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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  • Teisho: Is this life or is this death

    MCZCJanuary 5, 20171 min read

    Description: In this short talk, Henry relates a koan about life and death. A student of Dogo’s had died. He went with Zengen to pay respects. Zengen tapped on the coffin and asked, “is this life or is this death?”  Dogo said, “I won’t say, I won’t say.”  Zengen was bothered by this response and pushed his teacher to answer him. Dogo remained silent. Much later Zengen asked Sekiso the same question, Sekiso also responded...

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  • Message from Henry: Dharma Reflections

    MCZCJanuary 3, 20172 min read

    Lest we think silence is the place to hide a heavy heart, remember to love and be loved is life itself, without which we are naught. -Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins In how many ways is the dharma is preached? The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra speaks of worlds composed of fragrances where the dharma is preached by fragrance, others with only animals where it’s preached by animals, some where it’s preached by trees, others by sounds, sights,...

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  • Spiritual Practice for a Global Sangha, by Ruben Habito, Part 5

    MCZCDecember 31, 20164 min read

    Our different religious affiliations, with their different ways of expressing commitment to whatever is taken as absolute truth by each group, cause us to look at ourselves in terms of “us” versus “them.” Christian and Buddhist Practices Christians who take up Buddhist practice are confronted with a decision: to chant or not to chant the Three Refuges? This practice may be perceived as a setting aside, or even a betrayal, of the primary Christian allegiance. “We have...

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  • Teisho: Times of Great Difficulty

    MCZCDecember 29, 20161 min read

    "Hatred never decreased hatred." ~ Henry Shukman Description: Henry offers calming clarity in this post election teisho. He begins by stating that Zen was forged in times of great difficulty and that practice is our only real response to difficulty. Practice teaches us concentration and the clarity to see what is going on both inside and outside. Practice helps to not be swept along by the three fires (greed, aversion, delusion) and it cultivates equanimity which helps...

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  • Awakening: The Enemy of the People? Part 3 of 3

    MCZCDecember 27, 20164 min read

    Dogen said: “ordinary beings have no awakening in their consciousness; buddhas have no consciousness in their awakening.”   Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 Picking up on the Ox-herding Pictures…. Pictures 1 and 2. Get on the path of training. Picture 3. Sooner or later, a glimpse of the Ox, of the “absolute”, will likely befall us. Picture 4. With another 10 or 20 or 30 years of training, another deeper letting-go can happen, after which the “ox” does...

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  • Spiritual Practice for a Global Sangha, by Ruben Habito, Part 4

    MCZCDecember 24, 20166 min read

    As we look at this circle of interconnectedness, we will see that it excludes no one in this universe. In some way or other, everything, every sentient being is part of that sangha that makes me who I am. Who belongs to my Sangha? Let us pause at this point to reflect on our own life context, to enable us to see the dimensions of our sangha more clearly. We can ask ourselves: who are those who belong...

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  • Teisho: Case 46, Book of Equanimity, Study Accomplished (Part 2 of 2)

    MCZCDecember 22, 20162 min read

    "This life is an unparalleled opportunity; so far as we know, there is nothing like it in the universe. We don’t need to know anymore. This is it." ~ Henry Shukman Case 46: Great Master Tokusan Emmyo instructed his assembly and said, "If you have exhausted to the end, you will realize right away that all buddhas in the three worlds have stuck their mouths to the wall. Yet there is still one person giving a great...

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  • Message from Henry: Awakening-The Enemy of the People? Part 2 of 3

    MCZCDecember 20, 20162 min read

    The eye of a true practitioner envelops the entire world. So where would there be a single thing left for you to see or to realize? This transcendence! This miraculous state! Why don’t you investigate it? -Gensha If you missed it, read Part 1 Here are some points.... Awakening is clearly seeing: that self and world are totally empty and boundless and one. that our very self is none other than this world, with all its creatures, processes and...

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  • A Bird Flies High

    MCZCDecember 19, 20161 min read

    A bird flies high in the sky Where there is nowhere to go. What remains? Just this flying! Dogen wrote on this subject: Birds fly the skies, and however much they fly, there is no end to the skies. Birds never forsake the sky. When their need is great, there is great activity. When their need is small, there is small activity. In this way, none ever fails to exert itself, and nowhere does any fail to move and turn freely. If...

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  • Spiritual Practice for a Global Sangha, by Ruben Habito, Part 3

    MCZCDecember 17, 20163 min read

    The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Seeing in a New Light How do we bring to light and address those items lurking within each of us that can cause fissures in a spiritual community? Let me offer a way of looking at this in a roundabout way, recalling an experience related by Thomas Merton. This is based on an account in his journals dated March 1958, which he revised and published in...

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  • Teisho: Case 46, Book of Equanimity, Study Accomplished (Part 1 of 2)

    MCZCDecember 15, 20162 min read

    "... The “one giving the great laugh” is the ultimate learner ..." ~ Henry Shukman "... The pure ground without an inch of grass for ten thousand miles still deludes people, and the clear sky without a speck of cloud still deceives you."  ( from master Bansho’s verse to the koan). Case 46: Great Master Tokusan Emmyo instructed his assembly and said, "If you have exhausted to the end, you will realize right away that all buddhas in...

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  • Message from Henry: Awakening – The Enemy of the People? Part 1 of 3

    MCZCDecember 13, 20163 min read

    Is awakening an enemy? Does it snatch away our lives? Is it nothing but a neurological oddity, a deception resulting from chemical imbalances? And is it at odds with the rest of life? You sometimes hear caveats, qualifications, cautions and bet-hedgings around the fact of “awakening” in Western Zen. Some teachers disavow it entirely. They want nothing to do with it. Even though it is arguably the core of the Zen tradition. (Is this a littlelike...

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  • Spiritual Practice for a Global Sangha, by Ruben Habito, Part 2

    MCZCDecember 10, 20164 min read

    The question that each one of us faces then is this: what is the scope and extent of this “us” which we acknowledge as our circle of belonging? Click here to read Part 1 of  Spiritual Practice of a Global Sangha. The Sangha: Companions on the Path As Buddhists themselves would affirm, however, the truth realized by the Awakened One concerns not only those who identify themselves as Buddhists by reciting the Triple Refuge, but all living beings....

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  • Teisho: Case 45, Book of Equanimity, Phrases from the Engaku Sutra

    MCZCDecember 8, 20161 min read

    "... Zen process is similar to a house of cards ..." ~ Henry Shukman "... We are working on many levels…. unraveling wounds, complexes, patiently sitting, letting it all dissolve in the solvent of deep absorption. We feel it cleaning, purifying us… washing away our delusions ..." ~ Henry Shukman Case 45: Four Phrases from the Engaku Sutra "At all times, you do not raise the delusive mind. When there are all kinds of illusory thoughts, you do not extinguish...

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