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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What Really Matters?
April 30, 20151 min read
Episode Description: In this teisho given on New Years Day, Henry peels back layers of the central question: "What really matters?" exploring other enquiries along the way -- What is the grave matter of life and death? What realization can occur when patterned ways of perceiving fall away? Who am I? Henry relates a parable from the Lotus Sutra about an orphaned child from a wealthy home who learns who he really is, and shows...
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Toward a New Buddhist Story: Part 3 of 3
April 27, 20153 min read
We who have language assume we are superior to animals. In fact, our linguistic representations of the world are superior to the world itself, since they can control it. Ironically, the sense of a self that uses language is itself an artefact of language—a linguistic construct Click to Read Toward a New Buddhist Story Part 1 and Part 2 Transcending transcendence There is another aspect of maya that is more relevant today: it can...
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Toward a New Buddhist Story: Part 2 of 3
April 25, 20154 min read
What is called for now is not people seeking to transcend this world but people who take responsibility for its well-being. Click to Read A New Buddhist Story: Part 1 The Axial Age & Cosmological Dualism The German philosopher Karl Jaspers popularized the idea of an Axial Age (800-200 BCE). He believed that during that period the spiritual foundations of humanity (upon which we still subsist today) were laid independently in China, India, Persia, Judea,...
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Blue Cliff Record Case 12: Three Pounds of Flax
April 23, 20151 min read
Episode Description: In this personal discussion of Blue Cliff Record case 12, Henry talks about death, the eternality of time and the limits of rationality. We learn that failure and loss are necessary and that only through the process of non-rational experience can true opening occur. Henry shares two loving and poignant poems that he wrote for his father’s funeral. Image Credit: Life + Death, by Hartwig HKD, CC BY-ND 2.0. Featured Image Credit: It's About Time,...
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Toward A New Buddhist Story: Part 1 of 3
April 20, 20154 min read
Is a new Buddhist story beginning to develop out of the interaction between Buddhism and the modern world? Both need such a new story. It’s not only a matter of seeing the problems with modernity: we need to become aware of the difficulties with traditional Buddhist worldviews as well. Anyone who is paying attention knows that we are living in a time of crisis—most obviously, severe ecological and economic challenges. They are interconnected: an economy...
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Blue Cliff Record Case 14, A Preaching in Accordance
April 16, 20151 min read
Episode Description: Henry probes the big question a monk asks of Unmon: “What are the periods and teachings of the whole lifetime of Shakyamuni? Unmon answers, “A preaching in accordance.” Henry explores the single fact demonstrated in this Blue Cliff Record case. We learn that the master’s work is to be in accordance with the student’s need and, at the same time, to cut off the student’s stream of delusion. Listen to this lofty and...
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The Unfamiliar Familiar: Part 5 of 6
April 13, 20153 min read
...we surely know that to be alive among things is a gift; yet it’s a gift we so often fail to unwrap. Click here to read the Unfamiliar Familiar Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Shklovsky regarded the slowing down of perception as one of the purposes of defamiliarization. By making us work harder the artist slows our perception to the point of making it nonautomatic. Like Rain it sounded till it...
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Karma: Fate or Freedom
April 11, 20154 min read
Yet karma is not something the self has; rather, it is what the sense of self is, because one’s sense of self is transformed by one’s conscious choices. Many Buddhist teachings seem quite modern in their emphasis on such things as impermanence and interdependence (evolution, ecology), insubstantiality (physics), and the deceptions of language (philosophy). Yet the same cannot be said for karma, which points to an inexorable moral law built into the cosmos. This doesn’t...
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Blue Cliff Record 62, Unmon’s Single Treasure
April 9, 20151 min read
Episode Description: As the winter solstice descends, Henry Shukman explores Unmon’s Single Treasure, Case 62 of the Blue Cliff Record. This puzzling koan helps us turn our habitual views upside down. Roshi Henry describes the great invitation of Zen which is to abandon our cherished opinions and find the single jewel that makes the “one true fact” apparent. Henry talks about Christmas, the death penalty and his encounter with a Navy Seal in this elucidation...
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