Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 11/17/24 - We often ask ourselves in response to outside conditions: what do we do now? Our typical reactive, worrying state is often laying on extra trouble as we search for ways to act, to respond. While we have intrinsic, perfect buddha nature and can rely on this, we also live in the midst of strong forces of karma: karmic actions and conditions. There are things in this world of samsara that are deeply challenging, but how we experience them is key to how...

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 11/17/24 - Continuing with Bodhidharma’s teachings on the "Two Entrances", dharma holder Gokan explores how “all inclusive practice” includes even our struggles, our discomfort. He asks, when does “practicing the dharma” actually happen? And when are habits, views and the tendency to control taking over? We can use this teaching to investigate what it means to engage, fully, this opportunity to practice.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - 11/15/24 - Our ordinary life experiences are what we work with in practice; “a lifetime of alchemy” as Shoan Osho notes in this Fusatsu talk. This ancient practice gives us the tools with which to transform karma, in how we can recognize, acknowledge, and atone for our actions. In this way we can heal and live fully in accord with reality: our true Buddha nature.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 11/10/24 - Shugen Roshi officiates the November 2024 Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery. Today, four students formally receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts, taking up these living teachings, living vows in the company of the sangha with family and friends: Jill Kisho Hamer (Radiant Star), Jonathan Dokan Caronia (Way of Simplicity), Graeme Eikan Daykin (Realizing the Unconditioned), Maureen Eishun Kemeza (Eternal Spring)

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei 11/9/24 - Hojin Sensei introduces this chant, an essential means to connect body and mind, to draw out our inherent love and kindness, always needed, especially now. If you don't already have it, you can download the Sutta here: https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/liturgy/karaniya-metta-sutta/

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/3/24 - Hojin Sensei encourages us to stay focused, remain alert and aware and to not run away from what comes up. To turn towards practice. To remember that we each have good medicine as practitioners to meet our life, to protect and guard the mind of goodness. Then in turn to offer the Bodhi mind of love, wisdom and transformation.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/03/24 - Koans often come from literary sources, and MRO founder Daido Roshi brought us this dialogue from Alice’s adventures in "Through the Looking Glass" to offer a path of well-being as dharma practice. Even in the midst of conflict, extreme differences of opinion or sudden changes, Shugen Roshi says, we can practice staying within our experience with complete trust. For this election week, we can take up this offering us a way to walk the path and...

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 10/27/24 - Bodhicitta is simply the aspiration to save all others from suffering. Along the way, how do we go forward on an ever shifting and bumpy path? This lively dharma encounter with Hogen Sensei and the sangha is tender and encouraging of all our aspirations to be of benefit in an ever changing world.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/26/24 - Gateless Gate, Case 37 - Selflessness is what makes a paramita a “perfection.” To explore  the wisdom paramita, Shugen Roshi takes up Shantideva’s description of the two truths of the relative and absolute. The two truths describe a reality in the mind of one who does not grasp on to appearances as real, and therefore is not in conflict with anything. In this perfect wisdom, when there is nothing to actually hold on to, what remains?...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 10/25/24 - Who are these guardian beings we encounter on altars and at doorways throughout the temple and monastery? And what is true protection of oneself and others? Hojin Sensei explores how in taking refuge in the dharma we also enter the protective spirit realm, the protective realm of practicing together.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/23/24 - Gateless Gate, Case 8 - Xiangyan Makes Carts - The concentration of a master craftsperson can be a samadhi-like experience. But this type of concentration does not always carry forward to our activities of living, or help in facing the challenges there. In this sesshin talk Shugen Roshi describes how the dharma helps us understand this sense of self we all rely on as not fixed or eternal, but constantly reinventing itself and therefore...

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 10/20/24 - Exploring vow, presence, and contact with the sacred mystery of our precious human lives, Shoan Osho encourages us to see the medicine in how we encounter the world and what can feel like relentless suffering. Rather than shutting down or feeling hopeless when your heart breaks, she encourages, you can let it break wide open to meet all beings with presence and wholeness.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/13/24 - Stepping forward is essential to be truly alive. It’s also the only way to learn, both where we are being genuine and true, and where we are stuck. It takes courage to give everything and risk failure, but the only way to get past relying on success or failure is in taking the next step, freeing ourselves from self-clinging. This talk by Shugen Roshi brings forth a koan from Daido Roshi’s collection Koans of the Way of Reality, on the 15th...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/6/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 39 - Zhaozhou's "Wash Your Bowl"- One of the hallmarks of Zen teaching is that the deepest truth is indivisible from the most ordinary moment. When we release our habitual, grasping mind, then the whole universe can come alive, and we can awaken to our boundless nature in the midst of the most mundane activity. In the end, the purpose of all the koans, and all the sutras, and all the sitting that we do is just...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - 10/6/24 - Hojin Sensei explores the question of: What is true protection in our practice and for the world? Buddha once said to King Pasenadi, “your good karma, your good thought, words and good deeds; these are your protections, protection against yourself and your own unskillful habits, and protection against the unskillful habits of others.”

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 9/29/24 - With faith, we can use any conditions or circumstances to arouse our aspiration for enlightenment. In this dharma encounter, Shugen Roshi invites participants in the fall ango to share their questions and experiences with bodhicitta, the aspiration for realization, and how we can work with this bodhicitta to bring an end to suffering.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/22/24 - Fusatsu is a renewal of vows ceremony, translated as continuous good practice or to stop unwholesome action (karma). It is a ceremony that aligns us with the path of Buddha. It is a rededication to live in accord with our own undefiled, unperturbed original nature. In practice we need to be able to recognize where we are twisting and not in harmony. We begin by acknowledging all of our twisted actions reciting the Gatha of Atonement. Join Hojin...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/21/24 - This bodhisattva, or “great being,” vows to liberate all beings before entering nirvana themselves. This was the Buddha Shakyamuni’s aspiration. How then is aspiration practiced and brought to life? Hojin Sensei investigates the role of a bodhisattva in the context of developing faith, the paramitas (Our virtuous qualities) and practicing joyful effort in the midst of not-knowing.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 9/27/24 - What we need to understand about karma is basically that the web of causation is vast and far beyond our conscious comprehension. By taking responsibility for our thoughts, words and actions, we are setting the course for wholesome actions. This is the heart of moral and ethical teachings, and the nature of the enlightened mind itself.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 09/26/2024 - What is it to be empowered on the path? What is your potential? Realizing our true nature, personally, requires trust, an intuitive trust that must be developed over time. In this exploration of dharma practice, Hogen Sensei brings forward the virtues of selflessness and compassion that can empower us on the path.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 9/25/24 - Early teachings of Shantideva speak of mindfulness and related teachings of Asaṅga emphasize faith as a basis or foundation of practice. Shugen Roshi explains how this faith and mindfulness can lead to conviction and confidence in our capacity, and the energy of mindfulness can deepen our aspiration and joy in the path.

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Osho - 9/22/24 - Zenju Osho visited the Monastery for two weeks of teaching and concluded her second retreat, "Opening to Darkness," with this offering of the Sunday Dharma talk. To learn more about Zenju Osho's writings, poetry and teachings, visit www.zenju.org

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 9/15/24 - There is a difference between the isolated feeling of loneliness and the calm presence of solitude, and it’s important to nourish in ourselves the stability of letting things be as they are, full and alive. At the same time we have to understand how to genuinely be present with others, with things just as they are. Then we can come home to the moment, letting the mind be “like trees and stones,” just as it is, without qualms and without adding...