Dharma Talk: “Waking into Wholeness” with Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
Thursday, July 23rd | 5:30–7:00 PM
Meditation begins at 5:30 pm MT, followed by the Dharma Talk (teisho) at 6:00 pm MT.
You are invited to join us for an evening with Vanessa Zuisei Goddard at Mountain Cloud Zen Center’s zendo, where she will be leading the Dharma Talk titled, “Waking into Wholeness.”
Many of us come to spiritual practice because of a persistent feeling that there’s something wrong—something off about us or about the world. Perhaps we struggle with loneliness or a sense of alienation. Perhaps we crave intimacy but are afraid to get close. Perhaps we wonder why there’s so much conflict everywhere. Is there a better way to relate to others and to ourselves?
Join Zuisei Goddard, Guiding Teacher of Ocean Mind Sangha, for an online dharma talk followed by Q&A on Thursday, July 23 at Mountain Cloud Zen Center. Zuisei will take up the koan of Senjo and Her Soul to show that when we look closely, we realize that our sense of separation is an illusion. That when we wake up to ourselves, we see that we’ve always been perfect and whole.
This hybrid event is free and registration is not required. Please arrive five to ten minutes ahead of the scheduled time.
To participate online, please click on the zoom link below.
sit.mountaincloud.org
Passcode: mountain22
Trouble logging on to our online sits? Click here for guidance. Need help with time zone conversion? Use the World Time Buddy.
If you miss a dharma talk, you can find it on our YouTube channel within one to two weeks.
Kindly consider contributing dana (a traditional Buddhist offering) to express financial gratitude to our teacher. Dana to Zuisei can be made through their website: https://oceanmindsangha.org/zuisei-donations
∞
Vanessa Zuisei Goddard is the guiding teacher for Ocean Mind Sangha, a virtual community of Zen practitioners, and the author of Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion and the children’s book Weather Any Storm. She is based in Panama City, Panama.
∞
Teisho literally means “presentation of the shout.” It is not a lecture or a didactic discourse but a direct sharing of the dharma springing from the teacher’s experience. A teisho or dharma talk is not intended to engage the discursive mind. Rather, the invitation is to let the language wash over the listener and, if something strikes, to let that resound.
At Mountain Cloud, teisho often take up a koan, a record of an exchange between Chan/Zen masters or masters and disciples that conveys the world they are sharing and carries the seeds of awakening. Teisho invite us to keep company with the ancestors whose practice-awakening (a term from Dogen) is freshly conveyed each time we turn to this living tradition.
