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.

  • Teisho: Case 68, Book of Equanimity: “Kassan Brandishes the Sword”

    MCZCJanuary 5, 20182 min read

    "... It is all makyô, or deceptive phenomena. The dust is swept away, and we see “Buddha,” and the dust reveals itself to be none other than Buddha all along ..."   Description: In exploring the koan, “Kassan Brandishes the Sword,” Case 68 from the Book of Equanimity, Henry begins by giving us a taste of the teaching of Master Kassan, who points to the fact that the “Way” cannot be taught because it is precisely who...

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  • Message from Henry: Wedges and Nails

    MCZCJanuary 2, 20182 min read

    ...where students and teachers of all levels go to have "wedges and nails pulled out," as Setcho put it, and to be sledged and sawed until they split open for real... In many ways we have been well served by our western forebears. Young ingénue hopefuls who went east and sat and sat, at the feet of masters, scalding their knees with pain, enduring the unscalable enigmas of their inscrutable teachers, without even knowing exactly...

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  • From Dogen’s Echizen

    MCZCDecember 30, 20171 min read

    For so long here without worldly attachments, I have renounced literature and writing; I may be a monk in a mountain temple, Yet still moved in seeing gorgeous blossoms Scattered by the spring breeze, And hearing the warbler's lovely song— Let others judge my meager efforts. ~ Dogen   This kanshi, one of a series of fifteen verses on Dōgen's Echizen "mountain retreat," expresses his creative ambivalence toward the tension between spiritual discipline and aesthetic...

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  • Teisho: Introductory Talk #6: Three Essentials of Zen Practice

    MCZCDecember 28, 20172 min read

    "... three elements that are essential to serious Zen practice: great faith, great doubt and great determination ..."   Description: This talk covers three elements that the 11th century master Tahui and the 18th century master Hakuin developed as “essential” to serious Zen practice. (The first and third equate to the 3rd and 4th paramitas - patience and resolve or vigor; the second equates to the quest or search that set Shakyamuni on his journey.) These are: great...

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  • Message from Henry: Zen and not-Zen

    MCZCDecember 26, 20171 min read

    Are we paying attention... or not? The difference between Zen and not-Zen is simply whether attention is being paid... or not. Are we paying attention, or are we not? The difference between Zen and not-Zen is simply whether there is someone paying attention, or not. Is there someone, or is there no one? Quantitative practice. Qualitative practice. Zen of practice. Zen of principle. But what about the difference between Zen and not-Zen? ****** 10,000 hours? Is that...

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  • Teisho: Introductory Talk #5: Five Kinds of Zen

    MCZCDecember 23, 20172 min read

    "... Supreme way practice has no objective. It is associated with the practice of just sitting. There is no desire to realize anything—it is simply, this ..."   Description: This talk covers the five kinds of zen: ordinary practice, outside practice, lesser vehicle practice (Theravada), greater vehicle practice (Mahayana) and supreme way practice. Ordinary practice is practice for ordinary benefits, like decreased anxiety, increased focus, improved health and more harmonious relationships. Outside practice refers to someone...

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  • Nutshell Zen

    MCZCDecember 23, 20171 min read

    Zen... it's as if we set up constraint, restriction, confinement, in order to force our dissatisfaction into a tight box of intensity... so that we can be squeezed out through a gate too tiny otherwise to be found, let alone passed through. ~ Henry Shukman Image: Universe in a nutshell by Christoph Settgast, CC by-SA 2.0 from Flickr.com

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  • Rohatsu 2017… Enter Practice

    MCZCDecember 20, 20171 min read

    Perhaps with the disenchantment of old formal religious institutions many of us are left with a reflex toward the sacred, the numinous, the ineffable, without having an immediate frame of reference by which to interpret what the impulse is, or what to do with it. Enter Practice.    ~ Henry Shukman

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  • Message from Henry: Leaking Samadhi and Non-leaking

    MCZCDecember 19, 20171 min read

    ...the person has disappeared, and joined the great single existence... Leaking samadhi is valuable. It’s a quantitative shift in experience and perspective. Non-leaking samadhi is a qualitative shift. In the former there is still a self, still a world of forms, still a person doing practice intent on various objectives in their practice. We have to work on this side, this level, all of us. It can get very, very thin though, so both world...

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  • Dogen: Fleeting Dharma

    MCZCDecember 16, 20171 min read

    Everyone admires A graceful horse Galloping past the streaming sunlight, But few realize that this fleeting image Is itself the way of Dharma. ~ Dogen Text from The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace, by Steve Heine Image: Wild Horses by skeeze,  CC0 Public Domain from Pixabay.com

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  • Teisho: Introductory Talk #4: Three Fruits of Zen Practice

    MCZCDecember 14, 20171 min read

    Description: This talk explores the three fruits of Zen practice. The first is concentration. The second is kensho, “seeing reality” or “seeing true nature.” The third is embodying this experience in everyday life. Concentration, or con-centration, is the process of continuously coming back to the present moment, where our lives are happening, in the center of our being. Kensho is a moment when everything falls away and we glimpse our “true nature,” as Zen calls it....

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  • Message from Henry: Relaxation

    MCZCDecember 12, 20172 min read

    Practice: part about improving, and part about changing our attitude to imperfections.  Relaxation methods can be very helpful. But they tend to exert their effect only as long as we do them. Stop them, and we may cease being relaxed. On the other hand, to rest in present moment awareness, just as things are, with no need to adjust how we are, or how things are, is to taste a more durable kind of peace....

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  • Message from Henry: Crash Course

    MCZCDecember 5, 20171 min read

    Practice is a lifelong craft...it is the craft of living itself. I recently heard about "Forty Years of Zen" -- an outfit that promises a crash course in Zen training that they claim will give you the effects of forty years of practice in exchange for just five days of training (and a modest $15,000). "There is no such thing as a crash course for a lifelong craft," says Guardian sports journalist Bryan Armen Graham,...

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  • Introductory Talk #3: Why Meditate? (Part 2)

    MCZCDecember 2, 20172 min read

    "... our existence where nothing is separate from anything else ...” Description: This talk explores why it’s worth practicing meditation, in a broader context. Henry points to four main areas of human healing and exploration where mindfulness meditation, or present moment awareness practices, have great benefit. The first area is personal psychology. Over time, as we practice, the things that trigger us and stir up our individual psychology, i.e, our neuroses or internal challenges, tend to...

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