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 38, Book of Equanimity: Rinzai’s True Person

    MCZCNovember 17, 20162 min read

    "... Whatever you imagine, whatever you taste, touch, smell, see, hear -- that is nothing but Rinzai’s one true person of no rank ..." ~ Henry Shukman Rinzai instructed his assembly and said, "There is one true person of no rank, always coming out and going in through the gates of your face. Beginners who have not yet witnessed that, Look! Look!"  Then a monk came out and asked, "What is the one true person of...

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  • Message from Henry: Great Vehicle

    MCZCNovember 16, 20162 min read

    Lineage: it throws open the doors, and takes us out of the cul-de-sac of self-assessed practice. Mahayana Buddhism is precisely a call to action. The more yogic-influenced early Buddhism is arguably still a little more self-inflected: the ideal being liberation from the wheel of rebirth, or samsara, so you don’t have to be born again, rather than a dynamic call to help samsara, or the many suffering beings. Samsara may be an illusion anyway, but...

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  • Birth and Death 4

    MCZCNovember 14, 20161 min read

    This birth and death is the life of buddha. If you try to exclude it you will lose the life of buddha.  If you cling to it, trying to remain in it, you will also lose the life of buddha, and what remains will be the mere form of buddha. Only when you don't dislike birth and death or long for them, do you enter buddha's mind. However, do not analyze or speak about it....

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  • For whom do the blossoms bloom in the spring?

    MCZCNovember 11, 20162 min read

    This Japanese Tea Ceremony scroll – is attributed to Keishu Masanori (Rinzai - Zuiho-ji -Daitoku-ji) and it reads: 百花春至為誰開 Hyakka Haruitatte Taga Tameni Hiraku “For whom do the blossoms bloom in the spring?”         This the 4th line of a verse that appears in the Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record) – Case 5: Seppo's Grain of Rice The complete verse reads: A cow head sinks, a horse head turns up. In Sôkei's mirror...

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  • Teisho: Some Travel Excursions

    MCZCNovember 10, 20161 min read

    "... Zen training is about: letting go of all understanding, all good and bad, and right and wrong, so we can receive the boundless wonder of now, just as it is..." Description: Henry talks about his August trip to Germany where he leads 3 sesshins each year at Sonnenhof with a long-term Sanbo Zen group. Henry describes the Sonnenhof center and we learn about some masters in our lineage including the flawed yet great Yasutani Roshi....

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  • Message from Henry: “Selfless”

    MCZCNovember 8, 20162 min read

    To study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to drop the body and mind of self and other... -Dogen There are different meanings of “selflessness.” In common parlance we call someone selfless who acts on behalf of others, thinking little about themselves. If their behavior, in thought, word and deed, shows that their primary concern is for others, not themselves, they are “selfless.” Secondly, in meditative Dharma training there...

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  • Birth and Death 3

    MCZCNovember 7, 20161 min read

    It is a mistake to suppose that birth turns into death. Birth is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its own past and future. For this reason, in buddha-dharma, birth is understood as no-birth. Death is a phase that is an entire period of itself, with its own past and future. For this reason, in buddha-dharma, death is understood as no-death. In birth there is nothing but birth and in death there is...

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  • Is Zen Foreign?

    MCZCNovember 4, 20163 min read

    If you’re a Christian, Zen practice will make you a better Christian; if you’re a Jew it will make you a better Jew. A question that I’ve been asked several times, concerning the seeming “foreignness” of meditation and Zen. How foreign is it? And is it compatible with other traditions such as Judaism or Christianity, for example? The first response is a simple: yes, fully compatible. Since meditation is a way of opening up to our...

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  • Teisho: Ruben Habito: Zen is Countercultural, Zen is Queer

    MCZCNovember 3, 20161 min read

    Description: A powerful, luminous talk by Ruben Habito Roshi, one of Henry’s teachers. He takes three culturally conditioned drives – to have, to know, and to experience pleasure – and shows with force and clarity how Zen deconstructs these, challenging our cultural norms, and delivers us, through a process of “stopping and seeing,” to a state of unshakeable inner peace and quiet joy, while not closing us off from the sufferings of the world. Post &...

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  • Message from Henry: Dharma and the Waves

    MCZCNovember 1, 20163 min read

    If you got it right, the wave would pick you up and carry you a hundred yards or more, your face inches from the frothy surface, spume churning behind your shoulders. The beaches of Cornwall where my father used to take his children each summer were lovely. At high tide many of them would be no more than steep narrow strips of coarse sand. But at low tide they opened out in broad expanses. One...

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  • Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute (RGMI) Brings Educators to MCZC

    MCZCOctober 31, 20161 min read

    On Saturday, October 22, Henry Shukman led a full house of Santa Fe public school educators in mindfulness exercises at Mountain Cloud.  They discussed the importance of having a "full cup" in order to be most effective with those they serve as educators and counselors. This half day workshop brought together two great oranizations, Mindful Education Santa Fe (MESF) and the Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute (RGMI), a project of Mountain Cloud Zen Center, John Braman, director Guided meditation and walking meditation...

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  • Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute: Living from Happiness Interview with Henry Shukman and John Braman

    MCZCOctober 28, 20161 min read

    Listen to Melanie Harth's recent interview with Henry Shukman and John Braman for her weekly radio program Living from Happiness broadcast on KSFR, 101.5 FM. Melanie, Henry and John have a wide ranging discussion about Zen, Mountain Cloud and the new Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute (RGMI) which supports public and private school teachers with mindfulness practice in northern New Mexico and beyond. Click here to listen. Melanie Harth, PhD, is a psychologist-trained transformational coach, writer for...

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  • Teisho: Case 37 Book of Equanimity, Isan’s “Karma-Consciousness”

    MCZCOctober 27, 20162 min read

    Isan asked Kyôzan, "Suppose a man asks you, saying, 'All living beings are tossed in a vast karma-consciousness; does this karma consciousness have any origin from which it arises?' How would you check him?" Kyôzan said, "If such a person appears, I call out to him, ‘Mr. So-and-so!' When he turns his head, instantly I say, 'What is this?' If he hesitates, then I say to him, ‘Not only is there a vast karma-consciousness, but...

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  • A Brief Message from Henry

    MCZCOctober 25, 20161 min read

    Perhaps the deeper we go, the more alike we become. That’s a happy thought.

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