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
Sweeping the Ground
In this concluding talk to Hazy Moon Sesshin, Shugen Roshi explores how we can sabotage our own best efforts in the midst of our practice. We set aside the time to cultivate compassion and clarity in the midst of three treasures, and yet we still get caught in distractions and self-pity. This is why Buddhism has always taught the skillfulness of looking directly at dukkha, dissatisfaction and suffering. They remind us of the importance of practice. “Else we may stray off some dusty road.” Else we may fool ourselves into thinking we can’t be of benefit in the world. Else we may forget how cultivation is inseparable from the world.
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Dharma Talks on Livestream
Check out our continually expanding library of talks archived on Livestream. And join us live each Sunday morning for zazen, liturgy and a talk that concludes our training week.
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A Guided Tour of the New Jizo House
In August, we consecrated the new Jizo House, and completed the latest phase of the Jizo Project—our initiative that aspires to make Zen Mountain Monastery a more accessible and welcoming place for all.
A Look Back on 40 Years
Check out This Thing We Made: a special filmstrip that looks back on the Monastery’s origins and development over the course of 40 years on Tremper Mountain.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 10/23/2021
From Wumen’s Gateless Gate, Case 38 – It’s Like a Buffalo Passing Through A Window
“The world is but the tail of a buffalo passing through a window.” But what about when we feel stuck? How do we free ourselves in the midst of our karmic dispositions? Some of them seem quite sticky indeed. In this talk from the last day of our Harvest Sesshin, Shugen Roshi talks about koan training in our Zen tradition. Each of them are windows into our own barriers, helping us to eventually experience these barriers as empty of any definitive existence.
Katie Yosha Scott-Childress, Senior Lay Student
Zen Mountain Monastery, 10/22/2021
Senior lay student Yosha shares the joy, inspiration and encouragement she receives from her study and exploration of the Avatamsaka Sutra (the Flower Ornament Scripture).
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 10/21/2021
From the poetry of David Whyte
Hogen Sensei asks us to consider the questions – we all have – that, As David Whyte puts it, “can make or unmake a life.” What are they? How do we respond? Can we let them be, let them stay with us? Can we live with them without grasping for answers?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 10/20/2021
From The Book of Serenity, Case 33 – Sangsheng’s “Golden Fish”
The teachings talk a lot about being free and unbound. How do we actually live that? On the Bodhisattva path the question is “What is needed, What will be helpful?”
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/17/2021
Shugen Roshi officiates the Fall Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery in which five students receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts. Shokei, Jishin, Seikaku, Kanro, & Ansen have all been practicing as formal students and studying these moral and ethical teachings for a number of years. During the ceremony Shugen Roshi offers joyful encouragement to the recipients as they take up these living teachings, living vows.
Jessica Shokei Ludwig (“sacred jewel”),
Joanne Jishin Dearcopp (“compassionate faith”),
Jimmie Seikaku Stone (“vow of awakening”),
Jack Kanro Hennesey (“barrier of openness”),
Diane Ansen Strablow (“peaceful waters / peaceful spring”).
A live conversation between Shugen Arnold, Roshi, abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, and Buddhist neuroscientist Dr. Phillip Ninan. The two tackle a number of tricky questions where the findings of science, the teachings of the Buddha, and the practice of meditation all intersect to better illuminate one another.
Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder
Zen Mountain Monastery, Sunday 10/10/2021
In allowing ourselves to be uncomfortable, in experiencing the discomfort of whatever is binding us, we touch our aliveness and see into our true nature. Mn. Shoan talks about vulnerability as a path of liberation.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/03/2021
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 100 – Pa Ling’s Blown Hair Sword
What are the most effective, skillful means to liberate ourselves? Along with meditation which is the primary practice in most branches of Buddhism, there is koan practice which is central in our Zen tradition. Shugen Roshi describes how these are engaged together using the example of a blown hair sword.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/26/2021
Dharma Encounter at the Conclusion of the Mountains and Rivers Sesshin
How do wisdom and compassion manifest together in our lives? Shugen Roshi asks us to consider the questions: Why is loving kindness – cultivation of compassion – crucial for our awakening of insight? And how do we understand our practice, the noble 8-fold path, the 8 gates, the life we’re living in practice, as a way to be bringing forth that insight? Do we bring it forth as we diminish our negative karma or as we realize it? Are those different? And how is it that “Wisdom without compassion, compassion without wisdom are not complete”?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 09/25/2021
From Transmission of the Light, Case 17 – The 17th Indian Ancestor, Rahulata (Ragarata)
