Portrait

    MCZCAugust 19, 20171 min read

    If you take this portrait of me to be real,
 Then what am I, really?
 But why hang it there,
 If not to anticipate people getting to know me?
 Looking at this portrait,
 Can you say that what is hanging there
 Is really me?
 In that case your mind will never be
 Fully united with the wall {as in Bodhdharma's wall-gazing
meditation cave}. ~ Dogen     Accompanying a portrait of the master painted at
 Kōshōji Temple in the late 1230s. This portrait was used
 as an object...

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  • Teisho: Case 46, The Gateless Gate: “Stepping Forward From the Top of a Pole”

    MCZCAugust 17, 20171 min read

    "... Our whole body is all things. Our entire existence is one practice ..." Description: This talk centers on the koan, “Stepping Forward From the Top of a Pole,” Case 46 of The Gateless Gate. Henry discusses the teachings of Master Chosa, relevant to this koan. Chosa points to the fact that our own body, our live flesh is all things. We are not just the sense of “me” that informs our view of the world, and...

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  • Message from Henry: Mysterious Zero

    MCZCAugust 15, 20172 min read

    The self is a process of holding on and resisting. It holds on to its own imaginary self-ness. Sitting in an old stone shed among a compound of buildings dating from 1420, in southern Scotland… Outside, above and around the little room, trees sigh and hiss as the winds move through. Beech, sycamore, spruce mostly. Then rain comes – a gentle pixillated sound like a stream, composed of many soft points of sound. Sometimes it amplifies...

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  • Photos from the Mountain Cloud Garden, July 2017

    MCZCAugust 12, 20171 min read

    Enjoy these photos from our garden of earthly delights... [caption id="attachment_7351" align="alignleft" width="768"] Lettuce and Marigolds[/caption] [caption id="attachment_7352" align="alignleft" width="768"] Garden Art with Mary Ann[/caption] [caption id="attachment_7353" align="alignleft" width="1024"] Gardening with Uma[/caption] [caption id="attachment_7357" align="alignleft" width="336"] Jack and the Beanstalk?[/caption]                                                ...

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