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: Summer Sesshin: The Five Skandhas (Part 4 of 5)

    MCZCSeptember 15, 20161 min read

    "We don’t know what’s good in the long run, but separation is an illusion. Anything that reinforces that illusion is misguided and will lead to more suffering ...” ~ Henry Shukman Description: In this fourth teisho of the summer sesshin, Henry explores how our conditioned ways of perceiving experience lead to delusion and separation. He details the five skandhas: form, sensation, perception, mental reaction, consciousness, and talks specifically about Buddha’s teachings on the skandhas. He then explores how the...

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  • Message from Henry: “Madiba”

    MCZCSeptember 13, 20163 min read

    That diamond brought into the African light after its years buried deep in confinement says: Forgiveness. Nothing else. The Nelson Mandela Orchid Mandela forgave everyone. He even forgave all the white people who had treated Africans so cruelly for so long. Our zendo is mostly Caucasian. I wish it were more mixed in every demographic sense, and hope it will be, but for now we are as we are and we need to remember the institutions of...

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  • The Problem with Karma, by David Loy

    MCZCSeptember 11, 20166 min read

    ...we experience karmic consequences not just for what we have done but also for what we have become, and what we intentionally do is what makes us what we are. What are we going to do about karma? It’s no use pretending that karma hasn’t become a problem for contemporary Buddhism. In many ways Buddhist teachings seem very modern in their emphasis on impermanence and interdependence (evolution, ecology), insubstantiality (physics), the deceptions of language (philosophy), and non-self...

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  • Do you wish to know Buddha?

    MCZCSeptember 9, 20161 min read

    When your mind ceases to bustle about, you will in no way differ from Buddha. Do you wish to know Buddha? He is none other than the one behind your face, listening to my sermon. “It is difficult for students to have faith in this, so they busy themselves with external matters. They may gain something, but it will only be words. In the end, they will fail to grasp the vital point of the patriarchs’ teachings.” Lin-Chi (Japanese, "Rinzai Gigen"...

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  • Teisho: Summer Sesshin: Why sit with Mu? (Part 3 of 5)

    MCZCSeptember 8, 20161 min read

    "Our ‘sensorium’ composes the totality of our world; to believe there is anything else is an error, according to Buddha.” "... sitting with mu is 'a set up to bring about the most remarkable short-circuit' ...” ~ Henry Shukman Description: Henry opens this third talk from the summer sesshin by reading a short sutra by Buddha, “I will teach you the All.”  This sutra prepares the way for Henry’s upcoming teaching about the five skandhas. He examines the...

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  • Message from Henry: Not Live, Not Dead

    MCZCSeptember 6, 20163 min read

    This whole world is nothing but a speck of moonlight reflected in one little dewdrop.  -Dogen Most of us come into Zen training with a problem. We’re unhappy. We don’t know why we’re here. We experience pain. And injustice. And loss. We suffer. We get sick. Then we die. Sure, we can try and shore up some buffers against this but they will inevitably be stripped away like chaff. No matter if like Alexander the Great...

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  • Buddhism in the West, by Maria Reis Habito, Part 7 Conclusion

    MCZCSeptember 5, 20168 min read

    The ultimate goal is to completely break through and let go of the self-centeredness or “I-dolatry”, which prevents people from relating to others in wise and compassionate ways.  Click to read the previous parts of Buddhism in the West: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,  Part 5 and Part 6. From the beginning, all beings are Buddha... This opening line of Hakuin`s Ekaku`s (1686-1769) “Song of Zazen”, which forms part of the list of chants in most...

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  • Buddhism in the West, by Maria Reis Habito, Part 6

    MCZCSeptember 2, 20166 min read

    ...many people in the West today are on an inner emigration into Asian culture; that they take over Buddhist ways of thinking without knowing either their own or the other culture well enough. --Franz Johannes Litsch Click to read the previous parts of Buddhism in the West: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. Some Psycho-spice of Self-acceptance While many Buddhists in the West are seriously devoted to their practice, Buddhism has acquired a...

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  • Teisho: Summer Sesshin: Exploring Dharma and Mu (Part 2 of 5)

    MCZCSeptember 1, 20161 min read

    "Dharma is not simply philosophy or understanding….we ourselves are utterly implicit, included within it.” "Zen practice is a means to take apart our conditioned ways of existing, taking apart the machine to see what is really there." ~ Henry Shukman Description: Henry begins this second summer sesshin talk by describing our practice as “getting under the hood…of our habitual ways of seeing, experiencing and acting.”  Zen practice is a means to take apart our conditioned ways of existing,...

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  • Message from Henry: Tears from the Awakened Heart

    MCZCAugust 30, 20163 min read

    When we understand that grief is a necessary corollary of loving, Buddha is helping us no longer to think of grief as bad. After years of extremely long hard solo sitting late at night, Soko Morinaga Roshi suddenly came to awakening. Later he wrote: “The one thing I am sure of is that in this instant, the functioning of the heart with which I was born came into play in its purest form.” “Why is it that...

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  • Buddhism in the West, by Maria Reis Habito, Part 5

    MCZCAugust 29, 20168 min read

    The Buddhist notion of “No-Self” (Anatta) is deeply connected to the teaching of interconnectedness, which fits well with this concept of a person as a nexus of relationships. It is however far from clear that Buddhist teaching can be made to fit with the Western enlightenment view that the person is an autonomous being. Click to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of Buddhism in the West. Dharma, Diversity and Race The split between...

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  • Buddhism in the West, by Maria Reis Habito, Part 4

    MCZCAugust 26, 20169 min read

    In the West, the question of whether a woman can become enlightened or not is now considered historical, at best. Women have not only carved out their own spaces, both at American universities and Buddhist centers, but have also been in the forefront of helping the efforts of their Asian sisters to gain full monastic ordination... Click to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of Buddhism in the West. The Dharma is neither male nor...

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  • Teisho: Summer Sesshin: What is life? (Part 1 of 5)

    MCZCAugust 25, 20161 min read

    "The point of practice is not merely to understand, but to experience our lives in new ways.” ~ Kyogen Description: In this first talk from our summer sesshin, Henry offers a fresh perspective on what life actually is. He shows us how koans can lead us from a misguided understanding of life to a startling inclusivity of all life. Henry shares experiences from his recent travels in Guatemala and explores the roots of the word “truth,” relating...

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  • Message from Henry: Mu ichi motsu

    MCZCAugust 23, 20162 min read

    Misery tends to be simplistic. Well being tends to be open to complexity, pluralism, uncertainty. People naturally interpret the term “emptiness” in the light of what they have experienced. Some say it means there are no boundaries; others that all things exist but without “self-existence”; relatively few go the whole hog and say: mu ichi motsu: “there is not one thing, there is nothing at all.” This variety is likely attributable to what people have seen...

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