Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 05/15/2022
From the Book of Serenity, Case 18 – Zhaozhou’s Dog
If buddha nature is ineffable, if it has no characteristics, then how do we turn towards it? We want to direct our attention towards it so we can examine it and realize it. But it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t have a form. So how do we study that which is our true self, our true nature? Shugen Roshi takes up these questions using the well known koan “Does a dog have buddha nature?”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 05/08/2022
From Master Wu-men’s Gateless Gate, Case 35 – Ch’ien and Her Soul Are Separated
How do we remain undivided amidst the divisive forces within and around us? And where can we truly go to seek wholeness in our lives? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the experience of division and wholeness, and how Zen practice brings us closer to the heart of the matter.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 04/30/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 87 – Medicine and Disease Subdue Each Other
Why do certain afflictions arise for us? Are we simply victims of our karma, of causes and conditions? Or might our hardships be helping us cultivate something that we need? In this talk, Shugen Roshi illuminates how it is through our suffering that we find our path to liberation and that our teachers are often closer than we think.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 04/24/2022
Why are the Bodhisattva Vows so important in Buddhist Practice? Where do they come from and why are they these particular four–to save all sentient beings, to put an end to desires, to master the dharma, and to attain the Buddha Way? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the meaning of each vow and illustrates what they can teach us about our true nature.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 04/17/2022
Shugen Roshi officiates the Spring Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery in which six students receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts. Rennin, Seisan, Jiho, Yugaku, Shindo & Onren 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.
Richard Rennin Hubbard (“Pure Patience”)
Michele Seisan Laura (“Peaceful Mountain”)
Mark Jiho Taylor (“To Set Free, Release the Self'”)
Tom Yugaku Caplan (“To Remember and Know Courage”)
Rebecca Shindo Kisch (“Trust in the Way”)
Daniel Onren Latorre (“True Kindness” / “Pure Gratitude”)
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 04/10/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 21 – Chih Men’s “Lotus Flower, Lotus Leaves”
Shugen Roshi explores Buddha Nature as a foundational teaching of the Dharma, one we can actively study and focus on. How can we come to reveal our own enlightened nature, and what conditions are necessary for the husk of our seed to open?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 04/02/2022
In this talk, Shugen Roshi speaks about the importance of having a connection with our dharma ancestors. How we should appreciate the great heart-felt efforts that were made to allow us to have the opportunity to train and practice today. Roshi shares with us some of the early days of Zen Mountain Monastery, as well as the efforts put forth by Daido Roshi, his teacher Maezumi Roshi, two of Maezumi’s teachers, Yasutani Roshi and Koryu Roshi, as well as all the students who were training with them.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 03/27/2022
From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye), Case 19 – Ordinary Mind Is The Way
What does “non-doing” actually mean? How do we understand this profound Zen teaching, and find the middle way between passivity and our regular reactive tendencies? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the topics of effort, effortlessness, and energy, and demystifies our ideas of non-doing.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi and Dr. Rebecca Li
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 03/20/2022
Shugen Roshi is joined by Dr. Rebecca Li for a lively question and answer discussion with attendees to our regular Sunday Program. Rebecca is a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community. Shugen Roshi and Rebecca explore the topics of grief, loss, and skillful action.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 03/13/2022
From Master Wu-men’s Gateless Gate, Case 26 – Two Monastics Roll Up the Bamboo Blinds
How do our projections affect our understanding of ourselves and the world around us? And how can we more clearly see these projections and the ways they cloud us from our own wisdom and Buddha Nature? In this talk, Shugen Roshi illustrates the reason we practice zazen remaining where we are, as well as the relationship between doubt, faith, and perseverance as we practice over time.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 03/06/2022
Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of our 90-day Spring ango intensive training period, Faith in Buddha Nature. 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, Saturday 03/05/2022
From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye), Case 10 – Qingyuan’s “Come Closer”
How do we walk the Path amidst our perceived distractions and obstructions? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the power of trust, and its relationship to vulnerability and intimacy. How do we trust in the Dharma? And ultimately, how do we trust ourselves?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 02/27/2022
From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye), Case 265 – Shuilao’s Enlightenment
In Buddhist practice and particularly Zen, there is a great emphasis on the power of words. Words can be both destructive or generative, can create war and can bring about peace. How do we understand the karma of our words and the actions they beget? To do so, Roshi explores the radical practice of stopping, noticing, and taking responsibility. Note: this talk begins with a prayer from Shugen Roshi for the people of Ukraine and the recent attack on their country.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 02/23/2022
From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye), Case 41 – Shitou’s “Ask the Pillar”
A student asked Master Shitou, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the west?” Shitou said, “Ask the pillar.” The student said, “I don’t understand it.” Shitou said, “I don’t understand it either.”
The Buddhist path is based in inquiry. This asks that we abandon our formulas and perspectives, and inquire deeply from within our own body and mind. We practice not only letting go of attachments and dualities of right and wrong, but also of “knowing,” releasing the need for ready answers. Every day and every moment is alive–an aliveness that is not based on a fixed meaning—but is reality itself.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 02/06/2022
From Master Wu-men’s Gateless Gate, Case 13 – Deshan Carries His Bowls
How do we create our own distractedness? And how do we get caught up in our flurry of concepts? It’s not conceptual thinking itself that is the problem. Shugen Roshi offers that by taking the seat of no evasion, turning our attention inwards, we can witness how “what we think we know” impedes our experience of our lives as they are, full and complete.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/30/2022
From Dongshan’s “Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi”
The conclusion of a series on Master Dongshan’s poem, this talk looks at the dynamic relationship you have—as the practitioner—with the ancient sages, and with all phenomenal world of reality and within its absolute unity. How do we listen, and truly hear this ancient song?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 01/26/2022
From Dongshan’s “Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi”
Faith is required—just enough to keep returning to a simple practice of deeply seeing the presence of our delusion. With the help of that delusion, the way opens for discovering true freedom in the whole of reality. Shugen Roshi continues the study of Dongshan’s Jewel Mirror Samadhi to help us practice letting go attachments and opening to experience of a unified life.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/23/2022
From Dongshan’s “Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi” and Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Please Call Me By My True Names”
This talk spans the centuries of buddhadharma, taking up the teachings of Master Dongshan and Thich Nhat Hanh who passed from this life recently. Pointing to the unity of emptiness, the truth of non-duality and the boundless heart of the bodhisattva, Shugen Roshi invites us afresh into the question: what do we call the self?
See the presentation, “From Refuge to Sanctuary: an MRO Tribute to Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/16/2022
Celebrating the Love in Action of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Invoking the life and words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Shugen Roshi celebrates his teachings on the power of love and its manifestation in the Beloved Community. Sangha is an example of this united effort to live as an expression of love, and the life of practice requires our sincere engagement and action. Dr. King believed in the “practical realism” of love, a power which is always available and can be lived every day. Understanding the interrelated structure of reality from a Christian perspective, he said, “Your suffering is my suffering,” echoing the Bodhisattva’s vow to put an end to the suffering of all beings.
This dharma talk is preceded by a presentation from the People of African Descent (PAD) Affinity Group, “From Refuge to Sanctuary: an MRO Tribute to Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.” which you can watch here.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/09/2022
From The Gateless Gate, Case 20 – A Person of Great Strength
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 05/15/2022
From the Book of Serenity, Case 18 – Zhaozhou’s Dog
If buddha nature is ineffable, if it has no characteristics, then how do we turn towards it? We want to direct our attention towards it so we can examine it and realize it. But it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t have a form. So how do we study that which is our true self, our true nature? Shugen Roshi takes up these questions using the well known koan “Does a dog have buddha nature?”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 05/08/2022
From Master Wu-men’s Gateless Gate, Case 35 – Ch’ien and Her Soul Are Separated
How do we remain undivided amidst the divisive forces within and around us? And where can we truly go to seek wholeness in our lives? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the experience of division and wholeness, and how Zen practice brings us closer to the heart of the matter.
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 05/08/2022
How do we practice fearlessness in the midst of fear? In this talk, Hojin Sensei invokes the dragon – a being that is often referenced in the Zen tradition as an embodiment of our enlightened nature. It is through turning around and facing the dragon with direct, kind awareness, she says, that we develop our capacity for fearlessness.
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 05/01/2022
This Dharma Encounter with Hojin Sensei took place at the conclusion of the Apple Blossom Sesshin. What are our reasons for coming to the Dharma? Is our practice helping to answer those questions? And how do we know that our practice is working? Hojin Sensei takes these questions up with Ango participants in a lively discussion.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday 04/30/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 87 – Medicine and Disease Subdue Each Other
Why do certain afflictions arise for us? Are we simply victims of our karma, of causes and conditions? Or might our hardships be helping us cultivate something that we need? In this talk, Shugen Roshi illuminates how it is through our suffering that we find our path to liberation and that our teachers are often closer than we think.
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday Evening 04/29/2022
Dharma Talk during the Apple Blossom Sesshin 2022 Fusatsu Ceremony
Not Creating Evil, Practicing Good, and Actualizing Good For Others — these are The Three Pure Bodhisattva Precepts. But what does it mean to truly take up these vows in our own lives? In this talk, Hojin Sensei explores the meaning of each precept and how they can guide us in our practice.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 04/28/2022
The Buddha pointed to our desires as the origin of our suffering. But how do we understand desire? Does having wants guarantee us pain? In this talk, Hogen Sensei discusses the nature of desire and investigates the difference between having attachments and liking certain things. How can we determine if we are bound by desire? And how do we hold the things in life we do like?
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 04/27/2022
Why are we drawn to a retreat where silence is practiced? And why did the Buddha refer to this practice as “Noble Silence”? In this talk, Hojin Sensei opens the April Apple Blossom Sesshin by inquiring into the first sesshin precaution–to maintain inner and outer silence–and explores what silence and stillness have to offer us.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 04/24/2022
Why are the Bodhisattva Vows so important in Buddhist Practice? Where do they come from and why are they these particular four–to save all sentient beings, to put an end to desires, to master the dharma, and to attain the Buddha Way? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the meaning of each vow and illustrates what they can teach us about our true nature.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 04/17/2022
Shugen Roshi officiates the Spring Ango Jukai ceremony at Zen Mountain Monastery in which six students receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts. Rennin, Seisan, Jiho, Yugaku, Shindo & Onren 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.
Richard Rennin Hubbard (“Pure Patience”)
Michele Seisan Laura (“Peaceful Mountain”)
Mark Jiho Taylor (“To Set Free, Release the Self'”)
Tom Yugaku Caplan (“To Remember and Know Courage”)
Rebecca Shindo Kisch (“Trust in the Way”)
Daniel Onren Latorre (“True Kindness” / “Pure Gratitude”)
