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.
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.
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?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Thursday Evening 05/26/2022
Dharma Talk during the Ocean Gathering Sesshin Fusatsu Ceremony
To navigate the Path, the Buddha taught an approach of skillful means. But what does that term mean for us as unique individuals, with our own karma, and in a world that is not fixed? In this talk, Shugen Roshi takes up this essential teaching as part of a Renewal of Bodhisattva Vows ceremony.
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.
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder
Zen Mountain Monastery, New York, Sunday 01/29/2023
From Zen Master Hakuin: “Song of Zazen”
At the conclusion to our New Year’s sesshin, Mn. Gokan explores “Song of Zazen,” an 18th century poem by Master Hakuin Ekaku. This text has served as an inspirational touchstone for generations of practitioners and is even chanted at some Zen temples as part of their daily liturgy. “The gateway to freedom,” Hakuin promises, “is zazen samadhi.” Gokan encourages us to develop “enthusiasm for meeting the rigors of practice” with a “joyful effort.” He summarizes that effort—and Hakuin’s intent—with the following prescription: “Don’t grasp, don’t crave, don’t push away, relax the mind, stop fighting with yourself; be gentle.”
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.
