Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/12/25 - Gateless Gate, Case 16: The Bell's Sound and the Priest's Robe - We have these forms in Zen for meditation, for liturgy, for taking a meal and for practicing the dharma together. But what use is a form? How can we use forms without getting caught up in the form itself? To benefit from Zen practice as a vehicle to liberate ourselves from grasping at forms—or at anything—is to learn to shift as conditions change within every aspect of our lives.
Jan 12, 2025•39 min
Ikyo Love, MRO Student - 1/12/25 - "Making it my own."
Jan 12, 2025•28 min
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Dharma Holder - 1/11/25 - Freeing ourselves of the suffering born of strong emotions, how do we keep the heart open and able to feel without overwhelm or shutting down? And how do we establish concentration and find the vast capacity of our minds? Gokan brings forth the grounded, supported way of being awake to all that is unfolding in “the immense reality” that is our lives.
Jan 11, 2025•21 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 1/5/25 - From the Blue Cliff Record, Case 52 - Entering the new year, we can reflect on how we are holding our practice, how it supports our connection with others, and whether we are clear on our aspiration to practice well. To take up the practice of selflessness means we let go of high and low, better than and less than, to learn from every scrap of the dharma on how to free ourselves and others. Shugen Roshi takes up this teaching of the old Buddha Joshu to il...
Jan 05, 2025•39 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 1/5/2025 - What are we seeking? The spiritual journey is a path of discovering our true nature. The Ten Ox Herding pictures are a pictorial depiction of the Zen training path of enlightenment. Hojin begins this talk with a live painting of the first oxherding picture: Searching for the Ox, followed by a talk on this beginning stage of training: feeling an "offness" in our life, the raising of the Bodhi Mind, and the sense that some kind of search is on! Watch ...
Jan 05, 2025•47 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/31/24 - All conditioned things are dukkha, but we are not bound by them nor are we limited by them. The Noble Path, which has come to us through others, works in any and every situation. We have Buddha Mind; we have pure undefiled nature. This is the way to offer the world some goodness through our aspirations and practice, and live a life without regret.
Jan 01, 2025•35 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - 12/30/24 - This Fusatsu talk was given on the evening before New Years Eve to the sangha at Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn on how practice is not linear and moves in a circle or spiral pattern. The Bodhisattva Vows behold the direction.
Jan 01, 2025•44 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 12/30/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 100 - How does the purity of Buddha Nature still give rise to all the havoc, confusion, and suffering in our human lives? In this talk given during the Rohatsu sesshin, Shugen Roshi takes up this fundamental question: if all is emptiness and impermanence, what is it that needs to be done to experience the ‘peaceful dwelling’ within samsara, and to liberate all beings within the phenomenal world?
Dec 30, 2024•44 min
Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 12/29/24 - On a liberative path, we know we want to feel better but the enormity of the task, and the continuous “undoing” that it promises, can give pause. Shoan Osho explores the conditions of the Buddha’s enlightenment experience, and brings to the center Sujata’s role as the nourisher of life, as well as the cosmic female image of Prajna Paramita, the Mother of all Buddhas. Such images are in fact an emanation of each of us, our many forms of no-form, and ar...
Dec 29, 2024•38 min
Kien Martin, MRO Monastic - ZCNYC - 12/29/24 - A Path of Faith, Doubt and Determination.
Dec 29, 2024•28 min
Prabu Gikon Vasan, Senior Lay Practitioner - ZMM - 12/28/24 - In the Buddha’s early sutras there are teachings which encourage an honest assessment of our state of being, no matter what the circumstances, as the very stuff of our liberation. Senior lay student Gikon explores how dharma practice supports this sometimes difficult but deeply freeing inquiry into our state of being, be it health or any mind state, and the liberating practice at our fingertips within samsara.
Dec 28, 2024•30 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/22/24 - How do we practice ideals such as “morality” and “equality” and bring them to life? Invoking Wendell Berry’s text The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice, Shugen Roshi explores how words are too often used without clarity about their function in real life events, and how this is a fundamental aspect of the Buddha’s teaching, that words and reality are in alignment.
Dec 22, 2024•40 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/22/24 - Hojin Sensei introduces us to Ancestor Mugai Nyodai, the first woman Rinzai Abbot in the Zen tradition from 13th century, Japan. Referring to a story from The Hidden Lamp: Chiyono’s “No Water, No Moon”, Hojin brings up this ability to exercise our freedom to keep things together or let things come apart all according to circumstances.
Dec 22, 2024•41 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/15/24 - We are continuously receiving from our ancestors, “bringing us the Dharma here and now.” To see ourselves as part of the continuous body of interconnecting, interdepending, and interpenetrating members—past, present, and future—is one of the functions of Buddhist training and meditation practice. When we know this, sense this, the natural response is to bring our ancestors forth and look at them in veneration. We formally bow and meet them, which is...
Dec 15, 2024•50 min
Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 12/15/24 - A poem by Zen monastic hermit Ryokan brings inspiration for this talk from Shoan Osho. Ryokan communicated Zen and Buddhist teachings through everyday encounters, directly expressing awakened nature, or Buddha nature. Shoan explores how this awakened nature, inseparable from the natural world, comes to life in taking care of what is around us and from taking care of ourselves and each other.
Dec 15, 2024•39 min
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/14/24 - This talk explores how the minimal instructions for Zen practice that have been handed down to us from Dogen Zenji encourage us to be with what is, as it arises, without fixing or adding extra. “Realizing the fundamental point, it is practice realization,” Dogen wrote. We are encouraged to “let go of all involvements,” take care of the body and mind and all that arises, and let the practice of zazen support our true self...
Dec 14, 2024•33 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi ZMM - 12/08/24 - Having exhausted all the methods that were available at the time, Shakyamuni Buddha turned toward a new path, a simple seclusion and inward turning of mind. He received nourishment from Sujata and courageously defeated Mara on the path of liberation. This inspiring tale is retold by Shugen Roshi on the occasion of the annual Buddha’s Enlightenment Vigil.
Dec 08, 2024•42 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/08/24 - Today is Bodhi Day, the commemoration of the enlightenment of Siddhartha; a day in which the possibility of not just spinning in confusion, reactivity and fathomless separation is celebrated. Hear about Siddhartha's resolve to discover the root of why we suffer and the nature of existence. Hear about the key figures who supported him at crucial moments on a path without which he most likely would not have made it to Buddhahood. Who has been signific...
Dec 08, 2024•52 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/01/24 - From Master Wu-Men's Gateless Gate, Case 12 Jui-yen Calls "Master" - How does our sense of self come about? Does it happen automatically and, if so, is it illusory? The aim of zen practice is to cut through the illusion, see the self and other as an interdependent whole and therein recognize our true identity.
Dec 01, 2024•46 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/01/24 - In Master Hongzhi's practice instruction, The Misunderstanding of Many Lifetimes, he points us in the direction of seeing the fusion-identification with our emotions, which is illusory. How do we understand our emotions, accept our situation and open to the spiritual energy which can transport us to realize our true identity, our buddha nature?
Dec 01, 2024•45 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/23/24 - Letting go of our grasping mind is wisdom itself. Yet it’s difficult to understand “wisdom” as a quality we embody, in part because wisdom is devoid of self-nature and cannot be grasped. But if there is no self, for whom do we extend compassion? Who receives the benefits? Conventional existence and the ultimate nature are both true, and holding both is the expression of wisdom and compassion.
Nov 23, 2024•54 min
Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student - ZMM - 11/22/24 - Exploring the focus of the 90-day training period as “peaceful dwelling,” senior lay student Yosha looks at how we can bring our presence and practice to all situations, even worldly activity which is fraught with disagreements and controversy.
Nov 22, 2024•42 min
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - ZMM - 11/21/24 - From The Book of Equanimity, Case 30 - Daizui's Fire at the End of the Kalpa - Practice offers a way for cutting through dualities within which we tend to get lost, as all of our lives are based on these dualities. Hogen Sensei challenges us to see from a larger perspective, a way which inherently challenges dualistic ways of being in the world. Within this practice, how do we understand the permanence of Buddha Nature which is not a “thing”?
Nov 21, 2024•49 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/20/24 - Drawing from the wisdom chapter of Shantideva’s teachings and other sources, Shugen Roshi brings out the subtle distinctions between craving-as-a-hindrance and aspiration. By seeing into the true nature of all reality, we can free ourselves from the endless cycles of clinging and attachment without needless confusion about what we call “the self,” and live within our true home.
Nov 20, 2024•49 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 11/17/24 - We often ask ourselves in response to outside conditions: what do we do now? Our typical reactive, worrying state is often laying on extra trouble as we search for ways to act, to respond. While we have intrinsic, perfect buddha nature and can rely on this, we also live in the midst of strong forces of karma: karmic actions and conditions. There are things in this world of samsara that are deeply challenging, but how we experience them is key to how we ...
Nov 17, 2024•44 min
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 11/17/24 - Continuing with Bodhidharma’s teachings on the "Two Entrances", dharma holder Gokan explores how “all inclusive practice” includes even our struggles, our discomfort. He asks, when does “practicing the dharma” actually happen? And when are habits, views and the tendency to control taking over? We can use this teaching to investigate what it means to engage, fully, this opportunity to practice.
Nov 17, 2024•44 min
Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - 11/15/24 - Our ordinary life experiences are what we work with in practice; “a lifetime of alchemy” as Shoan Osho notes in this Fusatsu talk. This ancient practice gives us the tools with which to transform karma, in how we can recognize, acknowledge, and atone for our actions. In this way we can heal and live fully in accord with reality: our true Buddha nature.
Nov 16, 2024•22 min
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 11/10/24 - Shugen Roshi officiates the November 2024 Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery. Today, four students formally receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts, taking up these living teachings, living vows in the company of the sangha with family and friends: Jill Kisho Hamer (Radiant Star), Jonathan Dokan Caronia (Way of Simplicity), Graeme Eikan Daykin (Realizing the Unconditioned), Maureen Eishun Kemeza (Eternal Spring)
Nov 10, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei 11/9/24 - Hojin Sensei introduces this chant, an essential means to connect body and mind, to draw out our inherent love and kindness, always needed, especially now. If you don't already have it, you can download the Sutta here: https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/liturgy/karaniya-metta-sutta/
Nov 09, 2024•13 min
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/3/24 - Hojin Sensei encourages us to stay focused, remain alert and aware and to not run away from what comes up. To turn towards practice. To remember that we each have good medicine as practitioners to meet our life, to protect and guard the mind of goodness. Then in turn to offer the Bodhi mind of love, wisdom and transformation.
Nov 07, 2024•41 min
