A collection of dharma talks, events, interviews and other media from Zen Mountain Monastery and the Zen Center of NYC. Please scroll down for all available talks. Subscribe via: iTunes | Google Play
A collection of dharma talks, events, interviews and other media from Zen Mountain Monastery and the Zen Center of NYC. Please scroll down for all available talks. Subscribe via: iTunes | Google Play
A student asks, “Do people these days need enlightenment or not?” Working from the Book of Serenity and other texts, Shugen Roshi deeply investigates the many facets of this question. A true path, he says, acknowledges the painful reality of suffering but remains grounded in an unshakeable faith in the basic wholeness of every person.
Featured Event
What does it mean to bow towards an altar? Or a tree? Or a meal? In this dharma encounter led by Zuisei Sensei, students bring their understanding to the matter.
Featured Video
This talk was given at the opening of the current ango training period. Shugen Roshi addresses the theme of the ango, and questions how we can best honor our lineages, knowing that […]
Featured Interview
Listen in on our insightful conversation with Rev. Tenku Ruff, board president of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, following the 2018 SZBA conference which took place at ZMM[…]
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic
Zen Center of New York City, 2/17/2019
Entering via the Buddha’s consistent offering of the noble eightfold path as route to liberation, this talk deepens understandings of helpful view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration by encouraging us to always keep looking and listening, as the universe itself is always teaching truth at any given moment. We have to listen to find practice for ourselves by training in these skillful aspects of morality, concentration and insight. Direct experience is always true, but requires repeatedly verifying such for ourselves, as we don’t know how deep it really goes. How can liberation permeate our lives, settling agitation, and thus seeing clearly?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Book of Serenity, Case 79
Zen Center of New York City, 02/10/2019
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, 02/10/2019
Concluding her Face-to-face Creative Expression retreat, Hojin Sensei looks to Master Dogen’s instructions on “washing the face” as a way in to going beyond concepts of pure or impure, and to ask us to really question the depth and nature of our turning toward full acceptance of all that is especially in regards to our unique human embodiment.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Book of Serenity, Case 79
Zen Center of New York City, 02/09/2019
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Center of New York City, 02/07/2019
What is giving? What is stealing? Within Buddhism there are many ways to understand this. Literally, on its face; with an openness, acknowledging that when rules are rigid they can result in less compassion than if the rules are not adhered to; and further, with respect to time, place, person and position.
In this question and answer teaching, the sangha and Shugen Roshi explore, together, what this precept is, its many meanings, and the sometimes complicated ways in which we can apply it and it affects our lives.
*Note: We experienced Technical Audio difficulties with this talk. There are some sections of the audio which we were unable to repair around 37:00-39:30, and 48:30. The second problem section included a lost question.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Gateless Gate, Case 39
Zen Mountain Monastery, 02/03/2019
Exploring Yunmen’s reply to a monk in the case, “You’ve missed it,” what is the transcendent use of speech, and how does it open us to practicing what is real and what is true? Wishing for the gladness of all, how do we truly begin such a goal by working with ourself? Accepting that it is not easy, how can our lives become truly Alive?
*Note: We experienced Technical Audio difficulties with this talk. On 2/5 we replaced the audio file with an improvement. If you downloaded the old audio, you may wish to re-download this one. The audio gets better 5 minutes into this talk.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Gateless Gate, Case 43
Zen Center of New York City, 02/03/2019
Call it a stick, or don’t call a stick. – Speak! Speak! Hogen Sensei explores the interplay between the relative and absolute, suffering inherent in our attachment to the limited conceptions of our self and reality, and learning to trust the immediate completeness of our moment-to-moment experience.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Blue Cliff Record, Case 53
Zen Mountain Monastery, 01/27/2019
Seeking to be free of hiddenness, attachments, and partiality, Shugen Roshi inquires into this koan conversation as an example of how all aspects that feed into the student teacher relationship contribute to liberation. How do we encounter situations without getting stuck? How does living life as the larger body offer freedom, and also allow for beneficial use of those sense perceptions which previously perpetuated samsara?
Danica Shoan Ankele, Monastic
Zen Mountain Monastery, 01/27/2019
What is squandering? This talk invites us to connect to our personal senses of the crux of what it means to live spiritually, working with our minds to uncover the intrinsic wholeness so often obscured in this very life. How can we use hindrances themselves as a points of entry for discovering a natural mind-state, thus re-connecting to the essence of truth? Forget trying to achieve in practice. Just show up and practice your life. Your one precious life.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Blue Cliff Record, Case 24
Zen Mountain Monastery, 01/26/2019
How do we eliminate distance in understanding the basis of what is true? This case’s exchange between Liu Tiemo (Iron Gridstone) and her teacher Kuei Shan (Chinese pronunciation) offers insight into resting in Self-nature, empty and undivided.