Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 06/12/2022
Hojin Sensei and Hogen Sensei officiate the June 2022 Jukai ceremony at Fire Lotus Temple in which four students received the sixteen Buddhist precepts: Marie Ninsei (“Patient, Enduring Heart Vow”) Ringo, Dan Chikyuu (“Endlessly Clarifying Enlightenment”) Donohue, Tate Kairyu (“Open Dragon”) Dougherty, Stu Shintai (“Percevering Faith Mind”) Kennedy. Ninsei, Chikyuu, Kairyu, and Shintai have all been practicing as formal students and studying these moral and ethical teachings for a number of years. During the ceremony, Hojin Sensei and Hogen Sensei offer joyful encouragement to the recipients as they take up these vows.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 05/27/2022
Dharma Talk during the Ocean Gathering Sesshin
Drawing on the lyrics of the song ‘Momentum’ by Aimee Mann, Hogen Sensei illuminates how much our lives are driven by fear. What is the alternative to fear? When we are fearful, what is it that we do not want to feel? Instead of a strategy of numbness, how do we turn towards and disrupt the momentum of our fearful karmic patterns?
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 05/22/2022
What is true compassion and how do we develop it? If Buddhist teachings say a compassionate heart is our birthright, what must we do to reveal it? With Leonard Cohen’s song Sisters of Mercy as a muse, Hogen Sensei explores the nature of compassion, its relationship to wisdom and loving-kindness, and the vital role our own suffering plays.
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?
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 04/03/2022
This Dharma Encounter with Hogen Sensei took place at the conclusion of the March Founding Sesshin. What does it mean to take refuge in the Buddha? What does it mean to take refuge and what exactly are we taking refuge in? Hogen Sensei takes this question up with Ango participants in a lively discussion.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday Evening 04/01/2022
Dharma Talk during the Founder’s Sesshin 2022 Fusatsu Ceremony
The tenth Buddhist Precept is to “Experience the intimacy of things; Do not defile the Three Treasures.” How do we understand and apply this Precept? In this talk, Hogen Sensei takes up this profound teaching, imploring us to look closely at our practice and our lives.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 03/30/2022
From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye), Case 122 – Fayan’s Fire God
As practitioners of the Dharma, are we truly on the edge of our practice? Is peace and calm an indicator that we can rest in our accomplishment? Or is this just a transitory experience and there is more to be seen? When we reside firmly in our knowledge and don’t step forth to continue inquiring more deeply, what could we be missing?
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 11/18/2021
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 86 – Everyone Has Their Own Light
Hogen Sensei asks us: “how can we talk about enlightenment when there is nothing to understand about enlightenment?”. We are inherently enlightened but our conditioning, karma and unskillful ways prevent us seeing it. We should remember that we all have own light and that zazen is the process for cultivating this light.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 10/24/2021
Dharma Encounter at the Conclusion of the Harvest Moon Sesshin
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?
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 09/24/2021
The Book of Equanimity, Case 18 – Zhaozhou’s “Dog”
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zoom Broadcast, Thursday Evening 07/22/2021
True Dharma Eye, Case 123 – Mayu’s “Nature of the Wind”
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zoom Broadcast, Thursday 06/24/2021
Teachings from Eihei Dogen, William Shakespeare and Nina Simone
How do we understand the ceaseless change which is our life? Hogen Sensei delves into this question with quotes from Dogen’s “Continuous Practice” and “Being Time” with Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, and Nina Simone’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zoom Broadcast, 5/23/2021
Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) – Case 23: Think Neither Good Nor Evil
Hogen Sensei uses this well-known interaction between Hui Neng, the Sixth Ancestor, and Monk Ming to delve deeply into the meaning of faith. He asks us: When we speak of faith in our practice, the Dharma, what do we mean? Faith in what? Can faith be taken? Can it be given to another?
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Broadcasted via zoom, 3/25/2021
The Blue Cliff Record, case 59: Zhaozhou’s “Why not Quote it Fully?”
Hogen Sensei takes up this koan from the Blue Cliff Record along with related lines from the Faith Mind Poem, and offers another version: “The real way is not difficult, it only abhors choice and attachment”, and asks: Where is the path of freedom in the midst of the choices we make everyday?
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Broadcasted from Hogen Sensei’s home in Pennsylvania, 2/14/2021
The True Dharma Eye, case 248
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Broadcasted from Hogen Sensei’s home in Pennsylvania, 12/28/2020
Invoking the beloved Mountains and River Sutra Hogen Sensei quotes “These mountains and rivers of the present are the actualization of the word of the ancient Buddhas. Each, abiding in its own dharma state, completely fulfills its virtues. Because they are the self before the germination of any subtle sign, they are liberated in their actualization.” (Link) With this profound pointing, Hogen invites us to see through our fabricated ideas, beyond self and other.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Broadcasted from Hogen Sensei’s home in Pennsylvania, 11/18/2020
Case 47 from Dogen’s 300 koan Shobogenzo, Guishan’s “Do Not Betray Others”:
One day after sitting Guishan pointed at the straw sandals and said to Yangshan, “All hours of the day, we receive people’s support. Don’t betray them.” Yangshan said, “Long ago in Sudatta’s garden, the Buddha expounded just this.” Guishan said, “That’s not enough. Say more.” Yangshan said, “When it is cold, to wear socks for others is not prohibited.”
In today’s talk, Hogen sensei invites us to reflect on the nature of self and other. When giving, who is it that is receiving, and who is it that is giving? Hogen reminds us to be wary of dualistic thinking. We might also ask what is being given when nothing is physically exchanged? In other words, what is exchanged when we are in a state of ignorance? Or what is exchanged when we practice wholeheartedly? Hogen draws upon modern studies published in the Scientific Journal to point to the teachings of the old Zen Masters, that we are deeply interconnected. Showing us that the self does not end at the tip of our nose.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Broadcasted from Hogen Sensei’s home in Pennsylvania, 10/23/2020
Rarely do we, as a society, intimately contemplate death. Even the minority of those seeking to uncover the nature of death may be doing so superficially. Hogen speaks of a renowned philosopher, who wrote many prized works on death. Yet in his final days, sensing the reality of life and death, he proclaimed them all worthless! Fortunately for Zen students, we don’t have to wait for our lives to end. We can practice and become intimate with life and death. Pulling from one of America’s great contemporary poets, Hogen Sensei supports and inspires our own reflection:
“There are questions that I no longer ask
and others that I have not asked for a long time
that I return to and dust off and discover
that I’m smiling and the question
has always been me and that it is
no question at all but that it means
different things at the same time
yes I am old now and I am the child
I remember what are called the old days and there is
no one to ask how they became the old days
and if I ask myself there is no answer
so this is old and what I have become
and the answer is something I would come to
later when I was old but this morning
is not old and I am the morning
in which the autumn leaves have no question
as the breeze passes through them and is gone” by W.S. Merwin
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi & Ron Hogen Green, Sensei & Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zoom, 9/5/2020
Intention, Aspiration and Vow are taken up by three teachers of the Mountains & Rivers Order in open discussion with the on-line sangha.
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.”
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/
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 09/04/2022
Hojin Sensei offers opening reflections on the Fall 2022 Ango training period, introducing the primary texts that training students will be working with as well as the themes of art practice, nature contemplation, and Dogen’s Fascicle “The Moon.”
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.
Degna Chikei Levister, Senior Lay Student
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 08/28/2022
Chikei Levister explores practicing in the midst of our busy lives. She discusses harnessing attention as a means to better understand our anxiety and fear of missing out.
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.
Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 08/26/2022
From The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind
“The Buddhas and all living beings are only one Mind. There is no other reality.” Shoan uses Huang-Po’s teachings to reflect on the notion of progress in Zen training, encouraging us to relax and let go of this kind of seeking and instead use our wholehearted practice as a way of open discovery. Have faith and trust yourself!
Patrick Yunen Kelly, Senior Lay Student
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 08/25/2022
Yunen explores how “emptiness is form” is expressed and illustrated in the Vimalakirti Sutra and shares his appreciation of its relationship to practice.
