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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Watering the Seeds of Ecodharma
August 4, 20268 min read
Reflections from the second year of Ecodharma May Conversation with Sarah and Abby Click on the video below for a discussion about this year's Ecodharma Residency, with Abby and Executive Director Sarah Giffin: https://vimeo.com/1212673774/00bf4fa41f?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci Abby's Reflections Additional written explorations by Abby “I learned that ways of being, ones which prioritize community, gratitude, and mindfulness, are possible, and are necessary to cultivate, experiment with, and grow, so as to provide alternative models to the predominant cultural...
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Message from Valerie: Return
September 20, 20232 min read
I follow the stream to its very source, then sit and watch where the clouds rise. ~ Wang Wei, 699-761, record from a retreat at Mt. Chungnan The Autumn sesshin at Mountain Cloud just ended. Throughout, the words ‘homecoming’ and ‘return’ kept surfacing – inviting us to follow the stream of experience to its source. What is that? Where is it? Can it be anywhere but here? One of our guides was a verse from...
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Message from Valerie: Sesshin
The Great Homecoming: Returning exactly where you are This coming Thursday, September 14, the 2023 Autumn sesshin begins at Mountain Cloud. The sesshin will be online - sitting in your home, long sitting in the midst of everyday life - with a small group of residents and staff sitting in the zendo, anchoring our jeweled web of practice in that quiet earthen space. Sesshin - a time set aside to dive deep into practice; to...
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Message from Valerie: Coming Home
Scott and I returned late Sunday night from the annual Sanbozen teacher training in Toronto. It’s good to be home! Home in the ordinary sense of daily life in and among the Mountain Cloud community, and in the fundamental sense of our true home – the essential fact that is always exactly where you are. During the Kenshukai, a theme emerged early on: “Dwelling nowhere, mind comes forth.” This line from the Diamond Sutra is...
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Message from Valerie: Am I Enough?
This past week we formally welcomed Sarah Giffin as the new Executive Director of Mountain Cloud. With glad appreciation, welcome, Sarah! Thanks ring out to Bryan Baldwin for shepherding the MCZC organization during the generative transitions of the past year. Last Sunday, with Sarah’s oversight, Mountain Cloud’s 15-Day ‘Wild World of Koans’ course began. The opening session included the prompt, “What brings you here? What is your intention? What is your earnest question?” One participant...
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Message from Valerie: Already Home
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from. Shitou Xiqian In his 8th century poem, “Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage,” Master Sekito Kisen (Shitou Xiqian) offers a dharma wellspring of instruction for practice and a presentation of the fact - the fact of who and what we truly are. “Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. The vast...
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Message from Valerie: To Know Oneself Completely
Watching the moonat dawn,solitary, mid-sky,I knew myself completely:no part left out. ~ Izumi Shikibu It is not unusual to take up meditation practice out of a longing to know ourselves, to be more authentic, to see and be who we truly are. What might that be? What is it to ‘know myself completely’? What if ‘no part left out’ means ALL - whole world included? Mustn’t it then also mean ONE - no border, no...
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Message from Valerie: Gratitude
Continuous practice, day after day, is the most appropriate way of expressing gratitude. ~ Eihei Dogen The summer sesshin at Mountain Cloud ended on Sunday. The sesshin opened with a line from Dogen: “When you walk in the mist, you get wet.” Six days later, soaked in the dharma, the week of shared practice culminated in expressions of thanksgiving. At Mountain Cloud, we celebrated with a feast of delicious food prepared by master chef, Nic,...
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Invitation only – Register for Rohatsu 2023 On-site Attendance
Use this form to register and pay for attending Rohatsu 2023 on0site, as either a, lodger, commuter or camper. You MUST have received an invitation to attend on-site in order to use this form.
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Eyebrow to Eyebrow, Shana Smith (Video)
Assistant Sanbo Zen Teacher Shana Smith examines “Zuigan’s Eyebrows,” Case 8 in the Blue Cliff Record, and sheds abundant light and color on what it might feel like to be “eyebrow to eyebrow” with the Zen ancestors, with one another, with our whole lives. In this effort, she stints neither on rich storytelling nor on the unimprovable intimacy of the shout. (“Teisho,” Dharma talk: literally “presentation of the shout”). One of many vivid illustrations comes...
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Message from Valerie: The Backward Step
In his “Universal Instructions on Zazen,” Dogen advises practitioners: “Stop searching for phrases and chasing after words. Take the backward step and turn the light inward.” Sitting in straightforward zazen, we let the activity of our discursive minds settle, stop the incessant search for something outside ourselves - the grasping after something we imagine to be lacking - and come home to the intimacy and immediacy of this moment. Here and now, in this body, is where...
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Message from Valerie: Center
The German Sanbozen master, Silvia Ostertag, had a practice of sitting every morning and every evening. No matter how full the day, she framed it with zazen. After sitting, Silvia Roshi would sometimes compose a poem, a few words springing from her practice that served as pointers for students. A number of these poems have to do with time - or more to the point, no time. The absolute timelessness of each moment. Boundless, borderless,...
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Message from Valerie: Before Knowing
In coming and going, we never leave home.~ Hakuin, Song of Zazen Last week I returned from a four-week sesshin or ‘mini-ango’ in a serene mountain Zen center in the Black Forest region of Germany. The experience brought to mind Hakuin’s ‘Song of Zazen.’ Going and returning, never leaving home. Just one sitting. Boundless, timeless; going nowhere - and yet, how lively! The theme of the sesshin was Practice-Realization, Dogen’s name for what we do...
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Reduced Fee: 15 Day Koan Course
If you need financial assistance to attend the 15 Day Wild World of Koans course, contact Sarah and work out a payment amount with her. Then, use this form to register and make the payment you worked out with Sarah (of Johanna).
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