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The Mountain Record

  • Inside the Cloistered Cloister

    The pandemic changed so much for so many. For Zen Mountain Monastery, the imperative clearly became, how to maintain the refuge of our practice center, while staying healthy, sane, and available to all…

  • Two Statements from the MRO responding to the ongoing killing of Black People in our country

    Two statements—the first from the MRO People of Color Affinity Group, and second from Shugen Roshi and the white members of the BFoD Planning Group—were posted here in response to the surge in violence against men and women of color, and the persistence of unjust, white supremacist systems of oppression which remains invisible to the…

  • Covid-19 Enso Healing Altar

    By Taikyo, Mariana and Laurel The Enso Healing Altar is like many home altars—symbolic and grounding—created as a personal space to share with others. It came into being early in the ZMM pandemic quarantine, first as a conversation between two nurses in residence about grief, gratitude, fears and hopes for a future that could transform…

  • Uppalavanna’s Courage

    This dharma discourse by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold is excerpted from Mountains & Rivers: Zen Dharma and Practice, 2020 available here. The bhikkhuni Uppalavanna said to Mara the Evil One: Though a hundred thousand rogues just like you might come here, I stir not a hair, I feel no terror; Even alone, Mara, I don’t fear…

  • One Continuous Thread: Virtual Sesshin

    By Taikyo Gilman The wake-up drum and bell sounding through the hallway, people moving quietly before dawn, three rings on the bansho bell beginning morning zazen. Sesshin has its soundscape, and with a little bit of added technology, an unprecedented 133 people shared the experience of the Apple Blossom sesshin sounds.

  • New Bees In Town

    By Joel Sansho Benton Last Saturday a group of new residents entered the monastery for the first time—about thirty thousand of them to be more precise. On Saturday I picked up three new packages of bees from Hudson Valley Bee Supply to replace the hives we lost over the winter. Each package holds approximately ten…

  • Conversation: A New Journal from the MRO

    Print is in some ways an outmoded format, lacking the speed of digital or the ease of consuming audio/video content, so it was with some degree of soul-searching that the Monastery staff decided to collect a years’ worth of teachings and practice in the new annual journal Mountains & Rivers: Zen Dharma and Practice.

  • Reflections on Temple Resident Life Under Quarantine

    Residency at our Brooklyn Temple has always been an interweaving of NYC energy with the Zen Buddhism of a lay practice center. In these early weeks of the pandemic, our current residents Oliver, Jo and Brian, have shifted gears from their personal and Temple related routines. Here they offer an inside view of their lives…

  • Digital Refuge in the MRO

    By Eve Romm Until two weeks ago, joining the residents for zazen meant hurriedly finishing the dinner dishes, throwing on my coat and heading down the road to the Monastery. Opening the front door, I would be greeted by the smell of incense and the wooden dragon’s arresting gaze before finding an empty seat in…

  • Cabin Quarantine Hermitage

    By Taikyo Gilman I’m sitting outside the Sangha House on day nine of quarantine away from other residents and monastics (I get wifi here), and its a bright, drizzly spring day. A friend down with Covid-19 after we visited—maintaining appropriate distance—and so protecting the other 35 residential sangha members, including our monastic teachers, is a…

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