Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/02/2022
Dharma Encounter at the conclusion of the Mountains & Rivers Sesshin
The Buddha said there is “ordinary suffering” – dukkha – which is the everyday garden variety of suffering that you think of and experience when you hear the word “suffering”. There is the suffering that arises through “change”; i.e. you have something, and you want it to last forever, but it won’t. You have something that you don’t want, and it won’t change fast enough. You have a position, a relationship, a feeling, an accomplishment, you have a samadhi, you have something that is dear to you, and you want it to always be “just like that”. And then there is the more subtle suffering that is the skandhas themselves. (The skandhas are form, feeling, perception, volitional formation, and consciousness.) The Buddha often referred to them as “the clinging skandhas”; that we are nothing but that very process that happens within the skandhas. We don’t see it because it happens so instantaneously and then it’s gone and it happens again and again, and our consciousness creates a seamless flow so that we create an experience of continuity, a kind of permanent, ongoing coherence in our actual lived experience which we interpret or equate as a kind of permanent someone.
Then there is a kind of symphony, drawing from each of these forms of suffering, that is particular, that is directed towards ourselves; how we see that self, having identified with it, having created, and constructed it, unknowingly for the most part, being very invested in keeping it up and going. Though, never quite complete. We can identify the self (ourself) out of a habit, a behavior, an action, and interpret that as a sign of that incompleteness. (Self-doubt comes out of this.)
How is it when that sense of self is suffering itself? How do we practice this? What needs to be understood about this aspect of self? What understanding will serve to free us? How do we understand this in terms of the Four Noble Truths?
Shugen Roshi brought up these questions for students to engage with him in Dharma Encounter.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 10/01/2022
From the True Dharma Eye, Case 148 – Dongshan’s “Teachings of the Insentient”
“When we don’t hear the teachings of the insentient the world beyond ourselves can seem dead, inert, and uninteresting. Maybe that’s why we have to keep turning up the volume. And having more and more. And now let’s create worlds that don’t even exist and live in them. What kind of dangerous is this?”
“When we don’t have such moments that reveal to us, that peel back the curtain a little bit and show us there is more right here right now in the most unexpected of places. Of course we expect it in the mountains and beautiful places, but as Donghan said, it’s ceaselessly expounded. Radiantly.”
“And so we stop and turn the light around. And look deeply. And make contact. And make contact…”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday Evening 09/29/2022
Dharma Talk during the Mountains and Rivers Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony
Buddhism speaks of the “Bodies of the Buddha.” For instance, Master Dogen, in his Fascicle The Moon, speaks of the Boundless Body and the Buddha Body. Shugen Roshi reflects on how the Fusatsu ceremony invokes these bodies, and how, when we are practicing the dharma, they begin to appear from within our own vows, out of our selflessness… “So we return to these vows, these precepts. We reflect, we invoke the names of the Buddha, the four vows, the three treasures… to remember again, and align ourselves with what is important… it is not a rule, it is not a creed, it’s not even Buddhism, not at it’s heart… but you could say it’s you.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/25/2022
From the Book of Serenity, Case 75 – Ruiyan’s “Constant Principle”
We might normally think we understand that nothing lasts, everything is impermanent, yet we suffer from our misunderstanding of this all the time, for instance when something happens and we react thinking oh, this is forever, this is the way it’s going to be from now on, I am this, I am that,…. This is why it’s so important to deeply study our suffering; not just know that we suffer, but to deeply study the intricate details of how we suffer.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/11/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 35 – The Dialog of Manjusri and Wu Cho
“In the first moment of contact, what we see, what we hear, is not obscured. Sound and form are purely real, they are just as they are, they are not anything other. But our mind, in an instant, before we know it, without our seeing it, floods that image or that sound or that taste, or touch, with all of our mind’s karmic burden. All our perceptions, our views, our beliefs, our memories, and so on. While our senses simply perceive things, non-obscured, our mind then begins to in a flash obscures and gives meaning, which is taught. Everything in society teaches us what those things mean. All of those ways we separate and exclude and include and create conflict and wealth and poverty, the whole mass of suffering.“
“To be able to separate the profound from the naive, to distinguish a jewel from a stone, is actually necessary. If we can’t discern within our own practice of what is practice according to the dharma and what is not, what is a serving or habitual desire, and what is an impulse or sense of a direction that we can trust, it’s going to be very difficult to practice. So we need to learn how to distinguish. But to do so without malice, without ill will. With clarity. And without infusing a sense of absolute truth into those things that we are discerning.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/04/2022
Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of our 90-day Fall Ango Intensive training period, “Moon Thusness.” If you’d like to learn more about our Ango program and possibly participate, please click here: https://zmm.org/teachings-and-training/ango/
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/28/2022
From the Mahayana teaching The Uttaratantra Shastra – The Sangha Treasure
Shugen Roshi encourages us to look deeply and realize the three treasures as our own nature, our own body and mind. And although we manifest them (how we relate to the ancestors, how we receive the teachings, how we practice, how we gather together as a community, etc.) in terms particular to the Buddhist path, when we truly take refuge in the three treasures we are realizing them as the nature of all of humanity. No boundaries. Sangha is community. We can think of it as “the sangha of one”; i.e. you and the many beings that populate your mind and body. We can think of it as this community practicing together. Sangha is the virtue of harmony. Sangha is the Three Treasures.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 08/27/2022
From the Mahayana teaching The Uttaratantra Shastra – The Dharma Treasure
“Dharma” refers to The Law, The Teachings, Reality. But what is it actually, beyond the superficial? Shugen Roshi explores all the many aspects of Buddhist practice which together bring us to a true encounter with the Dharma.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 08/24/2022
From the Mahayana teaching The Uttaratantra Shastra – The Buddha Treasure
What is it that makes Buddhist meditation, liturgy, teachings, practices, the precepts that we follow, the vows that we take, a path to liberation? And how is it that we can awaken to the three treasures – the Buddha, Dharma & Sangha – in our everyday lives? Shugen Roshi encourages us to see the Buddha Treasure right within ourselves.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/14/2022
From the Book of Serenity, Case 16 – Magu Shakes His Staff
Why do we practice mindfulness, why do we develop concentration, why do we do meditation? These and other aspects of practice… What do they bring us to? Shugen Roshi asks us to look carefully about what we think we’re after; what are we aiming for? For instance, how do we manifest compassion, living in a world of good and evil, without creating more entanglements, without getting caught in the realm of right and wrong?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 08/07/2022
From Master Wu-men’s Gateless Gate, Case 8 – Hsi-chung Makes Carts
The Buddha realized, and taught, that it is our sense of self, our sense of our individual person within, that is the source of everything we create that causes distress and confusion and unhappiness. Salvation from this dukkha is not about finding a way out of it but about finding a way into it. If we want to actually free ourselves we have to practice freeing ourselves right now, just now.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/31/2022
Our own beliefs, conventional wisdom, our enculturated consciousness; these encompass the paths we follow in life. As practitioners of The Way, Shugen Roshi encourages us to look carefully into and through this conditioning and see that what we’re moving towards is already here.
Concluding his talk, Shugen Roshi offers a poem in tribute to the Woman of Taishan:
On the road to Mount Taishan a Tea Dragon serves illness and medicine for the well-being of the thirsty traveler. Please don’t be deceived by her humble appearance. She has the power to change a life in an instant. Don’t feel the need to adorn her humble appearance. She is majestic and noble, just as she is. Can you hear? Oh, person of the way, which road will you take to the great and calling mountain?
(The Woman of Taishan appears in a koan in both The Book of Serenity, Case 10, and The Gateless Gate, Case 31.)
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 07/30/2022
What is our understanding of Conventional Wisdom, or Relative Truth in Buddhist parlance, as it makes up what we call “the self”? Shugen Roshi brings in the writing of Marcus Borg, the American Christian Theologian, and examines what we are doing when we undertake the extensive project of “studying the self.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/10/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 82 – Ta Lung’s “Hard and Fast Body of Reality”
In this crucible of our lives today, so full of so much, why, in Buddhism is there an emphasis on realizing emptiness? Similarly, why does realizing the nature of the self liberate us from our attachments? At the same time, we speak of the body of reality. That doesn’t sound very empty, and we’re certainly attached to our own bodies, the living manifestation of impermanence. So what is our true body, our body of reality? We speak of the three bodies of the buddha: Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya. Can we understand these as aspects of ourselves?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 07/03/2022
From Master Wu-men’s Gateless Gate, Case 44 – Pa-chiao and a Stick
“What is it that we attach to? Anything that is perceived as being outside ourselves becomes an object and therefore becomes a very likely candidate for clinging. Because to grasp at anything, it has to be ‘not me’. So what’s actually being grasped in our grasping? Is it the object? So there is something that I want. It might be an object, a car, clothing, a plate of food, a house, a person. It could be anything. Am I grasping at the object itself? Or am I grasping at my idea of the object? Or am I grasping at my desire for the object? Or am I grasping at whatever I want that object to do for me? Whatever I want to get from it: happiness, satisfaction, a thrill. Or am I grasping at what I want all of that to make me feel about myself? Worthy, capable, intelligent, smart, successful. What are we actually grasping at?”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 06/26/2022
Drawing from the teachings of Longchenpa (14th Century Tibet), Shantideva (8th century India) and Dogen (13th century Japan) Shugen Roshi speaks of The Four Immeasurables. He reminds us of the importance of reciting them as a practice each morning. The recitation is a raising of intention, a setting of our attitude – an attitude of love, compassion, sympathetic joy and impartiality. What’s next? Shugen Roshi encourages us to keep that intention in mind all day long, to “set out” to actualize them for others and ourselves in our everyday activities, continuously practicing and opening, with the guidance of the precepts and the Six Paramitas (Giving, Discipline, Patience, Diligence, Concentration and Wisdom.) In this discourse, Roshi continues the exploration begun last week, in Setting Out with Bodhichitta.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 06/25/2022
Drawing from the teachings of Shantideva (8th century India), Dogen (13th century Japan) and Longchenpa (14th Century Tibet), Shugen Roshi speaks of bodhicitta, the wish to realize enlightenment for the benefit of others. “This bodhicitta is not something. It’s alive, it’s inexpressible, it’s inconceivable. It doesn’t belong to buddhism but buddhism understands it profoundly. It’s available to every person but you cannot possess it. You can’t lose it. But it can grow dim. It is born from faith, it is nurtured by faith, it is verified by faith, within ourselves.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 06/22/2022
From Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo Fascicle “King of Samadhis”
We speak of Samadhi as being meditation, concentration, single-minded focus. In this talk Shugen Roshi points out that in the Buddhist sense Samadhi is based in morality and compassion. It’s not separate. It’s one aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path, all eight of which are to be cultivated together.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 06/19/2022
From The Book of Serenity, Case 70 – Jinshan Asks About Nature
“What happens in the moments when the self has been seen through and we are still being held back? In that moment, that which has been seen is not being actualized. Having tamed the untamed, having freed the buddha from its entanglements, those entanglements still have energy, still have life. That’s why the idea that we can practice, apply effort, have an experience that we call enlightenment and be done is a false idea. What is this whole idea of being ‘done’? If you’re an artist, when are you done? If you’re a school teacher, a parent, when are you done? Not just done in the sense that there is something more to do, but done in the sense of strengthening your strength, refining your skill…”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 06/05/2022
From The Book of Serenity, Case 12 – Dizang Planting the Fields
“How do we stop our seeking that which is outside and turn the light around? How do we learn how to investigate in a way that is nonconceptual? How do we use this mind? This bright, clear, sharp, awake, miraculously aware mind? We have to bring it out of its dullness, sleepiness and lethargy. All of which are good strategies to live in a world that’s kind of hard to live in. Just shut it down. It makes sense. Lower the curtain, put up a wall, close the door. It seems to be quieter. But it’s not really a life yet. And so, in opening the curtain, opening the door, turning on that bright clear light, now we have to learn how to meet pain and sorrow. Inside and outside…”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/02/2022
Dharma Encounter at the conclusion of the Mountains & Rivers Sesshin
The Buddha said there is “ordinary suffering” – dukkha – which is the everyday garden variety of suffering that you think of and experience when you hear the word “suffering”. There is the suffering that arises through “change”; i.e. you have something, and you want it to last forever, but it won’t. You have something that you don’t want, and it won’t change fast enough. You have a position, a relationship, a feeling, an accomplishment, you have a samadhi, you have something that is dear to you, and you want it to always be “just like that”. And then there is the more subtle suffering that is the skandhas themselves. (The skandhas are form, feeling, perception, volitional formation, and consciousness.) The Buddha often referred to them as “the clinging skandhas”; that we are nothing but that very process that happens within the skandhas. We don’t see it because it happens so instantaneously and then it’s gone and it happens again and again, and our consciousness creates a seamless flow so that we create an experience of continuity, a kind of permanent, ongoing coherence in our actual lived experience which we interpret or equate as a kind of permanent someone.
Then there is a kind of symphony, drawing from each of these forms of suffering, that is particular, that is directed towards ourselves; how we see that self, having identified with it, having created, and constructed it, unknowingly for the most part, being very invested in keeping it up and going. Though, never quite complete. We can identify the self (ourself) out of a habit, a behavior, an action, and interpret that as a sign of that incompleteness. (Self-doubt comes out of this.)
How is it when that sense of self is suffering itself? How do we practice this? What needs to be understood about this aspect of self? What understanding will serve to free us? How do we understand this in terms of the Four Noble Truths?
Shugen Roshi brought up these questions for students to engage with him in Dharma Encounter.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 10/01/2022
From the True Dharma Eye, Case 148 – Dongshan’s “Teachings of the Insentient”
“When we don’t hear the teachings of the insentient the world beyond ourselves can seem dead, inert, and uninteresting. Maybe that’s why we have to keep turning up the volume. And having more and more. And now let’s create worlds that don’t even exist and live in them. What kind of dangerous is this?”
“When we don’t have such moments that reveal to us, that peel back the curtain a little bit and show us there is more right here right now in the most unexpected of places. Of course we expect it in the mountains and beautiful places, but as Donghan said, it’s ceaselessly expounded. Radiantly.”
“And so we stop and turn the light around. And look deeply. And make contact. And make contact…”
Rima Vesely-Flad
Zen Mountain Monastery, via Zoom, 09/20/2022
A seminar with author and teacher Rima Vesely-Flad exploring the themes and questions presented through her research on the distinctive practices of Black Buddhist teachers in multiple lineages as they address an oppressive social context in the U.S. Practices include healing of intergenerational trauma; honoring ancestors and the land; and turning towards the Black body as a vehicle for liberation. Rima also explores how Buddhist teachings and practices are congruent with the emphasis on psychological liberation in the Black Radical Tradition.
Hosted by ZMM and the MRO People of African Descent (PAD) group coordinators, Degna Chikei Levister and Robin Wells, and ZMM abbot Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi.
Rima Vesely-Flad’s most recent publication is Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation.
Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 09/30/2022
Recognizing our afflictions, our kleshas (states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc…) Can we appreciate them? How can we use them? Can we get close up and allow ourselves to be vulnerable? Shoan reflects on this “Gate of Vulnerability.” Without our own share of difficulty and pain, would we be embarking on a path of waking up? That’s why the human realm is considered so auspicious, because if you’re born in the god realm, life is so good you don’t do anything to actually liberate yourself. As Thich Nhat Hanh said: “No mud, no lotus.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday Evening 09/29/2022
Dharma Talk during the Mountains and Rivers Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony
Buddhism speaks of the “Bodies of the Buddha.” For instance, Master Dogen, in his Fascicle The Moon, speaks of the Boundless Body and the Buddha Body. Shugen Roshi reflects on how the Fusatsu ceremony invokes these bodies, and how, when we are practicing the dharma, they begin to appear from within our own vows, out of our selflessness… “So we return to these vows, these precepts. We reflect, we invoke the names of the Buddha, the four vows, the three treasures… to remember again, and align ourselves with what is important… it is not a rule, it is not a creed, it’s not even Buddhism, not at it’s heart… but you could say it’s you.”
Ely Seiryu Rayek, Senior Lay Student
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 09/28/2022
Seiryu offers his understanding of the dharma of everyday life, dependent co-origination; the practical reality of ceaseless becoming.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/25/2022
From the Book of Serenity, Case 75 – Ruiyan’s “Constant Principle”
We might normally think we understand that nothing lasts, everything is impermanent, yet we suffer from our misunderstanding of this all the time, for instance when something happens and we react thinking oh, this is forever, this is the way it’s going to be from now on, I am this, I am that,…. This is why it’s so important to deeply study our suffering; not just know that we suffer, but to deeply study the intricate details of how we suffer.
Chris Yudo Abraham, Senior Lay Student
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/18/2022
From Shunryu Suzuki: “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”
What is beginner’s mind? Where is beginner’s mind? Yudo describes his path in zen practice as one of appreciating Beginner’s Mind and the constant returning to Zazen as the heart of it.
Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 09/18/2022
Yunen offers insight into the thusness of negative experiences and emotions. He explores what comes when we allow sad to just be sad, tribulations to simply be tribulations.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 09/11/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 35 – The Dialog of Manjusri and Wu Cho
“In the first moment of contact, what we see, what we hear, is not obscured. Sound and form are purely real, they are just as they are, they are not anything other. But our mind, in an instant, before we know it, without our seeing it, floods that image or that sound or that taste, or touch, with all of our mind’s karmic burden. All our perceptions, our views, our beliefs, our memories, and so on. While our senses simply perceive things, non-obscured, our mind then begins to in a flash obscures and gives meaning, which is taught. Everything in society teaches us what those things mean. All of those ways we separate and exclude and include and create conflict and wealth and poverty, the whole mass of suffering.“
“To be able to separate the profound from the naive, to distinguish a jewel from a stone, is actually necessary. If we can’t discern within our own practice of what is practice according to the dharma and what is not, what is a serving or habitual desire, and what is an impulse or sense of a direction that we can trust, it’s going to be very difficult to practice. So we need to learn how to distinguish. But to do so without malice, without ill will. With clarity. And without infusing a sense of absolute truth into those things that we are discerning.”
