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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Buddhism for a Post-Axial Age, Review of David Loy’s A New Buddhist Path, Part 3
August 5, 20168 min read
...in seeing through and overcoming the delusion of a sense of self as separate from the natural world, provides a key toward addressing and overcoming the roots of our ecologic crisis. Ruben Habito reviews A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution and Ethics in the Modern World by David Loy, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2015. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of his review. What is particularly insightful, thought-provoking, and challenging in David Loy’s work...
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Teisho: Lineage (Part 2 of 3)
August 4, 20161 min read
"Our practice is about being human. Zen is a label put on a practice of being peacefully, thoroughly human.” Description: Henry continues with his discussion about lineage. He opens with the thesis that “Mahayana Buddhism is really about lineage.” He describes some of the concerns and misunderstandings westerners have regarding lineage, and delves into more depth about the unparalleled type of meeting that can occur between student and teacher. Henry gives historical background about individualism...
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Moon and Sky in a Dewdrop, from Gengokoan
August 1, 20161 min read
The attainment of enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, and the surface of the water is not broken. For all the breadth and vastness of its light, the moon comes to rest in a small patch of water. The whole moon and the sky in its entirety come to rest in a single dewdrop on a grass tip--a mere pin point of water. Enlightenment does not...
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Buddhism for a Post-Axial Age, Review of David Loy’s A New Buddhist Path, Part 2
July 29, 20167 min read
Loy forges a middle way between...a “transcendentalist” view that looks to Buddhism for an escape from the toils and troubles of this world... and an “immanentist” view that regards Buddhism as a source of empowerment for equipping us frail... beings with the props ...for navigating through...a brutal and competitive world... Ruben Habito reviews A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution and Ethics in the Modern World by David Loy, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2015. Click...
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Teisho: Lineage (Part 1 of 3)
July 28, 20161 min read
"One knock and all knowledge is forgotten, There is no need for further searching... Not a trace left anywhere.” ~ Kyogen Description: This teisho first wraps up the previous week’s discussion about Aware and Awake. Henry then proceeds to explore the meaning of lineage and why it is important to Zen history and practice. He contrasts the results of two awakening experiences, one concerning the American playwright Eugene O’Neill and the other with the Sixth Zen...
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The Light of our Awakened Nature, Hsin Tao
July 25, 20165 min read
When we practice and study Buddhism, we have to leave all things of the phenomenal world behind to see our awakened nature. This physical body of ours exists, and is at the same time empty (of self-existing substance). As the Heart Sutra says: “Form is precisely emptiness, emptiness precisely form. Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form.” This refers also to our physical body: it is form and it is emptiness,...
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Buddhism for a Post-Axial Age, Review of David Loy’s A New Buddhist Path, Part 1
July 22, 20167 min read
Ruben Habito reviews A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution and Ethics in the Modern World by David Loy, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2015. His in-depth review of Loy's work will be published on our website in four installments. Enjoy! This new book by David Loy could have also been given the title “Buddhism for a Post-Axial Age,” with a subtitle like “Enlightenment and Earthly Engagement.” Loy, Buddhist philosopher and Zen Master, whose previous works include titles...
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Teisho: Fuketsu’s Speck of Dust
July 21, 20161 min read
Fuketsu, giving instruction, said, "If one raises a speck of dust, the house and the nation prosper. If one does not raise a speck of dust, they perish." Setchô held up his staff and said, "Is there anyone who lives and dies with this?" Description: Henry begins this teisho on Fuketsu’s brief but powerful words in Case 34 in the Book of Equanimity with a short discussion of koans in general. “Koans sound like riddles, but...
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Japanese Scroll: At the bottom of a ladle, one drop of water
July 19, 20162 min read
Rosa Bellino from the UK has given us the beautiful scroll that now hangs in our zendo. Many bows and thanks to Rosa for her generosity and kindness. The words on the scroll are: 杓底一残水 SYAKUTEI ICHI ZANSUI At the bottom of a ladle one drop of water left 汲流千億人 NAGARE wo KUMU SENOKU no HITO Billions of people scoop water from the river. This is part of a 4 line poem, “Gogon Zekku,” (...
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Buddhists Must Awaken to the Ecological Crisis, by David Loy, Part 3
July 18, 20164 min read
Buddhism provides a wonderful archetype that can bring individual and social transformation together: the bodhisattva. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of Buddhists Must Awaken. While much of traditional Buddhism is concerned about transcending (in one way or another) this unsatisfactory world, much of modern Buddhism is about adapting to it better. In the first case, this world is the problem because it is a place of suffering, while in the other, one’s...
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Buddhists Must Awaken to the Ecological Crisis, by David Loy, Part 2
July 15, 20164 min read
...there is no distinction at all between samsara and nirvana…. The limit of nirvana is the limit of everyday life. -Nagarjuna Read Part 1 of Buddhists Must Awaken. Buddhism is the path of awakening, but what does awakening mean? Different Buddhist traditions seem to understand it differently, or at least emphasize different aspects of it. In the Pali canon, the earliest texts we have, nibbana signifies the end of rebirth into samsara, thereby the liberation...
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