Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 8/31/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 99 - Yunmen's "Bowl and Bucket" - Striving to realize our true nature, without tying ourselves into knots of grasping, are skills we have to practice. Being able to investigate where we stick to our habits and confusion is to help us develop concentration. As Shugen Roshi says, with the essential skills of mindfulness and concentration we can discover who “this unbounded one” really is, and then we can really be of benefit in the world.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 9/1/24 - Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of the Ango: "Going Straight on an Ever-Twisting Path: The Bodhisattva Path and The Paramitas."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - 9/1/24 - Hojin Sensei introduces the theme of the Ango: "Going Straight on an Ever-Twisting Path: The Bodhisattva Path and The Paramitas."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/25/24 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 98 - T'ien P'ing's Travels on Foot - Cause and effect are fundamental teachings of the Dharma: the dependent arising of all phenomena, and the karma of cause and effect. So how can the practice of seeing our minds as they function—creating realities by grasping at what we want or don’t want—become something we stop stumbling over? When we let go and see things as they are, we begin to practice the true freedom of mind: to act in accord with compassion and wisdom.

Degna Chikei Levister, MRO Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 8/25/24 - Chikei talks about the subtle shift in perspective brought about through her Zen practice and the big difference that has made in her life.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 8/18/24 - A Hidden Lamp Story: "The Old Woman's Relatives" - Hojin Sensei looks into loneliness... How do we understand it, respond to it? What's at the root of it? Can we experience the richness of it?

Prabu Gikon Vasan, Senior Lay Practitioner - 8/18/24 - The Buddha’s early teachings often focus on the nature of suffering to help us become aware of the ways that this state is created by our thoughts, words and actions. With a deeper understanding of how this process repeats itself, as senior lay student Gikon says, we can pivot, making real change by turning our thoughts, words and actions in the direction of freedom from suffering and it’s causes.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/11/24 - Habits of mind, which in the beginning of practice seem untameable, can be grounded through awareness, and that’s just the start of learning to be at ease with the mind. We come to appreciate our own ability to settle and to realize our capacity to experience the inherent steadiness of mind. With help from Shantideva and the contemporary Buddhist monk-scholar Anālayo, Shugen Roshi outlines ways to practice, and seeing into the nature of all reality.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/4/24 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 41 - Your Mind is At Rest - Shugen Roshi brings the teachings of Bodhidharma to life in this talk on zazen practice as a kind of inquiry that is free of concepts, ideas and analysis, and is rather a direct experience of one’s awakened mind—your mind at rest—which is just your natural mind illuminated and at ease. 

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 8/3/24 - Hojin Sensei offers the wisdom of Machig Labdrön, a Tibetan teacher who lived between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. From an adept at a very young age, to motherhood, to teacher, to establishing the practice of Chöd, her life and teachings have been a great source of inspiration, as Hojin enthusiastically shares with the sangha.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - 7/28/24 - In this morning ceremony, Hojin Sensei offers teachings on the Monastic Vows and the Moral & Ethical Precepts of Zen Buddhism, on the occasion of the full Monastic ordination of Simon Daiō Sekku Harrison, one of Hojin Sensei’s long-time students.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 7/27/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 5 - Qingyuan and the Price of Rice - As we seek to understand the Buddha’s teachings on release from suffering, the explanations and descriptions of the Path are what we tend to seek. But when we actually sit down in zazen and experience our minds, without relying on explanations, the limits of conceptual thought begins to be seen. Bit by bit we learn to trust this direct experience, and trust it as the natural state, of our minds and of the minds of all beings.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 7/21/24 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate (Mumonkan), Case 12 - Ruiyan Calls "Master" - Hojin Sensei takes up this koan... What is it that runs our lives, that leads us to make decisions about right and wrong? Our intentions are what drive us along and affect what happens in our lives, so how clear are we about these deeply habitual ways of being? Who is calling, and who is responding?

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - 7/26/24 - Delving into a 13th century Indian mystic’s poem on the experience of the divine, and the Lankavatara Sutra, a foundational sutra of the early Zen path, Shoan Osho explores our direct experience within the practice of mind, and the realization of no separation from all beings on the path of peace.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/25/24 - Gokan explores the third of the All Inclusive Practices of Bodhidharma’s Two Entrances: seeking nothing. - Our longings and yearnings are are what motivates us ordinarily, and we come to practice because of dissatisfaction with samsara. Our human habit is to seek pleasure, comfort and security, to get rid of discomfort. But having found that seeking pleasure is temporary at best, what is it to enter the Way, without reservations, seeking nothing?

Rev. Trudi Jinpu Hirsch-Abramson - ZMM - 7/21/24 - Rev. Jinpu offers her engaging stories about the practice of grief, aging, dying and living in the now. An ordained Buddhist priest and chaplain, Jinpu has over twenty-five years of experience in practicing and teaching others to care for and celebrate all of life.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 7/14/24 - Noticing when we’ve put ourselves in a box, made up of our ideas or habits, is the genuine key to transformation and freedom. Drawing on early teachings of Zen Buddhism, Shoan Osho brings us home to our true power, to create and release our hindrances, through non-grasping.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/13/24 - Gokan explores the second of the All Inclusive Practices of Bodhidharma’s Two Entrances; adapting to conditions. When we open up to the many ways we are dissatisfied or contribute to suffering, we also simultaneously open up the power of ceasing to grasp and liberating ourselves. How do we allow ourselves to come inside of our experiences fully, into “the mind that neither waxes or wanes,” and see the infinite potential when we come closer?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 7/7/24 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 45 - Wu-tsu's "Who Is That Other?" - Shugen Roshi explores the dynamic between self and others by looking at the solitary nature of practice. As we begin to understand the habits which create our thoughts and ideas—all the things that obstruct our naturally clear minds—we can experience within the stillness that we are actually brought closer to others, and to the whole phenomenal universe.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 7/7/24 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 9 - "Daitsu Chisho Buddha" - This koan brings us into a question that some of us do ask about in practice whether we have been engaged a long time - or a short time: What is realization? Am I getting it? Are they getting it? What is happening? Why after a period of zazen does reality not appear? After all what is attainment and non attainment?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 6/30/24 - Shugen Roshi explores the discernment capacity of our inherent wisdom using two different teachings sources, a koan involving the monk Upagupta, and from a discourse on the nun Vajirā from the Buddha’s early teachings. This wise discernment guides each person on their path of spiritual practice; it’s very personal, and it takes time. Whether the home leaving of a monastic, or home dwelling of a lay practitioner, this very human wisdom mind is always fueled by our inherent true nature. - Two stories, one from The Record of the Transmission of the Light: Case 5 – Upagupta, the Fourth Zen Ancestor; and another from the Pali Canon - Samyutta Nikaya: "The Bhikkhuni Vajira" - Note: this talk was preceded by the postulant monastic ceremony for Clyde Fusei Forth and Alex Rogetsu Rothstein.

Zabeth Tenfu Loisel, Lay Student - ZCNYC - 6/30/24 - How precious! The sangha treasure.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 6/29/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 57 - Yanyang's "Thing" - Learning to see the complexity of how our minds hold on to concepts—“things”— is an aspect of zazen practice, not just at the beginning but all the way through Zen training. In this sesshin talk, Roshi explores a lively koan that delves right in to this teaching.

Suzanne Taikyo Gilman, Senior Monastic - ZMM - 6/28/24 - The heart of enlightened mind, or bodhicitta, is an aspect of dharma practice that brings our aspirations to life. In this sesshin talk, Taikyo explores some teachings of bodhicitta, how it is cultivated, and how bodhicitta relates to the practice of zazen.

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - ZMM - 6/27/24 - Yunen explores the fundamental instructions on zazen from Dogen and the spiritual path of a Buddhist practitioner. To help us develop our understanding of its depth and breadth he brings forth analogies in language and nature, and especially to the evolution of the mountain ranges of the northeast.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 6/26/24 - The Buddha’s Teachings on the Four Noble Truths - Causes and conditions, the inner workings of how things happen, is a key aspect of studying the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha. Shugen Roshi describes some ways in which these profound teachings function in the arising of karma within daily life and dharma practice.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 6/23/24 - From The Record of the Transmission of the Light, Case 10 – Buddhamitra (or Fudamitta, the Ninth Zen Ancestor) - Our identity is built up with stories we learn to tell about ourselves, and many of these keep us in a state of suffering of which we’re barely aware. When a story we carry in our minds meets reality, often there is resistance. To relinquish this habit takes strength and mindful awareness. To just let ourselves live in harmony with changing circumstances, in accord with our true nature, is a benefit of zazen practice.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/23/24 - From the Blue Cliff Record, Case 6 - Yunmen’s "Every Day is a Good Day” - “I’m filled with grief, good day? The world is on fire, good day? What is not dependent upon the circumstances and conditions of those days? How are these concepts of practice and enlightenment for real and functioning in our daily lives? We have a practice and a path, now it’s up to us to take to take a big chance, we can do it, we can respond with courage and loving discernment.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/16/24 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 52 - Chao Chou’s Stone Bridge That Lets All Cross - Part of Zen training and practice is knowing there is no “end product”. Waking up continues endlessly. How do we see this essential stone bridge? How do we take the impasses that boils up in our lives with nothing kept away? What a keen gate this is to feel the jolt of something gone awry and not divide. Hojin Sensei explores what Chao Chou might be offering us to see here now.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 6/16/24 - Looking at Bodhidharma’s teachings on two ways to enter practice—by principle and by practice—these teachings acknowledge that we’re all different and will enter practice in different ways, addressing what is most alive for us. In this talk Gokan explores the first of four practices identified by Bodhidharma—encountering suffering—and how the suffering which seems daunting or overwhelming can also provide all that we need to fully enter the Way.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/9/24 - Hojin Sensei shares teachings from the Dhammapada, Mary Oliver, Catherine MacCoun, Hongzhi and others to take us on an exploration of worry and doubt.

Chimyo Simone Atkinson, Sensei - ZMM - 6/9/24 - Chimyo Sensei explores the essential practice of zazen, and our genuine capacity to realize Buddha Nature. This practice can challenge us to face our own barriers, tapping into our innate ability to yield, like a dragon taking to the water, and the courage to move freely, like a tiger entering the mountains. Chimyo Sensei offers guidance to live the dharma with whatever is arising, with grace, ease and joy.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 6/2/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 19 - Yunmen's "Sumaru" - Koan practice guides us to something different than conceptual knowledge, a liberation of mind which is, as the Buddha said, subtle and difficult to understand. And yet, conceptual knowledge is an integral part of how we can realize the non-conceptual mind. Using Yunmen’s teachings, Shugen Roshi explores how calming the mind, and gaining insight, are important steps toward understanding how to truly free ourselves from conceptual thought and grasping at self-centered views.

Chikyuu Donohue, Lay Student Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 06/02/2024

In this podcast interview, Mn. Hokyu Aronson speaks with guest instructor Vangeline about embodied movement...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/26/24 - At the conclusion of spring ango 2024, Shugen Roshi offered a teaching on the ango theme of Right Relationship, focusing on Identity Action, or non-difference, from Dogen’s The Bodhisattva’s Four Methods of Guidance. Ango participants were invited to present questions or their understanding with Roshi, and this lively exchange explores the themes of harmony, embracing differences along with sameness, and the inseparability of all phenomena. 

Sandy Joshin Del Valle, Lay Student - ZCNYC - 5/26/24 - Joshin offers words of encouragement to take with us on our path, as she recounts her own stories of coming into Zen practice, and how developing constancy in this practice has transformed her life.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/25/24 - From Master Hongzhi's verse: Guidepost of Silent Illumination - Both effortful and effortless... meditation flowing through all activity, on the cushion, off the cushion... Shugen Roshi continues his talk on the practice of Shikantaza and Master Hongzhi's poem.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 5/24/24 - We tell ourselves stories about who we are, what we can and cannot do. We often don’t recognize how limiting these views are, the suffering they perpetuate, and that only we can change them. In this exploration of Right View, Shoan Osho takes up verses of the elder nuns in the Therigata collection to elucidate how views are created, questioned, explored, and seen through on the path of liberation.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 5/23/24 - From The True Dharma Eye, Case 75 - Yantou's "Sit Still" - How do we respond to life’s complications? Sitting in stillness is the simple practice, but in itself can become a hiding place. The Three Worlds—form, formlessness and desire—all arrive together at once, so how do we practice stillness in the midst of it all? Using a koan from Master Yantou, Hogen Sensei reminds us that true freedom, to let go and be totally alive to the suchness of this moment, is within our capacity to let go of fixed views about anything.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/22/24 - From Master Hongzhi's verse: Guidepost of Silent Illumination - Both effortful and effortless... How is it that meditation flows through all activity, on the cushion, off the cushion? Shugen Roshi comments on the practice of Shikantaza and Master Hongzhi's poem.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 5/12/24 - As part the MRO Ango Training period in studying right relationship, and in celebration of Mother's Day, Hojin Sensei takes up 'The Bodhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance’ from 12th Century Zen teacher Dogen. She brings this teaching to life in call and creative response with the Fire Lotus Sangha. 

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/19/24 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 78 - Sixteen Bodhisattvas Go In to Bathe - We can aspire to the bodhisattva ideal, but how do we turn it into a practical, down to earth response in each moment?

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 5/19/24 - Yunen explores the many forms found in Zen practice, especially as taught by Zen Master Dogen in the Soto Zen lineage. Why is any of it important, and how do we take it up?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 05/17/2024 - In the practical sense, our activity within and amongst the constant, continuing small moments are what are forming our habits and creating our karma and the collective karma. So pay attention to all of it, be patient with yourself and practice with your vows in mind.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/12/24 - Shugen Roshi recounts the origins of the present form of Mother's Day, which was all about a mother's call for peace! During his lifetime, the Buddha made this same appeal in many sutras with instructions on living peacefully. What better way to honour our mothers than to recommit to this? Shugen Roshi guides us through the practical application of the Karaniya Metta Sutra: "This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness, and who knows the path of peace..." (https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/liturgy/karaniya-metta-sutta/)

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/5/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 93 - Luzu's Not Understanding - What do we have to do to realize our own perfection? And what does it actually mean in the sense in which it is spoken of in the Buddhist sutras? And our appreciation of relationship; with ourselves and with others... Do we know how it comes to us? Are we open to it?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 5/5/24 - Hojin Sensei explores the archetype of the shapeshifter through the arts, stories of the Buddha, and Zen Master Bankai's teachings of the Unborn—that “all of these comings and goings are just pulses in the pattern.”

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 4/28/24 - A foundational aspect of relationship: listening in all it's myriad forms... How do we practice it? How do we understand it in terms of the Precepts, or the Four Noble Truths, with Vow? What's missing when we're not listening? Hogen Sensei engages the Sangha with this theme, presenting a koan from the Book of Equanimity, "The Wisdom of the Flower Garland Sutra," along with the poem "Listening" by David Ignatow.

Linda Shinji Hoffman, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 4/28/24 - How can we practice meeting physical pain and discomfort of all kinds? In this talk, senior student Shinji Hoffman invites us to consider dancing with these challenges. Through poetry, reflection on her experience, and Buddhist teachings, she weaves together many offerings to support us in working through the inevitable discomforts of life.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 4/27/24 - From the Book of Equanimity, Case 67 - The Wisdom of the Flower Garland Sutra - The base of our practice is to realize our own true nature. Hogen Sensei exhorts us to not defile it by clinging to our deluded opinions; we are all fundamentally endowed with the virtues of the Buddha.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 04/26/24 - Dharma Talk during the Apple Blossom Sesshin 2024 Fusatsu Ceremony - Hojin Sensei encourages us to strive to be in harmony with each and every aspect of our life.

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZMM - 4/25/24 - Yosha introduces us to lay woman Fazhen (12th Century) with the story of her awakening.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 4/24/24 - Can we genuinely be ourselves if we are not free of the idea of "ourself"? Shoan Osho talks about our evanescent nature and grounding ourselves in that.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 4/21/24 - Inspired by Master Dogen’s poem “Snow”, Hogen Sensei asks us what makes us whole? What can we rely on to face what is before us with clear intention?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 4/21/24 - With Hojin Sensei officiating, three students formally receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts, taking up these living teachings, living vows in the company of the sangha with family and friends. - Lou Baisei ("Cultivating the Morning Star") Procaccino, Holly Bukei ("Dancing Lightly") Mensching, and Ajay Shinyu ("Trusting the Mystical") Chandra.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei ZMM - 4/14/24 - A tea shop proprietor serves traveling monks a koan to accompany their tea. “Let those of you with miraculous powers drink tea.” Then she says to the stunned monks, “Watch this old, decrepit woman show her miraculous powers.” Then, she simply walks out. Hojin Sensei reflects on this story from "The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women".

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZCNYC - 4/14/24 - Sharing a teaching from Bodhidharma, Gokan speaks about the importance in the Zen tradition of directly realized experience, over our conceptual understanding. How is it when you truly let go? Trust yourself!

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 4/7/2024 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 5 - "Hsiang-yen: Person Up a Tree" - How do we discriminate in a way that liberates and doesn't entangle us in the quandaries of duality? Shugen Roshi uses a koan from the Gateless Gate to highlight this question; how can non-duality be the nature of all things in this world of such profound variation?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 4/7/24 - From The Hidden Lamp: Collection of Stories of Twenty Five Centuries of Awakened Women - What is grief? Can we respect it? Not fear it? Really let it work us in and through our embodiment allowing its raw ingredients to scour our beautiful hearts into release into the impermanence that is the Buddha Way. Hojin reflects on her own relationship to ‘Good Grief’ and her love for Satsujo’s appropriate response, maybe not quite what we would expect from a Dharma story and our ideas of how to let go of attachment.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 4/6/24 - Awakening From Illusion... Is that what we call the practice of the way? For awakening is not a one-time thing, a one-time event. But a continual awareness that needs to be continually maintained. Such maintenance as we well know may be difficult. It’s what we call practice. What supports do we have in our practice?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/31/24 - Shugen Roshi presents the Buddha's teaching on the Five Remembrances (impermanence, aging, illness, death, and karma) and invites his students to offer their own experience, thoughts, questions.... How do we act on and connect to these, both inside ourselves and in our relationships?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/30/24 - From the Koans of the Way of Reality - Xinyang's Sweet Melons - Being on the eve of the funeral of the monastery's beloved gardener, Senior monastic Choke Yukon, Abbot Shugen Roshi presents us, fittingly, with this koan from a collection compiled by the late John Daido Loori the founder of Zen Mountain Monastery.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/29/24 - Teisho during the March Fusatsu at ZMM during Spring Ango 2024 - In the context of our practice of the precepts, the 5th grave precept "Proceed Clearly", Shugen Roshi talks about the kleshas - mental states that cloud the mind- and how we can work with them. (We apologize; the first several minutes of this talk were not recorded.)

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 3/28/24 - From "The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women" - Hojin Sensei presents a koan of Lingzhao and her father, falling together. How do we fall with someone? How do we accept somebody’s support? And do we ever know that we are helping?

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 3/27/24 - From The Record of the Transmission of the Light, Case 1 - Shakyamuni Buddha - Hogen Sensei reminds us that we are all inherently buddhas and have the ability to realize ourselves in our lifetime.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZCNYC - 3/24/24 - Shugen Roshi offers a teaching on how we come into contact with and into relationship with the world. How do we meet each other? And what can make this so difficult?

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 3/24/24 - Shoan Osho unfurls wide the themes of the Spring Ango -- Right Relationship, Gratitude, Interdependence -- by offering a cornucopia of teachings; from the verses of Mahapajapati, Buddha's aunt who raised him, to the 9th century Chinese master Xuefeng, bringing in her own teachers' words, along with Ross Gay's "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 3/17/24 - From The True Dharma Eye, Case 148 - Dongshan's 'Teachings of the Insentient" - What does it mean to realize the true nature of mind? If we say that we must "realize it ourselves" then what is it that we can share and communicate with each other? And what's the difference between us and the insentient when it comes to communicating this?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 3/17/24 - Hojin Sensei examines a prevalent feature of our lives: distraction. We call it “monkey mind;” in Sanskrit it’s vikshepa, which means “mental wandering”, being drawn to objects that cause us to lose our ability to remain one-pointedly focused on virtue. She encourages us to be patient with ourselves and use these distractions to deepen our self-understanding, for the benefit of all.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/10/24 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 15 - "Tung-shan's Sixty Blows" - What is there to learn directly from our questions, settling into and being with them, without complicating them, without hastily hunting for, or picking and choosing and clinging to, answers?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/3/24 - Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of the MRO 90-day Spring Ango training period, "Right Relationship with the World; Expressing Gratitude."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 3/3/24 - Hojin Sensei opens this Ango, or Peaceful Dwelling, with a talk about right relationship with the world; expressing gratitude. She shares the Fourth Noble Truth and the Eightfold Path, a path that we’ve been offered. And through this path, how we can find a peace that is deeper than our conditioning.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 3/2/2024 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 3 - Master Ma is Unwell - For each of us, how do we create and hold ourselves in that place which opens to the middle way, the bodhisattva way? Where does our intention come from and what does it take to stay with our practice?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 3/2/24 - How do we create suffering, and how do we unmake it? What is skillful? What isn’t? Hojin Sensei speaks about the Fourth Noble Truth and the Eightfold Path.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei with The Karenji Choir - ZCNYC - 12/17/2023 - As a part of the Sunday Morning Program at ZCNYC, Hojin Sensei's Karenji Choir performed Santideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva, as arranged and directed by Justin Ward Weber. We wanted to share this performance with you. We hope you enjoy it!

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi and Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 02/25/2024 - Shugen Roshi introduces Mn Shoan for the first time as "Osho", and uses the occasion to comment on Master Dogen's fascicle on the three pure precepts, pointing out the broad affirmative nature of these moral and ethical teachings, and their active transmission through the ages; teacher to student, person to person, amongst all of us.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 2/18/24 - Mn Gokan shares his insight about speech; how it manifests, in its various forms, inward and outward, positive, negative, constructive, destructive, truthful, false. Are we aware of its purpose in any given instance? He encourages us to appreciate its power and to practice constant mindfulness of how we use it.

Suzanne Taikyo Gilman, Senior Monastic - ZCNYC - 2/18/2024 - Taikyo shares the teachings on the paramitas, focusing on dana paramita - the perfection of giving. She explores the significance of giving selflessly and the myriad ways it manifests, drawing insights from Buddhist teachings and personal experience as inspiration to shift towards compassionate and mindful living—and to attain freedom from suffering.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 2/11/24 - Inspired by Master Guishan's Admonitions and Encouraging Words, Mn Shoan encourages us to perceive the wealth of opportunity in our own lives to engage in a personal study of cause and effect, and to thus see the reality of interdependence more clearly.

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 2/11/24 - Drawing examples from Dogen and contemporary science, Yunen shares insights from the Buddhist teachings on liberation from suffering, and our relationship with our environment. (We apologize for our malfunctioning microphone during the first few minutes of this talk.)

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 2/4/24 - Opening with a poem from David Whyte, Hojin Sensei presents a variety of teachings on courage; how we can embrace what we are most terrified of, and stand firm in this constant rebirth. To meet these moments with a "thank you." Now what's true?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei ZCNYC - 12/31/23 - Fusatsu offers us the opportunity to make fresh again our vows in the world. To recognize and renew the deepest way that we are; our virtuous life, the life of a Buddha that we each are.

Prabu Gikon Vasan, Senior Lay Practitioner - ZMM - 02/04/2024 Gikon shares some dharma teachings that helped him in his early years of practice. Are the great achievements of humankind only at the surface of our existence? What is and where is our fundamental perfection? What are the hindrances that give rise to suffering? Can Shunryu Suzuki's famous comment, "In your very imperfections, you will find a path to your way-seeking mind," be true?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM -1/28/24 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 61 - Feng Hsueh's "One Atom of Dust" - How do we tame our judging mind and keep our awareness wide open? How do we live and act in a way that is truly appropriate to reality?

Degna Chikei Levister, MRO Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 1/28/24 - Chikei offers a glimpse of why she came to Zen Practice, and why she has stayed—this commitment to living a life in harmony.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/27/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 60 - A woman student, aptly named “Iron Grindstone” Liu, encounters her teacher Guishan. Can we characterize diligent practice in any particular way? We may be able to look inward but can we look inward and stay all the way through it?

Michelle Seigei Spark, Lay Senior MRO Student - ZMM - 1/26/24 - Inspired by Master Dogen's writings on zazen as well as Daido Roshi's teachings, Seigei presents us with what can bring us to meditation and what can motivate us to continue to meditate.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 1/25/24 - From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person - Gokan talks about how we uncover wisdom continuously in our everyday lives.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/24/24 - Shugen Roshi shares a teaching on the Four Immeasurables, emphasizing the significance of participation, engaging with equanimity.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/21/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 20 - Dizang's "Nearness" - What inspires us to delve deeper into the heart of our questions; How do we keep open in the darkness and light of not knowing? How do we go about meeting the true self?

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 01/21/2024 - In this talk Yosha takes up the Five Strengths, which come down to us from the Lojong Mind Training of Atisha. These strengths are associated with the virtue or paramita of exertion; also translated as vigor, effort zeal, and diligence. So what does this mean to exert ourselves on this path of awakening?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/14/24 - Shugen Roshi reflects on the life's work, teaching and words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in the context of our times, our lives and our practice here and now. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." —𝑀𝐿𝐾 𝐽𝑟.

Linda Shinji Hoffman, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 1/14/24 - Drawing from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's 1967 speech, titled, "Where Do We Go From Here?,” Shinji invokes his legacy and commitment to nonviolence and love, and his vision of the beloved community. She shares the importance of our Sangha taking on this work, and how we can do so grounded in the Buddhist teachings.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 1/13/24 - From Robert Aitken Roshi, Intimacy, in Zen, is the essential nature of practice. Gokan reflects on how this intimacy manifests via our zazen.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/7/24 - From the Vimalakirti Sutra - Manjusri Inquires About the Illness - Shugen Roshi speaks about the connection between sickness, in its broadest sense, and compassion in the context of the Four Noble Truths. In light of the barrage of injustices and the multitudes we know are suffering how do we balance our empathy and compassion?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/31/23 - Fusatsu Ceremony gives us an opportunity to renew our bodhisattva vows and to atone for any pain and suffering we may have intentionally, inadvertently, or indirectly caused. This is the teisho, on aspects of the Buddhist precepts, that Shugen Roshi offered in the midst of the ceremony on the final evening of Rohatsu Sesshin.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/30/2023 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 73 - Caoshan's Fulfillment of Filial Piety - Are we aware of what moves us? And what does it mean to be wholehearted?

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/29/2023 - From a verse appearing in Daido Roshi's "The Heart of Being" - Mn. Shoan talks about how we hear the verses of our teachers and ancestors. Some can seem abstract and heady, others can be heart rending and become practical instructions. Or all of that. What do we make of them?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/28/2023 - From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person - Gokan talks about Samadhi and how it manifests continuously in our lives.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/17/2023 - Mn Shoan recounts some of her encounters and experiences during her recent pilgrimage to Japan.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/16/2023 - From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person: Not Forgetting Right Thought - Mn Gokan encourages us to get to know our own deep patterns of remembering and forgetting.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/10/23 - The verses of Rohini, from the Therīgāthā - Poems of the Early Nuns - Likening our intentional practice to the natural process of respiration; the continuous flow of inspiration in our lives and the aspirations we make out of that, how does that work for each of us? This question is brought to mind when reading Rohini's verses about her own aspirations.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/08/23 - Teisho offered during the Fusatsu ceremony commencing Buddha's Enlightenment Vigil.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/3/23 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 35 - Touzi's "Harmonizing the Ten Bodies" - What is that common sense of distance, separation, between ourselves and others, and between the many aspects of ourselves? Shugen Roshi encourages us to relinquish our hold; to use the multitudinous opportunities to practice, through our meditation, through the precepts, in each moment, to understand our karma and transform it for the good.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/3/23 - From "The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women" - Hojin Sensei presents a koan of Lingzhao and her father, falling together. How do we fall with someone? How do we accept somebody’s support? And do we ever know that we are helping?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/26/23 - Hojin presents a koan based on a Chinese folk tale that takes on the question of identity, and speaks about its relevance for us today.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/26/23 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo, Case 149 - Xuefeng's Rice Field - In the context of our liberation, our freedom from delusion, can we actually experience a fundamental truth that is not the creation of conditions, i.e. fundamental and unconditional? Shugen Roshi talks about the Buddha's realization of Dependent Arising, and the realization that to be free of the "conditioned" we have to make contact with that which is unconditioned... And what, where and when is that?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/12/23 - From "The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women" - Hojin Sensei examines the nature of Mara, the "lord of delusion," who comes to Soma and to all of us in many forms. What are the particular ways in which Mara hooks us? How can we bring awareness to Mara's revelations about our delusion, while not giving those voices more power?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/18/23 - Shugen Roshi covers the final four of Atisha's slogans, which appropriately cap off the teachings of all 59. They reiterate some basic questions: Why are we practicing? For whom? How do we process our expectations? How and where are they centered? Why do we chant the 4 immeasurables if not for their universal practicality? In the context of our sincere desire for awakening, what thwarts us and what helps us practice forward?

Maureen Jisho Ford, Senior Lay Student - ZMM, Friday 11/17/23 - "We mistake the story for who we are." Senior lay student Jisho gives a very personal talk about her experience with shame.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 11/16/23 - From the Blue Cliff Record, Case 14 - "Yunmen's Appropriate Statement" - Hogen Sensei examines this pithy koan in light of Atisha's slogan #55, "Liberate yourself by examining and analyzing."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/15/23 - How to sustain our efforts and practice wholeheartedly? How to awaken to our trust, faith and courage? With a calm and bright attitude we have the opportunity, in our direct experience to truly see into the root of our suffering.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/12/23 - Any circumstance you find yourself in is the opportunity to practice right now, so don't wait. And it helps to keep the basics in mind: Refrain. Cease from harm, try to create some good, and delight in others.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/10/23 - In the context of our practice of the precepts, in our whole everyday lives, how do we develop harmony of thought, speech and action? Is this the practice of atonement?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi ZMM - 11/5/23 - Facing our difficulties, recognizing our circumstances and knowing how to be a student. These can be joyful endeavors especially when we see our (and others') inherent goodness coming to light.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/5/23 - In this story, from The Hidden Lamp, an old woman hears and breaks though Hakuin’s teaching: "Your mind is the Pure Land, and your body is Amida Buddha. If you want to understand, look into your own heart.” Hojin weaves a tapestry of intimate expressions encouraging practitioners to heed the Buddha’s words: “Dwell! You are the light itself.” — the light reaches everywhere. Trust this!

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC - 10/29/23 - Yunen discusses the virtue of humility and its relationship to taking refuge in the earth. What is true humility? How is it different from self-denial or self-disparagement? And how does the capacity to step out of the way and hold the self lightly bring forth compassion?

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 10/29/23 - How do you understand "Intimate Speech"? How and when does it occur? What happens, inside and outside, when it does? Hogen Sensei takes up these questions and others with Ango participants in a heartfelt discussion.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/28/23 - What is the purpose of "Training the Mind" if not to cultivate Loving-Kindness toward others and toward ourselves?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 10/27/23 - Given in the context of a Fusatsu: Renewal of Vows Ceremony, Sensei explores the mythical lore around one of the primary bodhisattvas of the Buddhist world, Samantabhadra, the bodhisattva of “enlightened activity,” an emanation of our own practice activity in the world.

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZMM - 10/26/23 - The 59 Slogans of the Lojong mind training provide guidelines for practice and aspiration on the Buddhist path. Yosha explores how this specific slogan helps loosen up the tangled strands of our habitual, unskillful reactivity and patterns in our behavior, bringing in loving-kindness and compassionate activity.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/25/2023 - Shugen Roshi asks us to examine the negations we hear in the teachings, for instance in the precepts, amongst the 59 Atisha Slogans, in the Heart Sutra, etc. How we can we see them as helpful aspirations?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 10/22/23 - From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person. - Gokan reminds us, in the Buddha's words that: "If you practice meticulous effort, nothing will be difficult to accomplish."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 10/22/2023 - Hojin Sensei explores "Chiyono's No Water, No Moon" from the Hidden Lamp, along with Merle Kodo Boyd's reflections. Where do we go when we break open and let go completely? Where does the moon go when its reflection disappears? When the awareness grows that we and all things are without self, we can exercise our freedom to keep it together or let things come apart in accord with circumstances.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 10/21/23 - During this Zazenkai talk it’s brought out that as we practice we see how much strength and training the mind needs so it doesn’t go off the rails. Zazen may be the most useful skill to develop in bringing the mind to the end of suffering, something no other skill can do. How fortunate we have Zazen and the path in our lives.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/15/23 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 34 - The World-Honored One's "Intimate Speech" - Is intimate speech just speech? Or is it more; our whole manifestation in this continuous moment?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 10/15/2023 - How do we walk the path of peace in this life, especially in times of great conflict and violence? How do we practice intimacy with our tendency to create conflict in our actions, words, and thoughts? And how do we manifest (as Shantideva puts it) "May even acts of harm help the violent to awaken"?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/08/23 - Where do we find stability and balance if not in the midst of the noise, thoughts, myriad events of the day? Where and when are the opportunities to pause and remember to practice? Shugen Roshi continues with his Lojong commentary, on slogan #16: "Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation", while illustrating with Dogen's True Dharma Eye koan "Baizhang's Wild Geese."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 10/01/23 - Looking at the Lojong Slogans 11, 12 and 13, Shugen Roshi challenges us with questions about how we experience and practice these in our daily lives. How do we transform evil? What does transformation mean in the context of "the path of realizing the self as empty"? How can we drive all blame into one? What does it mean to do that? And how can we be, all the while, grateful to everyone?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 9/30/23 - From the Lojong Slogans of Atisha # 14 & 15 - We normally view confusion as undesirable and it's easy to react to it in a negative way. What if we refrain from reacting and stay open, calm, connect with our faith in our practice and allow ourselves to look closely at the process?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 9/29/23 - In the midst of this Fusatsu ceremony, Shugen Roshi offers a teisho using three [ways of transforming bad circumstances into the path of enlightenment] of the 59 mind training slogans, which naturally illustrate ways of atonement.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 9/28/23 - Mumon's Gateless Gate, Case 6 - "Buddha Holds Up a Flower" - Being at the heart of Master Dogen's Intimate Language fascicle, this koan is explored by by Shugen Roshi, opening up the question of What is Intimate Language?

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 9/27/23 - From the Book of Equanimity, Case 17 - Fayan's "Hairsbreadth" - What's the difference between conveying knowledge and conveying the non-dual dharma? How do we directly experience the distinctiveness and the oneness of things, and convey this to each other, in the activity of our everyday lives? Is that "Intimate Language"?

ZMM - 9/24/23 - Shugen Roshi continues his commentary on the 59 Mind Training Slogans of Atisha in this talk covering points 8, 9 and 10. Looking at how and when we react to our experiences and encouraging us to take full responsibility for our own mind; how we can practice these slogans within our continuous practice of openness and mindfulness; and a reminder to start with ourselves i.e. be kind, be gentle with ourselves, don't ignore your own suffering as you try to hold the suffering of others.

Prabu Gikon Vasan, Senior Lay Practitioner - ZMM - 6/10/23 - Gikon speaks on the liberating effects of settling oneself within the reality of impermanence, bringing this core buddhist teaching to life through referencing excerpts from the Lotus Sutra, the Fire Sermon, and his own life experiences.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 9/17/2023 - Shugen Roshi officiates the September 2023 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. - Roni Schnadow: Kasho ("Joyful Auspicious Spirit”) - Alex Rothstein: Rogetsu ("Open Exposed Moon”) - Sharon Kelly: Chigo (" Ground Essence of Strength”) - Theresa Braine: Ryoka ("Clear Lucid Wonder”)

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 9/10/2023 - Shugen Roshi talks about the Buddha's teaching on causation, and how to study this in our own lives.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 09/03/2023 - Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of the MRO 90-day Fall Ango training period, "Intimate Language." If you'd like to learn more about our Ango program and possibly participate, please click here: https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/ango/

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/03/2023 - Hojin Sensei opens the Fall Ango practice period at Fire Lotus Temple and introduces this Ango's theme of "Intimate Language." She speaks about the historical roots of the Ango tradition, what "intensification of practice" can look like, and some of the ways in which the sangha is invited to delve into training these next 90 days.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 09/02/2023 - Shugen Roshi talks about "training." What is it, starting within the context of each moment of our lives?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 9/2/2023 - From The Gateless Gate, Case 41: "Bodhidharma and Peace of Mind." - In this talk given during the Peaceful Dwelling Zazenkai at Fire Lotus Temple, Hojin Sensei asks what it means to truly walk the path of peace. She invites us to consider how we work with the aspects of ourselves and the world that are not at peace.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/27/2023 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 69 - Nanquan's "Cows" - When the teachings talk about being unconcerned, when we practice letting go of the self and the self-consciousness, what is that? How to be simple, that is not simplistic? How to by authentic, that by it’s very nature is uncontrived? How to be alive and unadorned?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZCNYC - 8/27/2023 - Having few desires is the first of the "Eight Awarenesses". In this talk Gokan invites us to explore the nature of desire; all of its aspects and our relationship with it.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/26/2023 - During August sesshin, Shugen Roshi speaks of the power of inquiry. “What are you doing with your lack of fulfillment and satisfaction, and peacefulness, and calm, and understanding? We’re all doing something with all of those elements. Evidence, the human world. That is what we’re doing with what is existentially the question of how to live this life. What is life? The buddha realized it all comes down to “Who?”. Examine the one who covets wealth and rank. Where does that person come from? Where do they go? Right when you are confused and unhappy, in the midst of your very discontent, here is where to take up the question, “What is it?” Within that doubt. Within that unhappiness.”

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 8/20/2023 - The first of the Four Immeasurables is "May All Beings Know Happiness." In encountering this as a practice, we might wonder: is it really possible for all beings to know happiness? Examining this question, Hojin Sensei weaves together poetry, a story of profound forgiveness, and reflections on her own practice of the Four Immeasurables.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 8/19/2023 - What makes effort joyful? In Buddhism, there are many metaphors pointing to the ineffectiveness of extremes: if a lute's strings are too taught or too loose it will not play well. Hojin Sensei invites us to bring a sense of play to exploring this dynamic and aspiring towards joyful effort in our practice.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - 8/25/2023 - What is desire? What is pleasure? Where's the problem? How do we work with desire that is liberative, which doesn't lead to greed or violence?

Chris Yudo Abraham - ZMM - 8/23/2023 - Yudo speaks about the practice of taking refuge, or "throwing ourselves unreservedly" into something, using examples from his own life. What do we take refuge in? And are the things we take refuge in worthy of our precious human life?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/20/2023 - Shugen Roshi officiates the Novice Monastic Ordination ceremony for Julia Jiryu Krupa; a joyful occasion - both a home-leaving and a homecoming - that Master Dogen described as "a day for turning cartwheels." Jiryu is currently the Monastery's Work Supervisor. She became a formal student in 2010, received the Bodhisattva Precepts, and her dharma name Jiryu, in 2019 and became a Postulant in 2021. Today she receives the robe of a monastic and provisionally takes on the five monastic vows. Those vows being simplicity, service, selflessness, stability, and "to live the Buddha Way." In this new context she will continue her discernment and exploration and training for the role of a full monastic before choosing to ask for full ordination.

Dr Eduardo Duran, PhD - 01/31/2023 - An interview with Dr. Ed Duran conducted in January 2023 by MRO students Daniel Onren Latorre and monastic Taikyo Gilman. The topics considered were drawn from previous conversations Ed offered in recent years: with the MRO BIAPoC Sangha on Decolonizing Buddha; and, with the MRO sangha at large, on Decolonizing Awakening On Turtle Mountain. - Ed Duran (Apache/Tewa/Lakota) is a psychologist who has been working in indigenous communities most of his professional career. He is a Vietnam Veteran who started his academic training after being discharged from the US Navy. He has been involved in Buddhist and traditional Native practices for many years, and his work is informed by traditional Indigenous understanding of heart knowing. - Eduardo is the author of Buddha in Redface (Writers Club Press, 2003), a story that deals with these traditions as well as our karmic relationship to the Earth. He is also the author of Healing the Soul Wound: Trauma-informed Counseling for Indigenous Communities and Native American Postcolonial Psychology. He presently lives outside of Bozeman, Montana.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 8/13/2023 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 50 - Yun Men's Every Atom Samadhi - Deeply embedded in the Buddhist path is the activity of meditation. Shugen Roshi talks about this "Gate of Joyful Ease"; all of its intricacy and simplicity. The very act of taking up the posture is in itself an invitation to discover the dharma, discover zazen, discover your mind.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 59 - Zhaozhou's “Why not Quote it Fully?” - Shugen Roshi talks about the nature of speech and thought. Our internal dialog is not harmless, nor neutral. It doesn't just create distractedness, but more significantly it actually is continuing to solidify a certain way of understanding ourselves and the world. But are those words conveying, as we speak internally to ourselves, what is true? Are they helping us?

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZCNYC 8/6/2023 - Hogen Sensei officiates a Jukai Ceremony for three MRO students. Amidst a full zendo at Fire Lotus Temple, these students received the 16 Bodhisattva precepts and the following dharma names: Gale Onjan ("Peaceful Faith") Delaney, Beverly Kyokei ("Offering Kindness") Corbett, and Ravi Baike ("Cultivating Prajna") Mishra.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 07/30/2023 - What does Faith mean and what does it encompass in our Buddhist tradition? In this 3-part series, Shugen Roshi talks about the Aspiration to Awakening Through Faith and its many aspects which are the essentials of Buddhist teachings and practices. How does the aspiration come forth and develop? Shugen Roshi delves into this third type of aspiration for enlightenment; through the consummation, or perfection, of faith.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 07/29/2023 - Shugen Roshi talks about the Aspiration to Awakening Through Faith and its many aspects which are the essentials of Buddhist teachings and practices. In this 2nd of 3 talks, Shugen Roshi looks at realization, suchness; the aspiration to awaken through realizing the Way.

Linda Shinji Hoffman, Senior Lay Student - ZMM - 07/28/2023 - How do we understand suffering in the relationships with those we love? Shinji reflects on three relationships, with the sangha of ZMM, with her life partner, and with her apple orchard: all in the context of the 1st Noble Truth of suffering and her dharma practice.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/27/2023 - What is this quite place in our heart-mind where we can enjoy serenity and tranquility? Do we have to reach for it? Or is it right here? Gokan examines the third of "The Eight Awarenesses of the Bodhisattva".

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 07/26/2023 - What does Faith mean and what does it encompass in our Buddhist tradition? In this 3-part series, Shugen Roshi talks about the Aspiration to Awakening Through Faith and it's many aspects which are the essentials of Buddhist teachings and practices. In this first talk, Shugen Roshi looks at the aspect of understanding; understanding through practicing the Paramitas.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 07/23/2023 - Hojin Sensei brings us back to the breath. And to the Buddha's teaching in the Ānāpānasati (Mindfulness of Breathing) Sutra, looking at the practice of paying attention to our breath - and the fruits of doing so. She reminds each of us to be careful not to take breath practice for granted, citing John Daido Roshi's heartfelt admonition: "If you really give yourself to breath practice, it will take you to the depths you need to go."

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZCNYC - 7/23/2023 - Zen Master Wumen Huikai wrote, "Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life." In this talk, Shoan explores this teaching, which profoundly points to the heart of Zen practice.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 7/16/2023 - Hojin cites the case "Advice of the Caterpillar," written by Daido Roshi on the conversation between Alice and the Caterpillar, from Alice in Wonderland. The Caterpillar asks Alice "Who Are You?" In Zen practice, this is one of the central inquiries: Who are we, really?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/16/2023 - What is it to be satisfied? How much is enough? Can we be satisfied with the way we are right here, right now? Gokan delves into these questions of desire and satisfaction, and brings it back to our zazen, asking: how does our zazen practice help us to understand knowing how to be satisfied? Gokan shares from "The Eight Awarenesses of the Bodhisattva", a succinct teaching the Buddha gave during the last days of his life. Master Dogen also taught the same in his last days in the Shobogenzo Fascicle "Eight Awakenings of Great Beings." And our more recent ancestor Maezumi Roshi made the same admonitions.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/15/2023 - Shoan shares a poem by 14th Century Kashmiri mystic Lalleshwari about "coming home" and asks where do you find yourself in relation to "seeking", "home leaving", "longing"? These activities may seem to imply the need to find, to get somewhere, to be finally satisfied. Yet the non-dual wisdom of Lalleshwari tells us that she's at home when "the truthful one finds me". Lalleshwari seems to say the same thing as Master Dogen: "To carry the self forward and realize the ten thousand dharmas is delusion. That the ten thousand dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightenment."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei- ZCNYC - 07/09/2023 - Hojin Sensei offers a "care package" for uncertainty, interweaving poetry and Dharma teachings. In the midst of the small and large uncertainties of life, fear often arises. Zazen, Hojin says, is a practice of choosing to enter into uncertainty and not-knowing. The poems and teachings she offers invite us into that wondrous, wild space.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/09/2023 - Shoan looks in wonderment at the image of "two arrows meeting in mid-air"... Our seemingly ordinary experience and activity in everyday life is none other than the great universal self, Buddha Mind. Reflecting on a poem from the medieval Buddhist nun Fayuan, Red Pine's commentary on the Diamond Sutra, Master Dogen's Jinzu (Miracles) and Genjokoan (Actualizing the Fundamental Point), the teachings of Kosho Uchiyama, and an essay from Audre Lorde, Shoan expresses it: "May We Realize the Buddha Way Together".

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 07/02/2023 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 17 - The National Teacher Calls Three Times - Shugen Roshi talks about the koan, trust, faith, the student-teacher relationship; the teachings, and questions that bootstrap us onto the Bodhisattva Path. Our journey here calls for the kind of understanding that supports/inspires/guides our activity. And this activity in turn enriches our understanding and the cycle continues. In that sense the aspects of the Noble 8-Fold Path and the 6 Paramitas are interdependent, actualizing together.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 07/02/2023 - Hojin Sensei shares teachings and stories about Patience Paramita. She explores the description of patience given by Larry Ward, a senior teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh's lineage: "patience is the capacity to receive what life gives us." The practice of patience, Hojin says, is humbling, and it has the power to open our hearts and transform intolerance into wisdom and compassion.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 07/01/2023 - In this Jodo-style talk during a Zazenkai, Hojin Sensei delves into Dogen's teachings on zazen. Dogen taught that zazen is not a means to an end - not a meditation technique to achieve something, but "the Dharma gate of joyful ease." Practice and realization are inseparably one and the same. What are the implications of this deep teaching on the way in which we practice?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZCNYC 06/25/2023 - Shugen Roshi offers teachings on Patience, the 3rd of the Paramitas. In the Mahayana tradition, there are three forms of patience that are understood to be essential to the Bodhisattva path: practicing how to hold injuries that come to us, to forebear what is difficult, and to face the true nature of the realities in which we live. In the midst of injustice and frustrations of all kinds, the practice of patience is the revolution that opens up our capacity to respond.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 6/25/2023 - The Bodhisattva Path calls for the kind of understanding/view at the outset which will support/inspire/guide our activity on that path. Hogen Sensei comments on Emily Dickinson's poem "This World is not Conclusion" to help us to see the deep aspects of this understanding.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 6/24/2023 - In this 2nd of 2 talks, Shugen Roshi continues to delve into these 7 characteristics, talking about the challenges we face in really living them, making them truly deeply ours. How do we practice, in a genuine way, to bring these qualities forth, all the while acknowledging the samsaric mind that accompanies our enlightened mind?

Michelle Seigei Spark, Lay Senior MRO Student - ZMM - 6/23/2023 - Senior lay student Seigei talks about the challenges and opportunities of working with the conditions in which we find ourselves.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 6/22/2023 - Over two talks, Shugen Roshi delves into these 7 characteristics and talks about the challenges we face in really living them, making them truly deeply ours. How do we practice, in a genuine way, to bring these qualities forth, all the while acknowledging the samsaric mind that accompanies our enlightened mind?

Robert Rakusan Ricci, Senior Monastic - ZMM 6/21/2023 - What is it in me that wants to persist? Is that what being "me" is? Throughout our lives so much in our culture is teaching us to desire; reinforcing our desires... to continue being "me", to have a "full life"; stayin' alive as the song goes. Where is freedom and liberation in this? Rakusan examines this quandary. What if instead, we STOP and rest from all this activity of Stayin' Alive?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM 6/18/2023 - Where and when do I get the opportunity to see into my true nature, the true nature of things? What hinders my being at peace in the Way? Gokan shares his insight in light of the Sixth century Faith Mind Poem and the teachings of the modern master Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche.

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC 06/18/2023 - Yosha examines the teachings of Zen Ancestor Huineng on "straightforward mind." She speaks about the story of Huineng's Dharma transmission and what it reveals about the cultural beliefs of the time, as well as profound teachings on Buddha nature.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 06/11/2023 - As taught by the Buddha, Right View (or Right Understanding) is the first and foremost of the Noble 8-Fold Path (the N8FP), while at the same time it originates from the dynamic relationship of all eight aspects of the N8FP. i.e. there's an order to the N8FP and there's an interdependence in no particular order as well. This is commonly illustrated by the wheel with eight spokes. Shugen Roshi explains the intricacies of Right View and its importance in grounding us and guiding us clearly along our path.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC 6/11/2023 - What is our relationship to joy, in ourselves and in others? In this talk, Hojin Sensei explores the third of the Four Immeasurables: "May all beings live in sympathetic joy, rejoicing in the happiness of others." She speaks about the challenges and importance of this teaching, especially in the context of our suffering.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 6/04/2023 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 91 - Nanquan's "Peony" - Do we understand what our perceptions actually are? What is happening in the process when we're perceiving and attaching to things? Can we stop and see the continuous dynamic relationships going on?

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC 06/04/2023 - "Zazen" literally means "sitting meditation." And yet Daido Roshi used to say, "Zazen is not meditation, contemplation, visualization, or mindfulness. It's a way of using your mind and living your life and doing it with other people." In this talk, Yunen draws on his own experience to examine the practice of zazen. What is it? Why do we sit zazen? And how does it function in daily life?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 5/28/2023 - How do we live in the context of the teachings of identity of relative and absolute, that the nature of things is fundamentally empty, and non-dual? How does realizing these teachings liberate us? How do we live in the truth of "Birth-and-Death"? How do we live and understand "Every Day is a Good Day"? How do we understand "Ordinary Mind"? Shugen Roshi invites students to take up these questions and engage with him in Dharma Encounter.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 5/27/2023 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 6 - Yunmen's "Every Day is a Good Day" - How is that possible? From what perspective is that so? Can we free the idea of good from our idea of good? And from Master Dogen's teaching "The Great Way of all Buddhas, thoroughly practiced is emancipation and realization." What does it mean to thoroughly practice?

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZMM 5/26/2023 - Yosha offers her insights and shares her heartfelt appreciation of this Spring's Ango practice and study of the Maha-Parinirvana Sutra and two of Dogen's Fascicles Shoji (Birth and Death) and Zenki (Undivided Activity).

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM 05/25/2023 - From Dogen's Extensive Record, # 391: "Life and Death Without Abode" - Hogen Sensei asks... Can we directly look at our life? Which is what we mean when we say "Strive to Awaken"....

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM 05/24/2023 - Shoan talks about 'entering', 'doorways', 'passing through'. To where? Can we see and take up the abundant opportunities offered to us? And how do we actually do that?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 05/21/2023 - From Master Dogen's Treasury Of The True Dharma Eye, Case 289, Daowu's "Alive or Dead" - Shugen Roshi reflects on our understanding of birth-and-death in the context of the Buddha's profound teaching of dependent co-origination.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei ZCNYC 05/21/2023 - How do we navigate this topsy-turvy world without burning out or falling into nihilism? In this talk, Hojin Sensei explores the importance of love in practicing the Bodhisattva path. She shares her own experience and Buddhist teachings on living in an undivided way, embracing the many forms Bodhisattvas can take.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi, ZMM 05/14/2023 - Shugen Roshi speaks about Liturgy and in particular how Oryoki and the Meal Gatha illustrate its beauty, its purpose, and the reality and challenges of our practice in these times.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC 5/14/2023 - For Mother's Day Hojin Sensei introduces us to Ambapali, one of the important female figures in the Buddhist tradition alive during the time of the Buddha. Her enlightenment poem is found in the Therigatha (awakening poems of the elder wise women at the time of the Buddha) where she directly faces and expresses the questions we are inquiring into this Ango about our lives: the questions of birth, aging, sickness, and death. How do we live these realities—these simple recognitions that are with us every moment? How might she show us how to gain access to our heart from her heart? How might the insight she sang in this poem 2,600 years ago in India, reach across time and place and infuse our hearing it sung today? 

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC 05/07/2023 - Hojin Sensei introduces us to the Five Remembrances first found in the Upajjhatthana Suttra. We are encouraged to reflect on these because we will do things that make ourselves and others suffer. We are reminded that we will inherit the results of our actions. Our actions are our continuation. What we do and what happens to us is the same thing.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 05/07/2023 - From the Transmission of the Light, Case 7 - The 6th Indian Ancestor, Mishaka - There are strong karmic currents that keep showing up in our lives: loneliness, insecurity, anger, confusion, amongst many. We can think of them as intractable burdens or we can think of them as the ways each of us are going to work certain things out in this lifetime. Can we keep these close and not separate, and really use them to clarify, to free ourselves and to benefit others?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM, 04/30/2023 - Dharma Encounter at the conclusion of the 2023 Apple Blossom Sesshin - A teaching in the Maha-Parinirvana Sutra uses the metaphor of an island. The Buddha says: "... You should all live with yourselves as your island, yourselves as your refuge, with no other as your refuge, ... with the Dharma as your island..." This may seem to us to be affirming a "me-oriented" culture, reinforcing individualism, etc. On the contrary, Shugen Roshi asks the sangha:  How is that not cutting ourselves off from others? How is that not retreating into our habitual self-clinging, our ego, our impulsive consciousness, our opinions? How is this not putting ourselves first, above others? How is the metaphor of an island not isolating? How do we live this teaching as the Bodhisattva vows? What does this teaching have to do with trust?

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZCNYC 04/30/2023 - Yosha draws upon her life experience to describe the undivided work life. We are encouraged to give life to what's in front of us, just doing that one thing that needs to be done, knowing that that is everything. Doing that one thing is all that we can offer in any moment.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM, 04/29/2023 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 83 - Daowu Tends The Sick - Shugen reflects on this beautifully poetic koan, about seeing clearly into our suffering, into birth-and-death; the wonderful medicine that can be.

Maureen Jisho Ford, Senior Lay Student - Zen Mountain Monastery - 04/28/2023 - Senior lay student Jisho gives a lively talk about her experience with sickness, death, and letting go of that which is ultimately empty of 'self'.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery - 04/27/2023 - Teisho during the Fusatsu of ZMM's Apple Blossom Sesshin - Shugen Roshi reflects on the ever-present intimacy in our lives and the continuous practice of atonement.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Wednesday 4/26/2023 - From Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Fascicle "Shoji" (Birth and Death) - How can the everyday ordinary activity of intimate contact manifest our completeness, our wholeness? Gokan talks about learning how to trust reality in the context of Dogen's fascicle on birth-and-death. Also, Gokan acknowledges with appreciation Charlotte Joko Beck and Merle Kodo Boyd who were both recently added to the ZMM Women Ancestors list.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 4/23/2023 - Shugen Roshi officiates the Spring 2023 Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery. Today, five students - Gashin, Chosei, Juyu, Kyoshin, & Jokai - formally receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts, taking up these living teachings, living vows in the company of the sangha with family and friends. Michael Kaup - Gashin - "Authentic Self"; Malcolm Barrett - Chosei - "Morning Spirit"; Mary Bosakowsky - Juyu - "Gentle Fearlesness"; Deborah Hovland - Kyoshin - "Mirror of Natural Peace"; Scott Forster - Jokai - "Steady Undoing"

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC, Fire Lotus Temple, 04/23/2023 - Hojin Sensei quotes from Hongzhi, Charlotte Joko Beck and teaches how to practice in accord with our true self and our relative self. She invites us to open to the parts of ourselves that proliferate suffering with gentleness and care.

Judy Lief - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 04/16/2023 - Judy Lief, in speaking about our Buddha Nature, gives her humble, direct commentary on the Four Immeasurables**... How do we practice them within our ordinary activity? towards our own sacred selves? - **May all beings be free from suffering and the root of suffering; May all beings know happiness and the root of happiness; May all beings live in sympathetic joy, rejoicing in the happiness of others; May all beings live in equanimity, free from passion, aggression and delusion. These are also called "The Four Limitless Ones". - Judy Lief is a Buddhist teacher who trained under the Tibetan meditation master, Ven. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. You can learn more about her at judylief.com. She led a retreat at ZMM this weekend entitled "Just So—An Introduction to Mahamudra Teachings".

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZCNYC, Fire Lotus Temple, 04/16/2023 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 41 - Zhaozhou's Person Who's Died the Great Death - Shugen Roshi invites us to confront the simple truths of our lives and to honestly and compassionately study them. How do you care very deeply but without entanglement? He says, "One of the greatest expressions of love is to see something as it is."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 04/09/2023 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 62 - Mi Hu's "Enlightenment Or Not?" - From this koan, and quoting Daido Roshi "The way to heaven is heaven itself," and from Thomas Merton's writing on the monastic life which can just as well be applied to lay life, Shugen Roshi encourages us to be mindful, pay attention and see enlightenment here and now in our everyday activities. And be careful, what stuff are we using to put our life together each day?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 04/02/2023 - Dharma Encounter at the conclusion of the 2023 Founding Sesshin; On passages from Dogen's Fascicle "Undivided Activity" and from the Buddha's teaching in the "Maha-Parinirvana Sutra." - Dogen teaches: "Birth is just like riding a boat, although you control the boat you could not ride without the boat..." And the Buddha teaches: "you are your refuge, unto yourself... there is no other refuge..."; "take yourself as your island..." i.e. you have everything you need within yourself... How do we take refuge within ourselves? How is that taking refuge in the three treasures? Dogen refers to the boat as something of our own making. What is that? How are we to be our own refuge when that 'self' that we turn to can be deluded and unclear or untrustworthy? Shugen Roshi and Ango participants take up these questions.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Saturday 04/01/2023 - From Master Dogen's Treasury Of The True Dharma Eye, "Undivided Activity" - "The great way of all buddhas, thoroughly practiced, is emancipation and realization." What is it about this activity that makes it emancipation and realization? What does it look like? Where and when is it happening?

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Friday 03/31/2023 - How can we learn to practice our life through the activity of taking refuge in the three treasures? Shoan reflects on how death and taking refuge are part of our path and she encourages us to soften our hearts to the process.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Thursday Evening 03/30/2023 - Fusatsu Ceremony and Teisho from ZMM's Annual Founding Sesshin - Shugen Roshi reflects on the vows of his teacher when founding the monastery; how they've been alive and thriving, reaching out to us, and inviting us in, as is their nature, to the present day. (Shugen Roshi's talk begins 15 minutes into the ceremony.)

Linda Shinji Hoffman, Senior Lay Student - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Wednesday 03/29/2023 - Shinji reads from 8th century Zen Master Shitou's poem "Inside the Grass Hut" and shares the inspiration she receives from it; pointing out its many teachings as particularly helpful encouragement for practice in sesshin.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 03/26/2023 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 288 - Zhaozhou's "Indestructible Nature" - Shugen Roshi talks about the MRO's newly formed Sangha Harmony Advisory Council; how and why it came about.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 03/19/2023 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 16 - Yün-men: The Sound of the Bell - Setting out on a spiritual path... is it about seeking and finding answers that will put our questions to rest? Or is about seeing deeply, with faith, doubt and determination, in equal measure; relaxing about finding answers and instead cultivating a path of continually living the questions?

Taisho Sands, Lay Student Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Brooklyn 03/19/2023...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Saturday 03/18/2023 - Shugen Roshi offers the rich heritage of teachings on Zazen; this fundamental activity in the practice of Zen Buddhism.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper, New York, Saturday 03/12/2023 - How do we "cultivate a trust in our non-thinking mind"? What happens when you "give yourself over to everyday mind"? Shugen Roshi illustrates these activities beginning with the the story of Deshan's awakening.

Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Saturday 03/11/2023 - Hojin Sensei offers Dharma words and a reading of Dogen's fascicle Zenki, "Undivided Activity" during a Zazenkai at Fire Lotus Temple.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 03/05/2023 - Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of our 90-day Spring Ango training period, "Birth and Death." Preceding Shugen Roshi's dharma talk, you'll hear an 8 minute abridged version of the opening ceremony. If you'd like to learn more about our Ango program and possibly participate, please click here: https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/ango/

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 03/05/2023 - Hojin Sensei opens the Spring 2023 Ango at Fire Lotus Temple. She asks, of this Ango's theme, "Birth and Death," what is birth? what is death? These themes will be explored through readings, liturgy, art practice, and many other offerings at Fire Lotus Temple and Zen Mountain Monastery this Spring.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper, New York, Saturday 03/04/2023 - "Home Leaving" traditionally referred to a person leaving their life behind and becoming a monastic. Shugen Roshi talks about Home Leaving in a deeper, complete sense that applies to all of us on the spiritual path, using the story of Punyamitra and the teachings of Nagarjuna to the writings of Zen Master Hongzhi.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 02/26/2023 - One of the stories of Bodhidharma (the founder of the Zen Lineage) goes this way: that he sat in his cave facing the wall for 9 years. We emulate this during our daily zazen practice. We also say that we're on the Bodhisattva path, actively practicing the way of the Bodhisattva in our daily lives. So what does sitting facing the wall have to do with the activity of the Bodhisattva? What is the "activity of facing the wall?" Shugen Roshi talks about the ways in which we take up this fundamental practice, and asks: What is it to "study the self" as Dogen says? How are we facing our fears? How do we go "beyond the fear of differences?"

Degna Chikei Levister, MRO Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 02/26/2023 - How do we live a life grounded in truth? And how does our conditioning lead us to step outside of ourselves and look for truth elsewhere? Drawing on her own experience on and off the cushion, Chikei discusses the Fourth Grave Precept, "Manifest Truth, Do Not Lie."

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 02/19/2023 - Gokan invokes the Buddha's words on fear and dread, how we can't work through such mental formations and barriers without confronting them. To confront them, we can't run away when we encounter such habitual reactions. We may even need to welcome such disturbances as opportunities to really stop and see what's happening below the thoughts. This is the arena of zazen, where we can experience the bareness of sensation as we relax the mind and learn to trust that, rest in that. Gokan asks, "How much of our thinking is reactivity?" To explore this further, he brings in Yogacara teachings. The late Zen Master Bernie Glassman epitomized these teachings with the refrain, "That's just my opinion," recognizing that any reaction and opinion is based on one's own conditioned perceptions. Gokan concludes by saying, "This is the good news! This is the possibility of liberation."

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 02/19/2023 - Drawing on a story from the Panchatantra, Yunen looks at the Buddha's First Noble Truth. How do we work with the teaching that life is suffering? In what ways do we try to avoid this fact? And what is our intention in practice?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 02/12/2023 - Hojin Sensei reflects on Tilopa's Six Nails, a set of instructions for practitioners composed by the 10th century Buddhist master Tilopa. This talk reminds us to come back to the basics; abandoning thoughts of past, present or future, and not trying to analyze or control. Instead, we can learn to just rest, in our meditation and in our own awakened nature.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 02/12/2023 - From Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Fascicle "Komyo" (Radiant Light) - There are many teachings, elements of study, that help us with our engagement and understanding of practicing the Way. For instance, we need to know about the 5 kleshas, the 6 paramitas, concentration, mindfulness, Vipassana, Shamatha, etc., etc.... We learn about all of that and we're sorted? Liberated? Shoan kindly says no not quite, "it's not like that." So then, how and where do we encounter liberation? She brings in Master Dogen's Fascicle “Radiant Light” to delve into this question.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 02/05/2023 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 33 - Ma-tsu: "No Mind, No Buddha"  - These things we seek and questions we have... What is Buddha? What is enlightenment? What is peace, compassion, ... When we seek something we must know something about it, no? Otherwise how would we know to seek it? Shugen Roshi encourages us to let go of what we think we know; see what happens when we let go of our understanding. Including our understanding of "letting go".

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 02/05/2023 - Hojin Sensei officiates the Novice Monastic Ordination ceremony for Simon Sekku Harrison, surrounded by a full and joyful zendo at Fire Lotus Temple. Novice monastics receive the Bodhisattva Precepts and the Monastic Vows, which Sekku has committed to develop as he continues his discernment of the monastic life.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/29/2023 - From Zen Master Hakuin: "Song of Zazen" - At the conclusion to our New Year’s sesshin, Mn. Gokan explores “Song of Zazen,” an 18th century poem by Master Hakuin Ekaku. This text has served as an inspirational touchstone for generations of practitioners and is even chanted at some Zen temples as part of their daily liturgy. “The gateway to freedom,” Hakuin promises, “is zazen samadhi.” Gokan encourages us to develop "enthusiasm for meeting the rigors of practice" with a “joyful effort.” He summarizes that effort—and Hakuin’s intent—with the following prescription: "Don't grasp, don't crave, don't push away, relax the mind, stop fighting with yourself; be gentle."

Robert Rakusan Ricci, Senior Monastic - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 01/26/2023 - Rakusan delivered this talk in the midst of a sesshin retreat, asking, what is the relationship between prayer and zazen? Both involve reverence, devotion, faith and a willingness to be open to whatever arises in our experience. Rakusan draws on an essay by Ken McLeod called, “Where the Thinking Stops,” and goes on from there to tap several mystic voices, including St. John of the Cross. Another mystic, Leonard Cohen, provides the soundtrack, as it were, to this talk with his 1969 incantation, “Lady Midnight.” Through it all, Rakusan encourages us to keep going above and beyond ourselves and see how and where prayer fills our lives.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 01/25/2023 - From The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (traditionally attributed to Asvaghosa) - What does Faith mean and what does it encompass in our Buddhist tradition? In this 3-part series, based on this text, Shugen Roshi talks about the Aspiration to Awakening Through Faith and it's many aspects which are the essentials of Buddhist teachings and practices.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/22/2023 - On this auspicious day, Shugen Roshi officiated the shukke tokudo ceremony for Jeffrey Kien Martin. Tokudo marks the formal taking of monastic vows and, in our tradition, expresses a lifetime commitment to the Monastery. Kien was given the monastic name Jogo, the meaning of which Shugen Roshi beautifully explains near the end of the ceremony. In short, it can be interpreted as "Steady Strength."

Degna Chikei Levister, MRO Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 01/15/2023 - This talk is part of a special Sunday morning program commemorating the life and teachings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Fire Lotus Temple and Zen Mountain Monastery. - Senior student Degna Chikei Levister draws from Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and gives voice to his compassionate, courageous words and actions. Chikei connects Dr. King's teachings to Buddhist teachings, expanding on his lived message to "attack forces of evil, not persons doing evil" when addressing racism and other forms of oppression.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/08/2023 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 105 - "The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion" - In this New Year's season of reflections and resolutions, Shugen Roshi encourages us to turn our attention toward the great Bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, and to look incisively into how they operates within our own lives.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 01/08/2023 - Hojin Sensei speaks about the simple and profound practice of breathing. The breath, she shares, brings us into the body and into the present, gradually unifying body and mind.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday, New Year's Eve 12/31/2022 - Teisho during the Rohatsu Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony - Shugen Roshi reflects on the vitality of actualized vows in the context of the Paramitas, and urges us to recognize and nurture the basic quality of kindness in our intentions and actions.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Saturday, New Year's Eve 12/31/2022 - Dharma Talk during the New Year's Eve Fusatsu Ceremony - Hojin Sensei welcomes in the new year with a Fusatsu at Fire Lotus Temple. She invokes the power of vows and the importance of choosing them well.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 12/30/2022 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 67 - The Flower Ornament Scripture's "Wisdom" - Shugen Roshi talks about the Scriptures as the Body of Wisdom. That's not simply a metaphor; that's the wisdom of direct experience over the ages. Each and every one of us are intimately included in that living body. We make it whole.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 12/29/2022 - From the Buddha's own life story to contemporary somatic mindfulness, Shoan reflects on how we can recognize and trust the embodied source of our liberation.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 12/28/2022 - From Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Fascicle "Inmo" (Thusness) - From where do the mental states such as greed, anger and ignorance, fear, insecurity, doubt, etc, originate? Do they come to us or from within us? Gokan brings up the stories of Mara, the personification of these negative emotions, or you could say, a bearer of these, or simply, one aspect of yourself. Mara visited the Buddha before, and many times after, his enlightenment, and he/she visits monastics and lay practitioners in many stories in the early sutras. Who is Mara for us? How do we respond to Mara? Gokan reminds us of the profound example of Buddha remaining peaceful and calm while inviting Mara to tea.

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 12/18/2022 - Yunen draws on modern science and a story from the life of Master Dongshan to explore the Buddhist teaching of anatman, or 'no-self.' He also looks at how this central teaching functions in our ordinary, day-to-day lives.

Prabu Gikon Vasan, Senior Lay Practitioner - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 12/18/2022 - On the Candima Sutta: The Moon Deity's Prayer for Protection - Inspired by the Pali Canon Sutta about the "Moon God Candima's Prayer for Protection," Gikon reflects on the process of Refuge. How do we recognize and work with our demons? (Whatever they are for us.) Can we connect our momentary discriminating thoughts to larger cycles of discontent and suffering?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 12/11/2022 - From the Avatamsaka Sutra - A Reading Meditation - Hojin Sensei offers Dharma words from the Avatamsaka (Flower Garland) Sutra, drawing out the importance of being in the world with things, while seeing what they are. She recites an excerpt from the Sutra, accompanied by Stu Pender on guitar. (We think you'll enjoy this valuable reading even though Hojin Sensei's voice is hard to hear above the guitar in some places. We'll improve the balance for future recordings.)

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 12/11/2022 - In our daily liturgy we refer to Prajna Paramita - Perfection of Wisdom - as "The Mother of all Buddhas...dispelling all fears..." Just as a mother naturally soothes her child's pain and fear, can we allow for the possibility of holding and dispelling our own fear when we're open to this wisdom beyond wisdom? Shoan explores this question and more and shares a moving poem by Joy Harjo addressing fear.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 12/10/2022 - From the encouraging words of Robert Aitken Roshi. - From Robert Aitken Roshi, Intimacy, in Zen, is the nature of Practice and its experience. Gokan reflects on how this intimacy manifests via paying attention and keeping our questions open.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 12/04/2022 - Hojin Sensei reflects on a quotation from Dogen Zenji "When you know the place where you are, practice begins." We can view this quotation as an invitation to reflect on the land on which we live, on indigeneity, or on our living in this very body, each as a gateway to seeing more clearly and to liberation.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 12/04/2022 - From The True Dharma Eye, Case 95 - Buddha's "Teachings of a Lifetime" - This Sunday morning we concluded ZMM's weekend zazen vigil in celebration and in gratitude of Buddha's enlightenment. In this dharma discourse, Shugen Roshi reflects on the Buddha's life after and also before his enlightenment, his search, his process, his questions, and his teachings. The story is about all of us together; how we stay true to our intentions, how we bring the dharma into our daily lives.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 11/27/2022 - Beginning with the poem "In Between Your Eyebrows" by Nelly Sachs, Shugen Roshi talks about healing and awakening, the self and mind, giving and receiving; experiencing their equivalence and realizing that we're dwelling in Buddha Nature.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 11/13/2022 - From The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women - "The Old Woman's Miraculous Powers." - How do we view the ordinary acts of our lives? Hojin Sensei examines the ways in which we split our lives into "important" and "unimportant," and the implications of that view. She reminds us of our capacity for wonder, which does not depend on conditions.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 11/19/2022 - From the Koans of the Way of Reality - Dongshan's "How Dirty is the Water" - In the midst of what we think we know, we can be fooled into believing we're seeing clearly. How can we see into our implicit biases, our dualistic, judgmental tendencies and discover a place of equanimity?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday Evening 11/18/2022 - Teisho during the Shuso Hossen Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony - Shugen Roshi talks about the spirit of atonement, and how the grave precepts and the the paramitas, taken to heart, intricately guide us on the Bodhisattva path.

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 11/17/22 - Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) Case 45 - Wu-tsu: "Who Is That Other?" - "Who am I?" and "Who is the Other?" These questions continuously show up in our lives. How do we live them, live with them? Hogen Sensei encourages us to keep them present and open, and alive.

Linda Shinji Hoffman, Senior Lay Student - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 11/16/2022 - Lay senior student Shinji Hoffman shares the poetry of T.S.Elliot and 13th Century Chinese Zen Master Wu-Men, and the practices of 14th century European farmers and other stories looking at the ways in which we think of and perceive, hold and use time and its many facets.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 11/13/2022 - Shugen Roshi officiates the Fall 2022 Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery. Today, five students - Hogetsu, Shinrin, Sonju, Jiko, & Chian - formally receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts, taking up these living teachings, living vows in the company of the sangha with family and friends. Stephanos Hogetsu Koullias ("Liberated Moon"), Walter Shinrin Burton ("Facing Truth / Facing Reality"), Tasha Sonju Ortlof ("Reverent Pearl"), Jesse Jiko Caudill ("Compassionate Peace"), Weston Chian Minissali ("Peaceful Ground")

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 11/06/2022 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 53 - Huangbo's "Dreg-slurpers" - The Buddha said we all have Buddha Nature; we all have an already completely present and perfect enlightened mind, an enlightened nature. Shugen Roshi talks about spiritual practice, the "path of non-attachment" and its meaning in the context of the world in which we live wherein there is such a strong inclination to go against that.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/30/2022 - Dharma Encounter at the Conclusion of the 2022 Harvest Sesshin - In the midst of our delusions, attachments, false views, deep habit patterns, we endeavor to live a life of alleviating suffering, not adding more pain and confusion, wanting to be clear in our actions, wanting to feel that we're doing the right thing... So how can we be confident about that? And what is that confidence; is it trustworthy? How do we practice an enlightening path from within the place where we are? Shugen Roshi takes up these questions with Ango participants in a heartfelt discussion.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 10/29/2022 - From The True Dharma Eye, Case 247 - Ruiyan Calls "Master!" - How do we experience this "all inclusive world"? It's our basic situation; this intimacy that all sentient beings share. But it's hard to have faith in that and we can knot ourselves up and stay in the confines of what we think we know. Shugen Roshi reminds us to ask "What is this", not "Why is this", and to ask "What do we not know."

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 10/28/2022 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 74 - Chin Niu's Rice Pail - Hogen Sensei begins with the dancing, laughing Master Chin Niu. There are routines in and throughout our lives, as it is in the life of the monastery. How do we understand these routines? How do we practice them? And what is it that's reflected in our actions? Is there receiving? Is there offering? Within each of our unique karmic lives, we bring forth our true nature, with awareness or not.

Zen Mountain Monastery - Dharma Talk during the Harvest Moon Sesshin 2022 Fusatsu Ceremony - What is liturgy? Is it bowing? Chanting? Washing the face? What makes something liturgy and what makes something not liturgy? Hojin Sensei speaks on this topic during Fusatsu (renewal of vows) ceremony.

Zen Mountain Monastery - Drawing on a poem by Zen Master Hongzhi, Gokan explores skillful ways to work with deep habit patterns in the mind.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/23/2022 - From the True Dharma Eye, Case 146 - The Sixth Ancestor's "Your Mind Is Moving" - How does understanding bring forth compassion? How do we put to use our "not knowing"? How do we keep from getting mired in duality, right and wrong? Shugen Roshi talks about these important questions beginning with this koan.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 10/23/2022 - Hojin Sensei speaks about Shantideva's "The Way of the Bodhisattva" as a deep teaching about our true nature. She brings alive the meeting point of our Bodhisattva vows and our growing edges, the absolute and the relative, emptiness and form.

Shugen Roshi is joined by Guo Gu Roshi (Dr. Jimmy Yu) for a lively discussion on the topic of the transmission of buddha dharma in America. As the dharma continues to take roots here, how do we sustain it? How do we skillfully institutionalize it? What do we adapt? What do we change?  Guo Gu, a dharma heir of Master Sheng Yen, is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center, Dharma Relief, and a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - From the True Dharma Eye, Case 16 - Changsha's "Returning to Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth" - This talk by Shugen Roshi was offered on the 13th year anniversary of Daido Roshi’s passing. Shugen shares some stories from back in the day and invokes Daidoshi's love for the wilderness, Dogen, and the "Mountains and Rivers Sutra." How do we see and experience challenging relationships and obstructive situations in a skillful way? When faced with so much suffering, greed, and anger, how can we bring forth generosity, patience, loving kindness and compassion? Turning the things of the world  in order to solve the many problems doesn't get to the root. But when we instead turn this body/mind to meet the world just as it is, we discover a peace that reaches everywhere.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 10/09/2022 - Hojin Sensei explores the interconnectedness of buddha nature and mara nature. By envisioning Mara as a Bodhisattva, what can it teach us about the areas we wish to improve in ourselves?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/02/2022 - Dharma Encounter at the conclusion of the Mountains & Rivers Sesshin - How do we practice self doubt? What needs to be understood about this aspect of self? What understanding will serve to free us? How do we understand this in terms of the Four Noble Truths? Shugen Roshi brought up these questions for students to engage with him in Dharma Encounter.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 10/01/2022 - From the True Dharma Eye, Case 148 - Dongshan's "Teachings of the Insentient" - "When we don’t hear the teachings of the insentient the world beyond ourselves can seem dead, inert, and uninteresting. Maybe that’s why we have to keep turning up the volume. And having more and more. And now let’s create worlds that don’t even exist and live in them. What kind of dangerous is this?" - "When we don’t have such moments that reveal to us, that peel back the curtain a little bit and show us there is more right here right now in the most unexpected of places. Of course we expect it in the mountains and beautiful places, but as Donghan said, it’s ceaselessly expounded. Radiantly." - "And so we stop and turn the light around. And look deeply. And make contact. And make contact..."

Rima Vesely-Flad - Zen Mountain Monastery, via Zoom, 09/20/2022 - A seminar with author and teacher Rima Vesely-Flad exploring the themes and questions presented through her research on the distinctive practices of Black Buddhist teachers in multiple lineages as they address an oppressive social context in the U.S. Practices include healing of intergenerational trauma; honoring ancestors and the land; and turning towards the Black body as a vehicle for liberation. Rima also explores how Buddhist teachings and practices are congruent with the emphasis on psychological liberation in the Black Radical Tradition. - Hosted by ZMM and the MRO People of African Descent (PAD) group coordinators, Degna Chikei Levister and Robin Wells, and ZMM abbot Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi. - Rima Vesely-Flad’s most recent publication is Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 09/30/2022 - Recognizing our afflictions, our kleshas (states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc...) Can we appreciate them? How can we use them? Can we get close up and allow ourselves to be vulnerable? Shoan reflects on this "Gate of Vulnerability." Without our own share of difficulty and pain, would we be embarking on a path of waking up? That's why the human realm is considered so auspicious, because if you're born in the god realm, life is so good you don't do anything to actually liberate yourself. As Thich Nhat Hanh said: "No mud, no lotus."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday Evening 09/29/2022 - Dharma Talk during the Mountains and Rivers Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony - Buddhism speaks of the "Bodies of the Buddha." For instance, Master Dogen, in his Fascicle The Moon, speaks of the Boundless Body and the Buddha Body. Shugen Roshi reflects on how the Fusatsu ceremony invokes these bodies, and how, when we are practicing the dharma, they begin to appear from within our own vows, out of our selflessness... "So we return to these vows, these precepts. We reflect, we invoke the names of the Buddha, the four vows, the three treasures... to remember again, and align ourselves with what is important... it is not a rule, it is not a creed, it's not even Buddhism, not at it's heart... but you could say it's you."

Ely Seiryu Rayek, Senior Lay Student - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 09/28/2022 - Seiryu offers his understanding of the dharma of everyday life, dependent co-origination; the practical reality of ceaseless becoming.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/25/2022 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 75 - Ruiyan's "Constant Principle" - We might normally think we understand that nothing lasts, everything is impermanent, yet we suffer from our misunderstanding of this all the time, for instance when something happens and we react thinking oh, this is forever, this is the way it's going to be from now on, I am this, I am that,.... This is why it's so important to deeply study our suffering; not just know that we suffer, but to deeply study the intricate details of how we suffer.

Chris Yudo Abraham, Senior Lay Student - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday  09/18/2022 - From Shunryu Suzuki: "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" - What is beginner's mind? Where is beginner's mind?  Yudo describes his path in zen practice as one of appreciating Beginner's Mind and the constant returning to Zazen as the heart of it.

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 09/18/2022 - Yunen offers insight into the thusness of negative experiences and emotions. He explores what comes when we allow sad to just be sad, tribulations to simply be tribulations.

Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 09/25/2022 - Yosha expounds on the Karaniya Metta Sutta and it's applications in our everyday lives.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/11/2022 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 35 - The Dialog of Manjusri and Wu Cho "In the first moment of contact, what we see, what we hear, is not obscured. Sound and form are purely real, they are just as they are, they are not anything other. But our mind, in an instant, before we know it, without our seeing it, floods that image or that sound or that taste, or touch, with all of our mind’s karmic burden. All our perceptions, our views, our beliefs, our memories, and so on. While our senses simply perceive things, non-obscured, our mind then begins to in a flash obscures and gives meaning, which is taught. Everything in society teaches us what those things mean. All of those ways we separate and exclude and include and create conflict and wealth and poverty, the whole mass of suffering." "To be able to separate the profound from the naive, to distinguish a jewel from a stone, is actually necessary. If we can’t discern within our own practice of what is practice according to the dharma and what is not, what is a serving or habitual desire, and what is an impulse or sense of a direction that we can trust, it’s going to be very difficult to practice. So we need to learn how to distinguish. But to do so without malice, without ill will. With clarity. And without infusing a sense of absolute truth into those things that we are discerning."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/04/2022 - Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of our 90-day Fall Ango Intensive training period, "Moon Thusness." If you'd like to learn more about our Ango program and possibly participate, please click here: https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/ango/

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 09/04/2022 - Hojin Sensei offers opening reflections on the Fall 2022 Ango training period, introducing the primary texts that training students will be working with as well as the themes of art practice, nature contemplation, and Dogen's Fascicle "The Moon."

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/28/2022 - From the Mahayana teaching The Uttaratantra Shastra - The Sangha Treasure - Shugen Roshi encourages us to look deeply and realize the three treasures as our own nature, our own body and mind. And although we manifest them (how we relate to the ancestors, how we receive the teachings, how we practice, how we gather together as a community, etc.) in terms particular to the Buddhist path, when we truly take refuge in the three treasures we are realizing them as the nature of all of humanity. No boundaries. Sangha is community. We can think of it as "the sangha of one"; i.e. you and the many beings that populate your mind and body. We can think of it as this community practicing together. Sangha is the virtue of harmony. Sangha is the Three Treasures.

Degna Chikei Levister, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 08/28/2022 - Chikei Levister explores practicing in the midst of our busy lives. She discusses harnessing attention as a means to better understand our anxiety and fear of missing out.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 08/27/2022 - From the Mahayana teaching The Uttaratantra Shastra - The Dharma Treasure - "Dharma" refers to The Law, The Teachings, Reality. But what is it actually, beyond the superficial? Shugen Roshi explores all the many aspects of Buddhist practice which together bring us to a true encounter with the Dharma.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 08/26/2022 - From The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind - "The Buddhas and all living beings are only one Mind. There is no other reality." Shoan uses Huang-Po's teachings to reflect on the notion of progress in Zen training, encouraging us to relax and let go of this kind of seeking and instead use our wholehearted practice as a way of open discovery. Have faith and trust yourself!

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 08/25/2022 - Yunen explores how "emptiness is form" is expressed and illustrated in the Vimalakirti Sutra and shares his appreciation of its relationship to practice.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 08/24/2022 - From the Mahayana teaching The Uttaratantra Shastra - The Buddha Treasure - What is it that makes Buddhist meditation, liturgy, teachings, practices, the precepts that we follow, the vows that we take, a path to liberation? And how is it that we can awaken to the three treasures - the Buddha, Dharma & Sangha - in our everyday lives? Shugen Roshi encourages us to see the Buddha Treasure right within ourselves.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/21/2022 - One way or another, we've all experienced impermanence; we all know that we're going to die... And we don't know. How is that? How do we maintain that? Dharma Holder Gokan shares his poignant reflections on the Five Remembrances and the continuous practice of impermanence.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 08/21/2022 - What role does space and spaciousness play in our practice? How can we cultivate space, and work with blockages? In this talk, Shoan speaks about the art of attuning to what isn't here - the space that permeates our physical universe and experience, yet is often harder to notice than the concrete manifestations of our world and mind. To the extent that we can allow this natural space, we open ourselves to relief, freedom, and joy.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/14/2022 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 16 - Magu Shakes His Staff - Why do we practice mindfulness, why do we develop concentration, why do we do meditation? These and other aspects of practice... What do they bring us to? Shugen Roshi asks us to look carefully about what we think we're after; what are we aiming for? For instance, how do we manifest compassion, living in a world of good and evil, without creating more entanglements, without getting caught in the realm of right and wrong?

Chikyuu Donohue, Lay Student Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Brooklyn 08/14/2022...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/07/2022 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 8 - Hsi-chung Makes Carts - The Buddha realized, and taught, that it is our sense of self, our sense of our individual person within, that is the source of everything we create that causes distress and confusion and unhappiness. Salvation from this dukkha is not about finding a way out of it but about finding a way into it. If we want to actually free ourselves we have to practice freeing ourselves right now, just now.

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 08/07/2022 - In this talk, Yunen explores Dogen's teachings on zazen through his Fukanzazengi. One of Dogen's central questions was "If all beings possess the Buddha nature, then what is the need for vigorous practice?" Yunen interweaves an account of Dogen's life with an inquiry into how he practiced this Great Doubt.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/31/2022 - Our own beliefs, conventional wisdom, our enculturated consciousness; these encompass the paths we follow in life. As practitioners of The Way, Shugen Roshi encourages us to look carefully into and through this conditioning and see that what we're moving towards is already here. - Concluding his talk, Shugen Roshi offers a poem in tribute to the Woman of Taishan: On the road to Mount Taishan a Tea Dragon serves illness and medicine for the well-being of the thirsty traveler. Please don't be deceived by her humble appearance. She has the power to change a life in an instant. Don't feel the need to adorn her humble appearance. She is majestic and noble, just as she is. Can you hear? Oh, person of the way, which road will you take to the great and calling mountain? - (The Woman of Taishan appears in a koan in both The Book of Serenity, Case 10, and The Gateless Gate, Case 31.)

Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 07/31/2022 - How can we bring alive appreciation in our practice? Yunen speaks to cultivating appreciation that does not depend on external circumstances. He brings in the Meal Gatha as an expression of our interdependence and an example of liturgy that can cultivate great appreciation.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 07/30/2022 - What is our understanding of Conventional Wisdom, or Relative Truth in Buddhist parlance, as it makes up what we call "the self"? Shugen Roshi brings in the writing of Marcus Borg, the American Christian Theologian, and examines what we are doing when we undertake the extensive project of "studying the self."

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 07/29/2022 - From the the Sutra of Hui-Neng (The Platform Sutra of the 6th Ancestor), Hui-Neng himself describes his realization: "I thought there was an I who sees and hears. That was a great mistake. It's only a sound perceived with a mind resting in no place. Now I understand there is no birth or death. This wide open state of mind is my original mind. The mountains, the rivers, the sun and the moon are all me." - Shoan brings up this fundamental teaching of "no-self"... OK. So, there is no self. And yet here I am. How do we hold these "two truths"? And our sense of identity... How does it come to us? And why does it often become such a seemingly unresolvable entanglement? Shoan encourages us to be mindful and patient and to hold our stories loosely.

Linda Shinji Hoffman - Zen Mountain Monastery - Lay senior Shinji Hoffman draws on her experience as a farmer to help explain the Buddha's teaching on the twelve-link chain of dependent origination, the teaching that everything arises due to causes and conditions. How can we use this teaching to transform our karma? How do we stop causing suffering for ourselves and others? Shinji gives examples of how to shift our deep negative habits at the chain link of feeling.

Robert Rakusan Ricci, Senior Monastic - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 07/27/2022 - The three messengers: old age, sickness, and death. Why do we call them messengers? What do they tell us? Do we listen? And how do we respond? In this poetic offering, Rakusan talks about how he holds his personal encounters and experience of the three messengers in light of Master Dogen's teachings (...to study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self....) along with the wisdom of Leonard Cohen ("Who by Fire"). Rakusan gently admonishes us to heed the call of the three messengers and give voice to our Bodhisattva vows.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/24/2022 - How do we truly take care of each other? How do we truly take care of ourselves? How do we do both at the same time? Is there a difference? How do we soften any opposition that might arise? Gokan shares his own experiences and mindfulness practices while exploring these questions.

Tenfu Loisel, Lay Student Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Brooklyn 07/24/2022...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 07/17/2022 - Hojin Sensei speaks on Chapter 7 from the Vimalakirti Sutra entitled "The Goddess." In this chapter, Manjushri asks Vimalakirti , "How should we regard living beings?" Hojin Sensei offers insight into the harm done through the oppression of particular human embodiments. She shares teachings on how to honor all aspects of ourselves and others: sameness and difference as one reality.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/17/2022 - Shoan reflects on what it is that we're doing and why it matters. How does "looking inward", rather than just outward, help us navigate our life? Shoan brings in three "boat parables" to illustrate. From Master Dogen's Genjokoan, Charlotte Joko Beck's "Everyday Zen", and a poem by 17th century Chinese nun Jingnou in "Daughters of Emptiness".

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery - Drawing from 12th century Zen Master Hongzhi, monastic and dharma holder Gokan provides us with guidance on turning inside and entering into our zazen practice. What does practicing true reality mean? How do we bring our life into the immense reality that it is?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/10/2022 - From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 82 - Ta Lung's "Hard and Fast Body of Reality" - In this crucible of our lives today, so full of so much, why, in Buddhism is there an emphasis on realizing emptiness? Similarly, why does realizing the nature of the self liberate us from our attachments? At the same time, we speak of the body of reality. That doesn't sound very empty, and we're certainly attached to our own bodies, the living manifestation of impermanence. So what is our true body, our body of reality? We speak of the three bodies of the buddha: Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya. Can we understand these as aspects of ourselves?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 07/10/2022 - How can we recognize the mechanics of proliferation in our thoughts? How can we skillfully meet the "grasper" in our minds? In this talk, Hojin Sensei speaks to the natural capacity of our mind to proliferate and the similarly natural capacity to make space. She draws upon the practice instructions of Zen master Hongzhi in The Bright Boundless Field.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/03/2022 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 44 - Pa-chiao and a Stick - "What is it that we attach to? Anything that is perceived as being outside ourselves becomes an object and therefore becomes a very likely candidate for clinging. Because to grasp at anything, it has to be ‘not me’. So what’s actually being grasped in our grasping? Is it the object? So there is something that I want. It might be an object, a car, clothing, a plate of food, a house, a person. It could be anything. Am I grasping at the object itself? Or am I grasping at my idea of the object? Or am I grasping at my desire for the object? Or am I grasping at whatever I want that object to do for me? Whatever I want to get from it: happiness, satisfaction, a thrill. Or am I grasping at what I want all of that to make me feel about myself? Worthy, capable, intelligent, smart, successful. What are we actually grasping at?"

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 07/03/2022 - What is sincere practice? How can we look at ourselves and the world honestly and gently? Hojin Sensei speaks about the role of sincerity in Zen practice and how to enter every moment with a sincere heart.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 06/26/2022 - Drawing from the teachings of Longchenpa (14th Century Tibet), Shantideva (8th century India) and Dogen (13th century Japan) Shugen Roshi speaks of The Four Immeasurables. He reminds us of the importance of reciting them as a practice each morning. The recitation is a raising of intention, a setting of our attitude - an attitude of love, compassion, sympathetic joy and impartiality. What's next? Shugen Roshi encourages us to keep that intention in mind all day long, to "set out" to actualize them for others and ourselves in our everyday activities, continuously practicing and opening, with the guidance of the precepts and the Six Paramitas (Giving, Discipline, Patience, Diligence, Concentration and Wisdom.)

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 06/25/2022 - Drawing from the teachings of Shantideva (8th century India), Dogen (13th century Japan) and Longchenpa (14th Century Tibet), Shugen Roshi speaks of bodhicitta, the wish to realize enlightenment for the benefit of others. "This bodhicitta is not something. It’s alive, it’s inexpressible, it’s inconceivable. It doesn’t belong to buddhism but buddhism understands it profoundly, and we have our own language for it. It’s available to every person but you cannot possess it. You can’t lose it. But it can grow dim. It is born from faith, it is nurtured by faith, it is verified by faith, within ourselves. Bodhicitta requires an opening, a softening, to find its way in to our discerning mind that is beyond calculation. Where does this come from? In response to affinity between the dharma and the student. You feel it when it’s there. You know it. You may not understand it, be able to express it. But there is something going on. Something is stirring, something is coming together. It’s as if it is something you already know. It is not a stranger. But it is strange..."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 06/24/2022 - How do we relate to all that comes up in our everyday life - our "ingredients" - and what are the attitudes with which we conduct ourselves? How do we practice our lives? Hojin Sensei guides us through Master Dogen's "Tenzo Kyōkun - Instructions for the Cook", and explores Dogen's "Secrets of Enlightenment": 1) Living with a joyful heart 2) Caring with the deep concerns of a parent 3) Performing all activities with compassion.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 06/22/2022 - From Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Fascicle "King of Samadhis" - We speak of Samadhi as being meditation, concentration, single-minded focus. In this talk Shugen Roshi points out that in the Buddhist sense Samadhi is based in morality and compassion. It's not separate. It's one aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path, all eight of which are to be cultivated together.

Zen Mountain Monastery - From The Book of Serenity, Case 70 - Jinshan Asks About Nature - "What happens in the moments when the self has been seen through and we are still being held back? In that moment, that which has been seen is not being actualized. Having tamed the untamed, having freed the buddha from its entanglements, those entanglements still have energy, still have life. That’s why the idea that we can practice, apply effort, have an experience that we call enlightenment and be done is a false idea. What is this whole idea of being ‘done’. If you’re an artist, when are you done? If you’re a school teacher, a parent, when are you done? Not just done in the sense that there is something more to do, but done in the sense of strengthening your strength, refining your skill..."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 06/12/2022 - Hojin Sensei and Hogen Sensei officiate the June 2022 Jukai ceremony at Fire Lotus Temple in which four students received the sixteen Buddhist precepts: Marie Ninsei ("Patient, Enduring Heart Vow") Ringo, Dan Chikyuu ("Endlessly Clarifying Enlightenment") Donohue, Tate Kairyu ("Open Dragon") Dougherty, Stu Shintai ("Percevering Faith Mind") Kennedy. Ninsei, Chikyuu, Kairyu, and Shintai have all been practicing as formal students and studying these moral and ethical teachings for a number of years. During the ceremony, Hojin Sensei and Hogen Sensei offer joyful encouragement to the recipients as they take up these vows.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 06/12/2022 - With the teaching of Bodhidharma's "Outline of Practice" and recalling Daido Roshi's frequent admonition: "trust yourself", Gokan offers us heartfelt encouragement to make these teachings our own.

Zen Mountain Monastery - From The Book of Serenity, Case 12 - Dizang Planting the Fields - "How do we stop our seeking that which is outside and turn the light around? How do we learn how to investigate in a way that is nonconceptual? How do we use this mind? This bright, clear, sharp, awake, miraculously aware mind? We have to bring it out of its dullness, sleepiness and lethargy. All of which are good strategies to live in a world that’s kind of hard to live in. Just shut it down. It makes sense. Lower the curtain, put up a wall, close the door. It seems to be quieter. But it’s not really a life yet. And so, in opening the curtain, opening the door, turning on that bright clear light, now we have to learn how to meet pain and sorrow. Inside and outside."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 06/05/2022 - How can we hold the beauty and love in our life and the deep human suffering? In this talk, Hojin Sensei invokes the story of Patachara, one of the earliest Buddhist women ancestors: within a life of immense loss and grief she followed her heart, awakened, and became an influential teacher. Hojin Sensei also recognizes the 22nd anniversary of Fire Lotus Temple and all those who have devoted their time and energy to establishing and maintaining this refuge.

Zen Mountain Monastery - Dharma Encounter at the Conclusion of the Ocean Gathering Sesshin (and concluding the Spring Ango) - Using the Parable of the Good Physician from the Lotus Sutra, Shugen Roshi brought up questions for students to engage with him in Dharma Encounter. How can we be skillful when we are under the sway of our defilements and we don't want to turn towards the medicine? How do we help others when they don't want to take the medicine? When someone perceives medicine as poison, what is skillful? These and other question were engaged in live, unrehearsed dialog at the end of our 90 day ango training period.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 05/28/2022 - From Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Fascicle "Bussho: Buddha Nature" - When do the seeds of our practice ripen? Will our Buddha Nature appear at some moment in the future, or is it present now and we just don't see it? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the relationship between practice and time, how we practice for the now and observe the cause and effect of our karma over time.