Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday 12/30/2021
From Transmission of the Light, Case 41 – The 40th Ancestor, Great Master Tongan Daopi
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 12/12/2021
From Dongshan’s “Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi”
Shugen Roshi offers this Dharma Discourse as a fitting teaching at the completion of this year’s Buddha’s Enlightenment Vigil. We do the vigil to endeavor what the Buddha did. And there is indeed something to celebrate; that the Buddha decided to teach and transmit what he realized. Dongshan’s song starts out by imploring us to take care of this intimate, profound teaching. “Now you have it, keep it well.”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 11/07/2021
From Wumen’s Gateless Gate, Case 2 – Baizhang and the Fox
With this teisho, Shugen Roshi sums up the Ango Intensive retreat “Within Darkness There Is Light—The Teachings of Karma and the Path of Compassion”.
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei
Zen Mountain Monastery, 12/31/2018
This talk was given during our annual New Year’s Eve renewal of vows ceremony. In it, Hojin Sensei urges us to use this new beginning as a chance to recommit to our practice and our lives, courageously acknowledging both our greed, anger, and ignorance and our generosity, wisdom and compassion.
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic
Zen Mountain Monastery, 12/2/2018
Gokan uses an early teaching of the Buddha to speak about the role of the past in our practice and the need to see the way in which our past shapes our present while still being able to let that go and rest in this moment. We apologize that the first few minutes of this talk were not recorded.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei
Zen Center of New York City, 10/18/2018
In the second of three sessions looking at the Jataka Tales, Hogen Sensei leads a group study of one of the Buddha’s past lives in which, oddly enough, he was the leader of a gang. What can learn from this tale about our own choices in life? What can we learn about the long road of karma?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
The Blue Cliff Record, Case 58
Zen Mountain Monastery, 10/07/2018
Shugen Roshi unfolds the appearance of division and its root, within us and our nation at this time.
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, 10/4/2018
Shugen Roshi leads a discussion of the recorded lives and past lives of the Buddha’s first disciples, touching on the nature of religious narrative, Buddhist philosophies of karma and rebirth, and the importance of studying the ancestors.
Unfortunately, a few minutes of this talk could not be recorded due to technical difficulties.
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”)
