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.

  • 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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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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  • Video: The Moment That Still IS …

    MCZCAugust 12, 20171 min read

    I was given this greatest opportunity of all opportunities - to be a human being. ~ Henry Shukman Based on his own direct experience of dying without dying, Henry Shukman talks about ... the moment that still IS ... where there is no seer ... nothing but pure awareness. It is the pivotal  turning point of a human lifetime... the extraordinary shift is possible for us ... without a theistic context ... the greatest opportunity of all opportunities -...

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  • Teisho: Case 56, Book of Equanimity: “Misshi and the White Rabbit”

    MCZCAugust 10, 20171 min read

    "... “Just this” is waiting in the middle of our lives, of our existence ..." Description: The focus of this talk is the koan, “Misshi and the White Rabbit,” Case 56 of The Book of Equanimity. Master Tozan enters straight into dharma dueling with his student, Uncle Misshi. Tozan wants him to show him what he really understands. Tozan’s own deepening practice is reflected in his response to Misshi, “A noble of an ancient house is...

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  • Message from Henry: Friends

    MCZCAugust 8, 20173 min read

    One recent Sunday my father-in-law took me to the Quaker house in the village of Ettington, Warwickshire, seven miles from their home. Built between 1681 and 1684 as one of the first Friends’ meeting houses in England, it’s a stone cottage comprising one well-proportioned room, its rough plaster walls hung with woven rush matting (a feature of 17th century houses, both for warmth and for protection from the rough render on the walls). A bench...

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  • Koan: Seizei the Poor

    MCZCAugust 4, 20171 min read

    A monk, Seizei, asked Master Sôzan in all earnestness... Seizei is alone and poor. I beg you, Master, please help me to become prosperous. San said, Venerable Zei!  Yes, Master! replied Zei. San said... You have already drunk three cups of fine Hakka wine and still you say that you have not yet moistened your lips. ******** From The Gateless Gate: Case 10, Seizei the Poor Translated by Yamada Kyoun, The Gateless Gate, Boston 2004 Image by...

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  • Teisho: Sutra: “On Opening the Dharma”

    MCZCAugust 3, 20171 min read

    Description: This talk focuses on the sutra, “On Opening the Dharma,” which reads: The Dharma, incomparably profound and minutely subtle, Is rarely encountered Even in hundreds of thousands of millions of ages; We now can see it, hear it, receive and maintain it; May we completely realize the true meaning of the Tathagata. What are we saying when we chant these words? What is “The Dharma”? What is “receiving it? What is “maintaining” it? What is the...

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  • Message from Henry: London

    MCZCAugust 1, 20173 min read

    back to the breath… empty core… great space… Sitting outside my brother and sister in law’s house, in the back garden, facing the brick wall at the back of the house, on the cool paving. Morning. Sunny day, blue sky, a rug of sunshine hanging on the garden wall. The rest of the garden in shade – shade of trees and houses. In the middle of the sitting, a neighborhood sound wells up. A nearby...

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  • Henry Shukman: Shinku and Shunyata

    MCZCJuly 29, 20173 min read

     "Being here is not what we take it to be."   Henry Shukman shares his thoughts on shinku and shunyata, true vast emptiness, as defined and encoutered in Zen and Buddhist traditions. The text for this blog is taken from the short video clip featured at the end of the post.  Henry's words are in italics. ****** Henry opens with phenomena... This world of things— apparently solid, liquid, gaseous…. the world of things that we perceive before us,...

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  • Two Poems from a Mountain Retreat, Dogen

    MCZCJuly 25, 20171 min read

    In the stream, Rushing past To the dusty world, My fleeting form Casts no reflection.   The moon Beyond the peak Is not my companion on this hill, For it must return To cast its light on the floating world.   ~~~ Text from the Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace,  by Steven Heine. Images: Water flow by dietrecn and Moon by Stux, both are CC0 Public Domain.

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  • Dogen: Zazen Practice

    MCZCJuly 18, 20171 min read

      The moon mirrored By a mind free Of all distractions; Even the waves, breaking, Are reflecting its light. ~ Zen Master Dogen ~~~ Text from the Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace,  by Steven Heine. Image: Water Moon, by AhmedRadwan, CC0 Public Domain.

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