Dharma Talk: Carmen Afable Roshi
Thursday, August 27th | 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 Carmen Afable at Mountain Cloud Zen Center’s zendo, where they will be leading the Dharma Talk.
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. Carmen has asked that dana be directed to Mountain Cloud: https://www.mountaincloud.org/donate/
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Carmen Afable Roshi, or Shoko-an (Illuminating Light), began their Zen practice in September 1984, receiving Shoken from Sister Elaine MacInnes. Since then, they have been dedicated to the practice and were appointed as an Assistant Sanbo Zen teacher in 1990, a teacher in 2005, and an Associate Zen Master in 2024 by Yamada Ryoun Roshi. Carmen has been the Jisha for Yamada Ryoun Roshi since 2012, and Carmen and Mountain Cloud’s Guiding Teacher Valerie Forstman have been friends since 2000.
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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.
