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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Teshin Sweger: Am I too old to realize my true nature?
October 3, 20241 min read
Teshin Sweger invites us to consider a koan that is not in any of the koan collections. He asks us to consider the koan of our aging. In practice he often hears the question, am I too old to sit and realize my true nature? As we are all aging, Teshin encourages us to hear the messengers of sickness, old age, and death. At what point will we stop having a need to shine and...
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David Loy: A Buddhist Response to the Ecological Crisis
September 11, 20241 min read
Author, Zen teacher, and Ecodharma activist David Loy begins his talk reminding us that the ecological crisis is the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced, and that we are doing this to ourselves. He then poses the question: what do our spiritual traditions have to offer to help us respond appropriately? The Buddhist tradition offers the bodhisattva path. David shares with us a rich trajectory of the Buddhist path, the natural world, and our engagement....
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Katie Arnold: Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
August 29, 20241 min read
Ultramarathon runner, Zen practitioner, and author Katie Arnold shares her compelling story of running, Zen, writing, and living life - all through the lens of not-knowing and accepting uncertainty. Katie’s recent book, Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, emerged in the aftermath of her father’s death, her associated anxiety, and a life-altering accident that occurred while rafting a whitewater river. “Brief flashings,” she says, “are moments of wonder that make us feel alive and connected.”...
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Carmen Afable: Breathing Mu
August 22, 20241 min read
Zen teacher Carmen Afable grounds her teisho in Shoyoroku case #93: Roso Does Not Understand. After reading the case, Carmen reminds us that we are the treasure and pearl of great value discussed in the koan. She says, “the Kensho experience is right before our eyes but we cannot see it as we are full of our delusive selves.” But Mu is everywhere, and the entire universe is “Mu-ing.” We are Mu, the finest jewel....
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Sean Tetsudo Murphy: Demystifying No-Self
August 15, 20241 min read
Zen teacher, meditation professor, and author Sean Murphy invites us to consider our illusion of separateness, the notion that we have a sense of self as an independent creature within the world. Much of our suffering – loneliness, feeling unsafe, disconnection, anxiety, difficulty with others – may emerge from this sense of being fundamentally separate. Rather, our true reality is one as an integral part of the universe. He implies that we cannot remove ourselves...
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Shana Smith: Dharma Rain
August 8, 20241 min read
Shana begins by noting the concurrent and successive rainstorms both in her area of Florida and at Mountain Cloud in Santa Fe as an introduction to the understanding of oneness or unity of all phenomena in the essential that is realized through the practice of zazen. Recalling Dōgen’s argument that although all beings are inherently enlightened, practice is needed to realize it, Shana argues that “all of us do it according to our own unique...
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Natalie Goldberg: Everything is dharma
July 18, 20241 min read
Writer and Zen teacher Natalie Goldberg reads from her new book “Writing on Empty” and speaks about the value of noticing that something is always awake in us. In writing her new book Natalie finds language to finally express her experiences of her mother and other topics cracked open during the void of Covid. Natalie states, for her “there is no difference between writing and the dharma.” Both are practices; both initiate compassion. The talk...
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Valerie interviews scholar David Hinton
July 11, 20241 min read
Valerie interviews scholar and author David Hinton about his new book, “The Blue Cliff Record.” David speaks about several fascinating topics, for example “absence” and “presence.” Absence, David says, is the generative absence from which the 10,000 things arise. They live their lives, then dive back into absence where they are reconstituted into energy. Presence is the 10,000 things that absence forms itself into and forms empirical reality. (Yes, it is that kind of mind-expanding...
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