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.
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Walking Meditations, by Gail Snyder
March 17, 20183 min read
The Earth is sacred and we touch her with each step. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh As a new arrival to this world, just delivered from our mother’s body, each one of us knew to do the exact same thing as our first action: Draw a breath. We didn’t dither around in our heads worrying because we’d never breathed before and what if we did it wrong or forgot to keep doing it? We were entirely...
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Teisho: Practice & The Jhanas
March 15, 20182 min read
"... where the entire body is pervaded by pure awareness ..." Description: The focus of this talk is basic awareness practice and the jhana states, which are meditative states marked by deep stillness and concentration. Henry reads Stephen Batchelor’s translations of the metaphors associated with the first four jhana states. The first is a state of complete absorption; there is well-being and delight derived from solitude, or withdrawal. The second is a well-being born of concentration and...
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Guest Message: The Bodhisattva’s Joy of Offering by Sandy Chubb
March 13, 20182 min read
...in the act of giving, one who gives and one who receives form a connection with each other… ~ Dogen This week, a message from Sandy Chubb, Zen Teacher at Oxford Zen Centre, UK. Dogen said that when we study ourselves thoroughly, we understand others thoroughly as well; as a result, we cast off the self and the other. He said: The self gives the self for the sake of giving the self; the other...
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Teisho: What, Why, & How
March 8, 20182 min read
"... We sit when we are sitting, eat when we are eating, walk when we are walking. We taste the wonder of being alive ..." Description: Henry begins with further discussion of two aspects inherent in the Zen lineage as expressed by Bodhidharma—practice and principle. Practice is a means of investigating what it is to be human, to be alive. It is the method or the instrument to help us dive in; it is not a thing,...
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Teisho: Ruben Habito: All Beings Are Buddha – Guest Episode
March 1, 20183 min read
All beings are by nature Buddha, As ice by nature is water. Apart from water, there is no ice. Apart from beings, no Buddha "... we are, and have always been, immersed in an infinite reality ..." ~ Ruben Habito Description: This talk was given by Ruben Habito Roshi, founding teacher of Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, TX. Its central theme is the first line of Hakuin Zenji’s Song of Zazen, “All beings are by...
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Teisho: Case 64, Book of Equanimity: Shishô’s “Succession”
February 22, 20181 min read
"... no difference between “swept away” and “not swept away,” between form and emptiness, between deluded and awakened ..." Description: The Zen tradition embodies a basic fact or reality of our human experience, and says there are two entries or gates into it, as expressed by Bodhidharma—by “principle” and by “practice.” Henry talks about these two gates and elaborates on a prior discussion about quantitative and qualitative practice. In Case 64, Master Hogen poses the koan’s central...
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Teisho: Case 63, Book of Equanimity: Joshu Asks About Death (Part 2 of 2)
February 15, 20181 min read
"... study our experience and ... see how things truly are - this is called kensho ..." Description: This talk begins with a discussion of the Three Refuges: buddha, dharma, sangha. It unfolds into further discussion of Case 63 and how Zen practice views awakening, or enlightenment. When we study our experience and suddenly see how things truly are—this is called kensho. In this koan Jôshû refers to this as a person “who has died a great...
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Three Fruits of Zen
February 10, 20183 min read
...if we really lived out the reality glimpsed in a moment of realization, and in every instant of our lives were free of all last shreds of clinging or grasping...then we might indeed be something like "perfect." Traditionally there are said to be three fruits of zazen. The first is concentration—meaning in part simply the ability to hold our mind steady on a given task or object, but also more than that... ...a con-centering, a...
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Teisho: Case 63, Book of Equanimity: Joshu Asks About Death (Part 1 of 2)
February 8, 20181 min read
"... Zen training involves letting go of anything special, profound or dramatic—it is just this, moment by moment ..." Description: This talk begins with a discussion of two purposes of practice: 1) to calm the reactive nervous system, cultivate present-moment awareness and experience states of deep meditative absorption; 2) deep investigation into the nature of our existence. In Case 63, when Jôshû asks Tôsu, “What if a man who has died a great Death comes back to...
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