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: 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...

    Listen to the talk
  • 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...

    Read more
  • 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...

    Read more
  • 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...

    Read more
  • 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...

    Listen to the talk
  • 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...

    Read more
  • 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...

    Read more
  • Teisho: Reflection on Tea and Dharma

    MCZCJune 30, 20161 min read

    “As we do our practice, we are also part of much greater processes...One such process is simply: this dharma finding its way to express itself in a new culture” Description: In this short talk, Henry reflects on dharma practice and tea. Henry compares the varying manifestations of tea drinking and ceremony with the differing types of dharma practice throughout the world. He points to English high tea, Chinese simple tea, and to the formal and beautiful Japanese...

    Listen to the talk
  • Message from Henry: Kensho

    MCZCJune 28, 20163 min read

    We have been caught in a false prison. A spell was cast and entrapped us. Then we dissolve the spell through zazen and wake up from the prison, and leave it. While it may be unhelpful to suggest that we sit in order to have kensho, it’s undeniable that these experiences have been valued and memorialized through Zen’s history. Indeed, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that for Zen masters, these experiences, when deep and...

    Read more
  • Collective Bubbles of Delusion, by David R Loy, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCJune 27, 20163 min read

    We are good at finding reasons to justify what we believe, but it is much more difficult to examine critically and sincerely our deepest beliefs. What makes human beings unique is also our Achilles heel – the defect that may yet destroy our species, along with most others. Like other animals, we have instincts, but, thanks to our large neo-cortex, we can gain some degree of freedom from them by choosing how to respond to...

    Read more
  • Unborn and Undying, from Genjokoan

    MCZCJune 24, 20162 min read

    Once firewood turns to ash, the ash cannot revert to being firewood. But you should not take the view that it is ashes afterward and firewood before. You should realize that although firewood is at a dharma-stage of firewood,  and that this is possessed of before and after, the firewood is at the same time independent, completely cut off from before, completely cut off from after. Ashes are the dharma-stage of ashes, which also has a...

    Read more
  • Teisho: Yamada Ryoun Roshi: Joshu’s “Wash Your Bowls,” Case 39, Shoyoroku, Book of Equanimity (Part 4 of 4)

    MCZCJune 23, 20161 min read

    Case 39: A monk asked Joshu: “I have just entered this monastery. I beg you, Master, please give me instruction.” Joshu asked, “Have you eaten your rice gruel yet?” The monk answered, “Yes, I have.” Joshu said, “Then wash your bowls.”   Description: Yamada Roshi offers his final talk for the 2016 NASZ sesshin on Case 39 from the Shoyoroku, “Joshu’s Wash Your Bowls.” This famous koan is easily misunderstood as either advice for daily living, or as...

    Listen to the talk
  • Message from Henry: Just Sitting

    MCZCJune 21, 20161 min read

    Some thoughts on the practice of shikantaza or just sitting... Becoming aware of space right in the middle. A gentle but global awareness, a spaciousness, which allows everything to flourish. A lucidity in which all things can be themselves with ease. The practice of not influencing anything. Shikantaza: nothing but exactly sitting. With patience and stillness, somehow, like a lightly charged compass needle, after much trembling and wavering, it starts to align, by itself. Intimacy:...

    Read more
  • Healing Ecology: Discovering Our Collective Place in the World, by David R Loy, Part 3 of 3

    MCZCJune 18, 20165 min read

    When we meditate, for example, we are not transforming ourselves. We are being transformed. Quiet, focused concentration enables something else to work in us and through us, something other than one’s usual ego-self. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of Discovering our Collective Place in the World. This brings us to the second implication mentioned earlier: our collective response to this collective dukkha is just making things worse. First, let’s remember how things go wrong...

    Read more
footer support banner image

Support Mountain Cloud

You can show your gratitude for Mountain Cloud events, retreats, podcasts and other teachings by making a one-time gift, or by becoming a supporting member.

Donate to Mountain Cloud Become a Member