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.

  • An Offering to the World (Video)

    MCZCJune 5, 20221 min read

    “Your sitting is not for the world, it is the world” How can our practice be an offering to the world? asks meditation teacher Shana Smith. The question arose from the Florida Sanbo Zen Sangha as response to Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. Like all koans this question lived on in the weeks to follow. A number of koans came to mind as Shana thought about giving a talk to the MCZC community that addressed how...

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  • The Freight of Love (Video)

    MCZCJune 5, 20221 min read

    In this talk from our May Zazenkai, Valerie begins with a poem by Emily Dickenson, That Love is all there is. The talk goes on to explore the life and teaching of Kongshi Daoren, an early 12th c. Chinese woman known for her poetry, writing, and bathhouse teaching. And known for her love. Kongshi’s lifelong calling is to be a nun. Again and again, family and society – filial duty – deny that dream. When...

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  • Dharmatalk: Meet your Life

    MC PodcastMay 31, 20221 min read

    Description: Natalie Goldberg gives an inspiring talk about Zen in action. She describes some of her background experiences in both Zen and writing and how they interact and nourish each other. She talks about taking up writing as her practice, encouraged by her teacher Katagiri Roshi. Natalie reveals three guiding formations from her years with Katagiri Roshi: Continue under all circumstances - keep going. Don't be tossed away. Know what you need and know who...

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  • Dharmatalk: Dosho Port speaks about his new book The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans

    MC PodcastMay 24, 20221 min read

    Description: Dosho Port teaches with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training and at the Nebraska Zen Center in Omaha, and he has been practicing Zen since 1977. The Record of Empty Hall is his new translation and commentary on a classic collection of koans by Xutang Zhiyu (1185-1269), an important figure in Ch’an/Zen Buddhism. Port illuminates these remarkable koans and their place in contemporary Zen practice, opening new paths into the multiplicity...

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  • Why do we Sit?

    Scott ThorntonMay 24, 20221 min read

    We sit to regulate our system from the nearly constant mental/emotional/judging activity that directly activates our physiological fight/flight response.   We sit to practice being with all our internal machinations without reacting to or acting on them so much.  We sit to find equilibrium, to reset, and to act more skillfully and kindly.  We sit to practice being alive and aware, here and now.  We sit, not to attain our Buddha Nature, but to express...

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  • Message from Henry: Vast

    Henry ShukmanMay 18, 20221 min read

    -- Wherever I turn, it’s always with me. -- What? -- The enormity, the vastness.  Except, not exactly vast. It's a great hollow, a chasm, an openness, a great space so vast no light can illuminate it. Or even touch it. Message from Henry is from our May 16, 2022 newsletter.

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  • Summer Sesshin with Henry and Valerie: In-Person Application

    MCZCMay 17, 20222 min read

    Summer 2022 Retreat: On-site Attendance Application Our Summer 2022 retreat will be a hybrid event streamed live from Mountain Cloud Zen Center. Most attendees will attend virtually but there is space for about 25 people to attend the retreat onsite in our zendo. If you are interested in attending on-site we have limited lodging, camping and van spots, sorry no RV hook-ups. We will also allow selected commuters as space allows. On-Site Attendance Pricing Sesshin...

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  • Dharmatalk: Empty Hands

    MC PodcastMay 17, 20221 min read

    "We are always looking for the lack, like Eka (Huike) searching for his mind - this lack is so convincing and so untrue. It blinds us to who we really are and blinds us to see the astonishing beauty of one and other." Description: To help us open our eyes, Valerie reads Thomas Merton's awakening experience and explores an enigmatic line from a verse in the miscellaneous koans: "With empty hands, I take hold of...

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  • MCZC Postcards

    MCZCMay 15, 20221 min read

    Mountain Cloud Art Photos  We have a limited edition bundle of 15 beautiful black and white post cards made from photographs contributed by members of our Mountain Cloud community.  The series explores memory and sense of place at Mountain Cloud Zen Center.   Since the creation of the cards was a donation, 100% of the purchase goes towards Mountain Cloud to help support programming.  Please make a donation of at least $30 and a set of...

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  • Message from Henry: The Fixer

    Henry ShukmanMay 11, 20222 min read

    Once again: it's not that we want to stop our lives. It's that the search for basic well-being, for a well-being that is less conditional, doesn't get results out there. It can only get the real result in here. The real point is you. And the only “problem” is that we've got this fixer, this searcher, this hunter, this problem-solver on board, who believes that they are the one to figure out fundamental well-being.  But...

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  • Dharmatalk: Reflection on Dogen’s Fukanzazengi

    MC PodcastMay 10, 20221 min read

    Description: Newly appointed assistant Sanbo Zen teacher Will Brennan offers reflections on Dogen’s Fukanzazengi, (Recommending Zazen for all People) about how to practice, why practice, a beginner's primer and much more.   Will has a long history with Mountain Cloud. Will helped with the opening and founding of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in 1985 and has been a committed practitioner and pillar of MCZC ever since. His first Zen teacher was Philip Kapleau Roshi and he...

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  • Four Motivations for Taking up the Path of Zen

    Valerie ForstmanMay 9, 20222 min read

    Traveling and traveling, I arrived at the mountain of treasures, Only to realize it was none other than My own temporary dwelling. ~ Ryokan Once, two monks were traveling together on pilgrimage. Caught in a sudden snowstorm, they find a room in a small inn to wait it out. One of the monks has long since arrived at the “mountain of treasures” Ryokan describes. The other, a close dharma brother, struggles to find his way....

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  • It Is You (Video)

    MCZCMay 9, 20221 min read

    Does it matter? Koans speak to this, addressing us in a language beyond words... a language that is utterly selfless and that points directly to who we really are. Valerie Forstman Valerie Forstman reflects on a Q&A session she recently hosted with the Sanbo Zen sangha in Gainesville, FL, in which many of the questions pertained to suffering. Koans speak to this suffering by highlighting things, what they are, and by extension - what we...

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  • Three Fruits

    Valerie ForstmanMay 5, 20222 min read

    Every single thing holds all things. - Kongshi Daoren Zen is an ingathering into the silence that is always waiting for us, a silence that excludes nothing. As we give ourselves to daily practice, all-pervading silence expresses itself in our sitting - straightforward and at ease, dynamic and poised, like a fine instrument tuning and calibrating to things as they are: this body, this breath, this moment. Just as it is. Excluding nothing. The singular,...

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