Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 11/17/22
Mumonkan (Gateless Gate) Case 45 – Wu-tsu: “Who Is That Other?”
“Who am I?” and “Who is the Other?” These questions continuously show up in our lives. How do we live them, live with them? Hogen Sensei encourages us to keep them present and open, and alive.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 10/28/2022
From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 74 – Chin Niu’s Rice Pail
Hogen Sensei begins with the dancing, laughing Master Chin Niu. There are routines in and throughout our lives, as it is in the life of the monastery. How do we understand these routines? How do we practice them? And what is it that’s reflected in our actions? Is there receiving? Is there offering? Within each of our unique karmic lives, we bring forth our true nature, with awareness or not.
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.
Robert Rakusan Ricci, Senior Monastic
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 01/26/2023
Acting with reverence and devotion, acting with faith, with a willingness to be open to whatever arises in our experience… Is this all prayer? Inspired by a Ken McLeod essay, “Where the Thinking Stops”, and drawing on a song of Leonard Cohen, “Lady Midnight”, and the teachings of the mystics, Rakusan encourages us to keep going above and beyond ourselves and see how and where prayer fills our lives.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Wednesday 01/25/2023
From The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (traditionally attributed to Asvaghosa)
What does Faith mean and what does it encompass in our Buddhist tradition? In this 3-part series, based on this text, Shugen Roshi talks about the Aspiration to Awakening Through Faith and it’s many aspects which are the essentials of Buddhist teachings and practices.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/22/2023
On this auspicious day, Shugen Roshi officiated the shukke tokudo ceremony for Jeffrey Kien Martin. Tokudo marks the formal taking of monastic vows and, in our tradition, expresses a lifetime commitment to the Monastery. Kien was given the monastic name Jogo, the meaning of which Shugen Roshi beautifully explains near the end of the ceremony. In short, it can be interpreted as “Steady Strength.”
Degna Chikei Levister, MRO Senior Lay Student
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 01/15/2023
This talk is part of a special Sunday morning program commemorating the life and teachings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Fire Lotus Temple and Zen Mountain Monastery.
Senior student Degna Chikei Levister draws from Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and gives voice to his compassionate, courageous words and actions. Chikei connects Dr. King’s teachings to Buddhist teachings, expanding on his lived message to “attack forces of evil, not persons doing evil” when addressing racism and other forms of oppression.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/08/2023
From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 105 – “The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion”
In this New Year’s season of reflections and resolutions, Shugen Roshi encourages us to turn our attention toward the great Bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, and to look incisively into how they operate within our own lives.
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Sunday 01/08/2023
Hojin Sensei speaks about the simple and profound practice of breathing. The breath, she shares, brings us into the body and into the present, gradually unifying body and mind.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Saturday, New Year’s Eve 12/31/2022
Teisho during the Rohatsu Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony
Shugen Roshi reflects on the vitality of actualized vows in the context of the Paramitas, and urges us to recognize and nurture the basic quality of kindness in our intentions and actions.
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Center of New York City, Fire Lotus Temple, Saturday, New Year’s Eve 12/31/2022
Dharma Talk during the New Year’s Eve Fusatsu Ceremony
Hojin Sensei welcomes in the new year with a Fusatsu at Fire Lotus Temple. She invokes the power of vows and the importance of choosing them well.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Friday 12/30/2022
From the Book of Serenity, Case 67 – The Flower Ornament Scripture’s “Wisdom”
Shugen Roshi talks about the Scriptures as the Body of Wisdom. That’s not simply a metaphor; that’s the wisdom of direct experience over the ages. Each and every one of us are intimately included in that living body. We make it whole.
Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 12/29/2022
From the Buddha’s own life story to contemporary somatic mindfulness, Shoan reflects on how we can recognize and trust the embodied source of our liberation.
