Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 7/12/2020
Each morning, Zen practitioners around the world chant the Verse of the Kesa:
Vast is the robe of liberation
A formless field of benefaction
I wear the Tathagatha’s teaching
Saving all sentient beings.
Referencing the words of Master Dogen, Shugen Roshi addresses this verse and its implications for all Mahayana Buddhists. As he says in the talk, we are all fully capable of engaging this path, just as we are, using just what is available to us in our own time and place.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 07/05/2020
From the Book of Serenity, Case 56: “Spiritual Uncle Mi and The Rabbit”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 06/28/2020
The Blue Cliff Record, Case 52: “Zhaozhou let’s asses cross, let’s horses cross”
A monk asked Zhaozhou, “For a long time I’ve heard of the stone bridge of Zhaozhou, but now that I’ve come here I just see a simple log bridge.” Zhaozhou said, “You just see the log bridge; you don’t see the stone bridge.” The monk said, “What is the stone bridge?” Zhaozhou said, “It lets asses cross, it lets horses cross.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 6/26/2020
This talk explores a poem on meditation by Yikui, a 17th century nun who succeeded Xinggang as abbess of Crouching Lion Convent. “In moments of leisure,” Yikui writes from her hermitage, “I sit upright in the shade of the pine tree.” Shugen Roshi speaks about the great effort, profound faith, and tireless determination out of which this leisure is born, urging us to take up our practice, to “enter the scars of the burning,” with the urgency of the blazing, red hot-stove which Yikui evokes.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 06/21/2020
Book of Serenity, Case 20 : Dizang’s Intimacy
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 05/31/2020
Following a week of sesshin practice at the Monastery during a time of great upheaval across America, Shugen Roshi reflects on the power of mind to create separation and to repair. Great harm, perpetuated and reinforced by those in positions of power, calls for great recognition, reflection and atonement. Where we each find ourselves begins the journey of taking responsibility for that harm and suffering, to put an end to all suffering, and live our vows in the world.
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Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 05/28/2020
“Immediately, change your life.” Shugen Roshi continues to explore the life and teachings of Xinggang, a renowned 17th century Rinzai zen nun. What is “changing your life?” We often think we are here to change ourselves, trade in unwanted aspects for preferred ones. But, as Roshi reminds us, “All the way to heaven is heaven itself” – nothing is ever lacking.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 05/28/2020
This floating life a changeable dream, yet we bitterly toil away;
The entire day full of busyness, as our karma grinds us down.
If only you can make a clean sweep of the cave of ignorance,
Nothing will remain but a life full of leisurely freedom and ease!
So begins the poem written by Xinggang, a 17th century nun in the Rinzai tradition who was able to fulfill her lifelong aspiration to become ordained after the deaths of her husband and parents. Shugen Roshi relates her poem on practicing true freedom of mind to a teaching from Trungpa Rinpoche on independence and developing faith in the dharma through meeting hardship with compassion and courage.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 05/24/2020
We affect others in all that we do. Drawing on Dogen’s allusion to compassion and effort that is “continuous and sustained,” Dogen says, “It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off.” In this talk on the first of the Four Immeasurables, Shugen Roshi looks into the compassion and wisdom within our intention: “May all beings be free from suffering and know the root of suffering.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 5/3/2020
At some time in meditation practice, Mara the evil one will come and try to dissuade you. Mara has endless means for shaking up our faith and resolve, appearing inside our own minds. Our habitual responses, as well as our cultural certainties, are not helpful when the very foundations of our understanding of hierarchies, and the order of things, is in dynamic flux and change.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 04/26/2020
A Question and Answer session between Shugen Roshi and students on the earth, community, commitment and the dharma of interdependence and solitude at this challenging time of social distancing, isolation and uncertainty.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 04/25/2020
Book of Serenity, Case 18
“All beings are Buddha nature,” and yet we still have grapple with the ups and downs, and a bodhisattva must even at times fall into the hell realms in order to help other beings. Each of us has to encounter and engage our own suffering in order to manifest our enlightened nature, bringing into awareness our own limitlessness. In this second of two talks on Zhaozhou’s Dog, Shugen Roshi takes us further into practicing the limitless capacity of Buddha nature within the limits of the phenomenal world.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 04/23/2020
Book of Serenity, Case 18
In part one of this classic koan, Shugen Roshi uses the Buddha’s famous chariot simile to lay out how we construct ideas of things in our minds—sankharas, or reactive formations—which give a sense of solidity to all we encounter. Although no thing has intrinsic solidity or permanence, our “impulsive consciousness” is fueling our suffering if we neglect mindfulness. On the path of awakening, Shugen says, “We can’t realize our buddha nature apart from our karmic impulses, but we also can’t be driven around by them. That middle path is alive and takes our full attention.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
The True Dharma Eye: Master Dogen’s Three Hundred Koans (Shinji Shobogenzo), Case 124
Zen Mountain Monastery, 4/12/2020
The thought that we can escape from the ebb and flow of reality as the sign of being a “skilled practitioner” is to not yet see the true nature of reality itself. In this timely exploration, Shugen Roshi invites us to explore our present situations as the very stuff from which realization emerges. With tender attentiveness, we can navigate through even our most negative experiences, and our grief. Even when we feel caught—by global forces beyond our control or emotional responses closer to home—there is a journey of discovery that leads towards open water.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 04/09/2020
Simplicity in practice of the precepts cuts against the nature of our drive to accumulate—pleasures, things, habits—which we build upon in our minds. The activity of this time, even with the slowing down and great not knowing we presently live in, calls on us in this Renewal Of Vows talk to slow down and explore simplicity itself.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 04/05/2020
Blue Cliff Record, Case 6
The challenging unknowns faced by ancient Zen teachers were often not different than our own times, with catastrophic epidemics, political upheaval and uncertainties. Facing the epicenter of the pandemic in NYC, Shugen Roshi turns to this koan that looks beyond the superficial and into our great capacity—our human gifts—for living deeply and fully into the present reality.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 03/29/2020
A Question and Answer session between Shugen Roshi and students on practicing the teachings of the Metta Sutta during this time of challenge and uncertainty in our world.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 03/28/2020
Blue Cliff Record, Case 82
In a time of uncertainty what do we rely on? How is practicing and investigating calming the mind—finding a peaceful mind—even possible during a time of strife and turmoil ? Shugen Roshi takes up this case from the Blue Cliff Record and the Mountain and Rivers Sutra to address the question of how we can view dharma practice in a time of crisis and even ask ourselves: What is it we can truly rely on?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 03/26/2020
Blue Cliff Record, Case 50
The monk in the koan asks “What is every atom samadhi?” Yunmen answers “Food in the bowl, water in the bucket.” In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores this profoundly simple teaching: the need to protect the mindfulness we are cultivating from the “thieves” of boredom, distraction, anxiety, and other hindrances. Roshi relates this constancy of practice to a teaching from Yasodhara on extending loving-kindness in every direction, reminding us that concentration must not exclude the many beings with which we share this life.
