The Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) is a Western Zen Buddhist lineage established by the late John Daido Loori Roshi and dedicated to sharing the dharma as it has been passed down, generation to generation, since the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. Zen Mountain Monastery, the main house of the Mountains and Rivers Order, is one of the West’s most respected Zen Buddhist monasteries and training centers. Nestled in New York’s beautiful Catskill Mountains, the Monastery draws its strength from the ...
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“The Bodhisattva Path and The Paramitas” – Fall 2024 Ango Opening Talk at ZMM
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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."By Zen Mountain Monastery
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“Going Straight on an Ever-Twisting Path” – Fall 2024 Ango Opening Talk at ZCNYC
47:29
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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."By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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…
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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?By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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 chan…
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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…
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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—whic…
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Feeding Not Fighting: Meeting Machig Labdrön
45:04
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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 enthusiast…
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Tokudo: Monastic Ordination for Sekku Harrison
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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.By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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 ex…
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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 abou…
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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.…
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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, c…
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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.…
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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.…
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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 ourse…
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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 clea…
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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 o…
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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 …
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Noble Path Talk – Tenfu Loisel – June 2024
53:27
53:27
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Zabeth Tenfu Loisel, Lay Student - ZCNYC - 6/30/24 - How precious! The sangha treasure.By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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…
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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.…
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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 nor…
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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 d…
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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 mee…
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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 dail…
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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 …
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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 p…
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What me Worry? The Fourth Hindrance – Restlessness and Worry
41:44
41:44
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Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/9/24 - The five hindrances are the obstacles that prevent us from settling into the precision and stillness of our bodymind. In this talk, Hojin explores the fourth hindrance—restlessness and worry—and examines the various ways that we can work with it primarily by paying close attention to what’s going on in o…
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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 mou…
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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-conce…
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Chikyuu Donohue, Lay Student Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 06/02/2024By Zen Mountain Monastery
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A Conversation with Butoh Teacher Vangeline
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35:48
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In this podcast interview, Monastic Hokyu Aronson speaks with guest instructor Vangeline about embodied movement...By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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…
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Noble Path Talk — Sandy Joshin Del Valle, May 2024
31:04
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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.By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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.…
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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 eluc…
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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…
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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.…
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Four Methods of Guidance: Call and Creative Responses of Fire Lotus Sangha
36:11
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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.…
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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?By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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?By Zen Mountain Monastery
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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.…
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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 Rosh…
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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 com…
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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.”By Zen Mountain Monastery
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Dharma Encounter: On the Courage to Listen
1:18:51
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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 …
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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 i…
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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.…
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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.By Zen Mountain Monastery
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