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.

  • Why We Sit, Valerie Forstman

    MCZCFebruary 27, 20222 min read

    When asked, “Why do you sit?” students new to the practice as well as longtime sitters offer a variety of responses. Some say, “I sit to cultivate present moment awareness,” or “to deepen my sense of peace and well-being.” Others say, “I sit for the well-being of the whole world,” or “I sit to foster wisdom and compassion, to come home to the reality of what it is to be truly human.” There’s also the...

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  • Message from Henry: Weather

    MCZCFebruary 23, 20221 min read

    These days if we want to know what the weather is like, we look at our phones. We see read-outs of probabilities of rain or sun. But we can miss what weather really is. Slow storm-systems that move over the mountains and plains, and across the oceans like pods of whales, like herds of bison in the old days. They take their time and can't be rushed. For example, the clouds that have wrapped the...

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  • Day Two of Exploring the Wild World of Koans Retreat – February 4, 2022 (videos)

    MCZCFebruary 22, 20221 min read

    Henry asks, What is mindfulness? Compassion? Wisdom? In honor of great Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, Henry recalls a visit to the Deer Park Monastery...

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  • Dharmatalk: Samadhi, Unification

    MCZCFebruary 22, 20221 min read

    "... samadhi ... bringing together or unification ..." Description: Our Sanbo Zen lineage has traditionally focused on kensho (sudden awakening) experiences which offer a complete, though often brief, shift in how we see reality. To attain this shift, practitioners sit on a cushion and meditate with little instruction. This changed in the 1940s when Zen opened to western seekers and laity. An early introductory document written during this time period listed three aims for Zen,...

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  • Day One of Exploring the Wild World of Koans Retreat – February 3, 2022 (videos)

    MCZCFebruary 20, 20221 min read

    In this first talk from the Exploring the Wild World of Koans retreat, Valerie takes up Mu as a gateway to what koans are and how they can bring...

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  • Life is Not Suffering: Dharma Talk with Rick Hanson (video)

    MCZCFebruary 19, 20221 min read

    It is said that the Buddha teaches only suffering and its end, but what is suffering? Guest speaker Rick Hanson attempts to define this suffering, challenging that suffering is only a small part of everything that exists. Understanding this can help break the pattern of seeing meditation and mindfulness practices as a solution to suffering, rather than a practice worth immersing yourself in. While there is suffering in this world, this world is not all...

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  • Picking and Pecking: Dharma Talk with Will Brennan (video)

    MCZCFebruary 19, 20221 min read

    “Pecking from the inside is an act of opening the heart.” Expanding on his last Wednesday night talk, assistant teacher Will Brennan revisits the story of Joe and his wild turkeys, connecting it to case 16 of the Blue Cliff Record.  Recorded in our zendo on January 20, 2022 Photo by Dominik Dancs on Unsplash

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  • Coming Home,Valerie Forstman

    MCZCFebruary 17, 20222 min read

    The true Buddha is sitting in the recesses of the house Joshu (Chao-chou) There’s a short memoir by the American Zen master, James Ishmael Ford, about his experience on the Zen path entitled, If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break. The title points to all the ways our human hearts break in the course of navigating our lives and to the fundamental invitation of Zen practice - to let your heart break all the way open....

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  • Message from Henry: Kensho

    MCZCFebruary 16, 20221 min read

    Kensho -- it’s not about your sitting. If you enter a deep clear empty space in your sitting that feels wonderful, infinitely quiet, boundlessly spacious, very empty - that’s great, and something to be gratefully, unobtrusively welcomed and let go of. But it’s unlikely to be kensho. Kensho is about you. You yourself. It’s a massive overturning of all your basic assumptions about you are and what your life has been - what your very...

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  • Dharmatalk: Fierce Compassion

    MCZCFebruary 15, 20221 min read

    "... This very moment is awakening ..." Description: Valerie Forstman's dharma talk probes Case 23 from the Blue Cliff Record, Hofuku and Chokei on an Outing. Hofuku says "This very moment is awakening. Exactly," responds Chokei, "but it's regrettable." And,

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  • No Cover or Fence: Zazenkai with Valerie Forstman (video)

    MCZCFebruary 13, 20221 min read

    In this talk from the first Zazenkai of the New Year, Valerie turns to the life and poetry of Qiyuan Xinggang, a 17th c. Chinese nun, master, and abbess, whose experience invites us to find our seat on a meditation cushion with ‘no cover or fence.’ There we can bare our hearts, drop our assumptions, and find our home in this achingly broken world without the slightest gap. Recorded in our virtual zendo on January...

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  • Methods of Practice,Valerie Forstman

    MCZCFebruary 9, 20221 min read

    Art by Christy Hengst A single meditation cushion has no cover or fence. Qiyuan Xinggang Sitting in silence and becoming at home in our own breath is an ancient practice that is as contemporary as the present moment. Some 2500 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama was moved to search for a resolution to all suffering. Deeply determined, nearly dying of his austerities, the one who became the Buddha - “awakened” - turned to a middle way....

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  • Message from Henry: Random Thoughts on Original Love

    MCZCFebruary 8, 20222 min read

    First: the Original Love program initially emerged as a corrective, in three ways. Kensho is the gateway to the hinterlands of koan training, but is notoriously unpredictable. And there are other experiences that may be kin to kensho, yet are not it. It’s not impossible for a zen teacher to be eager to usher people into the koans, and end up doing so a bit prematurely. So let’s appreciate these other experiences and learn from...

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  • Dharmatalk: Bodhidharma’s Vast and Void

    MCZCFebruary 8, 20221 min read

    "... ultimate meaning of the holy truth ... Vast and void, no holiness ..." Description: Guest speaker and Sanbo Zen teacher Hannelore Mueller opens this beautiful talk recognizing the seriousness and major impact of Covid 19 world wide. We are asked to learn the intimacy of life, sickness and death, and to pay attention to the personal responsibility of our common fate. Hannelore next speaks on the koan, Bodhidharma's Vast and Void. When Bodhidharma arrived...

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