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.

  • The Light of our Awakened Nature, Hsin Tao

    MCZCJuly 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

    MCZCJuly 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

    MCZCJuly 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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  • Message from Henry: Renunciation, Part 2

    MCZCJuly 19, 20165 min read

    In giving up we gain; in renouncing we possess; in surrendering we win. If you missed Renunciation, Part 1, click here to read it. But firstly, what does “home” mean? And secondly, what does “leaving it” mean? On the first level, home simply means home. The house, usually with a family in it, and various chores and responsibilities and duties that go with it. As well as comforts and pleasures specific to living there. A...

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  • Japanese Scroll: At the bottom of a ladle, one drop of water

    MCZCJuly 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

    MCZCJuly 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

    MCZCJuly 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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  • Teisho: Book of Equanimity Case 30, Daizui’s “Kalpa Fire” (Part 2 of 2)

    MCZCJuly 14, 20162 min read

    “Zen wants to take away the mind that understands so that we can directly experience our existential situation.” Case 30: Daisui's "Kalpa Fire" A monk asked Daizui, “When the great kalpa fire bursts out, the whole universe will be destroyed. I wonder if IT will also be destroyed or not.” Daizui said, “Destroyed.” The monk said, “If so, will it be gone with the other?” Daizui said, “Gone with the other.” Description: Henry continues exploring Daizui’s...

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  • Message from Henry: Renunciation, Part 1

    MCZCJuly 12, 20165 min read

    Suffering is not only about the stuff we recognize as bad. It’s about being caught in a sticky web. It’s about not being free. It’s about not seeing the truth.  In the old days, this momentous step would in most cases involve home-leaving. Joining the community of practitioners and living in it. Leaving behind the everyday world of families and finances, love-making and child-rearing, money, “success” and “failure” – the “getting and spending with which...

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  • Buddhists Must Awaken to the Ecological Crisis, by David Loy, Part 1

    MCZCJuly 11, 20164 min read

    Is the goal of our practices to escape this world or to harmonize with it? Or something else? Interest in eco-dharma—the ecological implications of Buddhist teachings—is finally growing after years of apparent indifference and little conversation about it in Buddhist sanghas. The environmental crisis has been headline news since at least 1992, when the first President Bush attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and famously declared that “the American way of life is...

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  • Fish Swim and Birds Fly, from Genjokoan

    MCZCJuly 8, 20162 min read

    Fish swim the water and however much they swim, there is no end to the water. Birds fly the skies, and however much they fly, there is no end to the skies. Yet fish never once leave the waters, 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 to the full, and...

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  • Teisho: Book of Equanimity Case 30, Daizui’s “Kalpa Fire” (Part 1 of 2)

    MCZCJuly 7, 20162 min read

    “I don’t think you can trust the heart of Zen more directly than through the koans; that is to touch the heart of a human being…. is to touch the heart of all things.” Case 30: Daisui's "Kalpa Fire" A monk asked Daizui, “When the great kalpa fire bursts out, the whole universe will be destroyed. I wonder if IT will also be destroyed or not.” Daizui said, “Destroyed.” The monk said, “If so, will it...

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  • Message from Henry: Dharma Drops

    MCZCJuly 5, 20162 min read

    Stop and see, Buddha said. Stop means be still and quiet. See means see what is going on, within and without, in the totality... We're human, our hearts are not at peace. We want them to be at peace. So the first step is to become at peace at least with the fact they are not at peace. This the first noble truth--accepting that suffering is part of life. *** This is how Buddhas and...

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  • Collective Bubbles of Delusion, by David R Loy, Part 2 of 2

    MCZCJuly 4, 20164 min read

    ...by truly letting-go of one’s sense of self – the ego-self whose well-being is separate from others’ well-being – the self-interest that sustains the bubble is undermined. Click to read Part 1 of Collective Bubbles of Delusion. In place of the Abrahamic duality between good and evil, Buddhism focuses on ignorance and wisdom – the insight that comes with awakening. Delusion (moha) is one of the “three fires” or “three poisons” (the others are greed...

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