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.

  • Don’t Go There: Part 3 of 3

    MCZCMay 25, 20156 min read

    But as hardness melted in the dharma of the sesshin, it became clear that forgiveness was a larger force than any one of us, and that as long as I believed myself to be the bestower or withholder of it, I could not truly forgive anything at all Click to read Part 1 and Part 2 of Don't Go There. As my first talk was approaching, I began to feel uneasy again. Would I be...

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  • Don’t Go There: Part 2 of 3

    MCZCMay 23, 20156 min read

    It began to seem to me that a friendship, an intimate relationship, had been ruined, destroyed perhaps forever, by a frenzy of madness, a ruthless orgy of industrialized murder. Was it possible that today, now, what mattered more than the millions of murders was the broken relationship and its healing? Click to read Don't Go There, Part 1. The strongest convictions are apt to melt in the course of Zen training. That may be in...

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  • Case 9: The Book of Equanimity; Nansen Kills the Cat

    MCZCMay 21, 20151 min read

    Episode Description:Henry uses this startling koan about Nansen and a cat to explore questions about life, death and ultimate reality. Does Nansen really kill the cat? If so, what has he actually killed? What is this life we believe we are leading? Listen to how this koan beckons us to wake from the dream of subject and object, life and death. Henry quotes theologians, zen stories, and the Cloud of Unknowing to elucidate how this...

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  • Message from Henry: A Center?

    MCZCMay 20, 20153 min read

    The center is not tethered any more. The bearings and handholds are gone. And that’s just fine. Zen  has this fantastic range, all the way from ultra mystical to utterly down to earth. Ultimately it can be both, or neither, or we eventually find the two are the same, or we forget one side, or the other side, and there really is only one side. And it welcomes all that. So what is it, in...

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  • Don’t Go There: Part 1of 3

    MCZCMay 19, 20156 min read

    As a Jew and a Briton, Henry Shukman had avoided all things German. As a Buddhist, he knew he had to say yes when his teacher asked him to teach at a zendo in the Black Forest. This is his journey. When I first reached Sonnenhof, I thought I had stepped into a Tang Dynasty landscape painting. High up an implausibly steep valley side, a large old building perched like a dragon’s lair, wrapped in several...

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  • The Dharma of Alienation: Part 2 of 2

    MCZCMay 17, 20157 min read

    In response to the delusion of separation and alienation, Buddhist teachings emphasize interconnectedness. Overcoming Alienation  All the above (click to read Dharma of Alienation Part 1) is an effort to understand some of the factors that cause people today, especially young people, to feel isolated and alienated. By emphasizing these issues, I do not mean to justify alienation. Alienation remains a problem, both for those who feel isolated and for the society - especially the...

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  • Shin-Jin-Mei (Verses on the Faith-Mind) by Sosan, Part 2 of 2

    MCZCMay 14, 20151 min read

    Episode Description: Henry explicates the first six lines of the Verses on the Faith-Mind by focusing on the question, What is the great way? Henry quotes from the 14th-century Zen master Bassui, who insists we already are the great way, fully and completely. This talk grapples with the essence of Zen training; the three fires of greed, hatred and delusion; the first critical step of accepting our perceived separation from the great way; and finally, the distinction...

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  • Message from Henry: Square One

    MCZCMay 12, 20155 min read

    ...we should live in intimate reliance on one thing only: “care for skillful states” – meaning practicing the path" If I have everything, but lack that, then I have nothing; if I have that, but nothing else, then I have everything. The traditional view of the above saying is that it’s theistic. As long as I have God (or am with God), then nothing else is needed. And if I don’t have God (or am...

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  • Sanbo Zen Documentary: A Preview {VIDEO}

    MCZCMay 11, 20151 min read

    Here's a preview {4:56} of the upcoming documentary feature film about Sanbo Zen. This preview features : Migaku Sato Roshi (Associate Zen Master), Ruben Habito (Roshi at Maria Kannan Zen Center), Brian Chisholm (Ottawa Sangha of Sanbo Zen), Valerie Forstman (Maria Kannan Zen Center), Ryoun Yamada Roshi (Abbot of Sanbo Zen), Pierre Philippon (Zen Association of Isle d'Abeau). Full details about the documentary will be forthcoming, in due time, here on our website.

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  • The Dharma of Alienation: Part 1 of 2

    MCZCMay 9, 20157 min read

    New media technologies sometimes encourage a kind of "hyper-individualism" because we spend less and less time meeting and interacting with other people - often not even with members of our own families. We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.  - Thich Nhat Hanh The English word "alienation" is from a Latin word that means "to be other." To be alienated is to feel separate from. There are three issues involved in...

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  • Shin-Jin-Mei (Verses on the Faith-Mind) by Sosan, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCMay 7, 20151 min read

    Episode Description: In part 1 of this 2-part series about the Shin-jin-mei (Hsing-Hsign Ming, Verses on the Faith-Mind), Henry provides background details about the second patriarch Sosan (Ch. Seng-T’san). We learn about his serious illness, his desire for release from karmic debt, and his awakening encounter with his teacher, the second Chinese Ancestor Eka (Ch. Huike). Henry begins to explicate the opening verse of this 6th century Zen document by questioning our daily lifelong habit...

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  • Message from Henry: Daydreaming

    MCZCMay 5, 20152 min read

    The insight was stunning. I began to realize what daydreaming had done for me — and to me...." This week, here is a short piece by the writer Vivian Gornick about her own discovery of the constant audio-visual broadcasts that had been going on in her head for as long as she could remember.... and what it was like to have them shut down for a while: the unimaginable space, peace, energy and joy that...

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  • Enter…the Bodhisattva, Part 2 of 2

    MCZCMay 4, 20155 min read

    Is there something specific within the Buddhist tradition that can bring these two types of transformation together in a new model of activism connecting inner and outer practice? Enter...the bodhisattva. Click to read Enter...the Bodhisattva, Part 1. According to the traditional definition, the bodhisattva chooses not to enter the state of perfect peace, nirvana, but instead remains in samsara, cyclic existence, to help all sentient beings end their suffering and reach enlightenment. Instead of asking,...

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  • Enter…the Bodhisattva, Part 1 of 2

    MCZCMay 2, 20154 min read

    ...when we do not acknowledge the importance of individual transformation, social transformation is repeatedly subverted by powerful elites taking selfish advantage of their position. David Loy on why the bodhisattva ideal is what the world needs now. Unless you're on a long retreat in a Himalayan cave, it’s becoming more difficult to overlook the fact that our world is beset by interacting ecological, economic, and social crises. Climate breakdown, species extinction, a dysfunctional economic system,...

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