Recent Teacher Talks

Feb 02 2025 12 ep. 41 mins
Recent Teacher Talks Podcast artwork

Home of Zen Mountain Monastery and Zen Center of New York City

  Religion & Spirituality  Society & Culture
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Dreaming Yourself Awake

Feb 02 2025 45 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 2/2/25 - What do you see in front of you? Our perceptions are windows to the world, and provide material for how we create “the self” as a separate and seemingly solid entity. But all beings are fundamentally not fixed or solid, and to study this we can put an end to clinging and suffering. How do we live freely and compassionately? These i

Path of Enlightenment: Stage 2 – Finding the Traces of the Ox

Feb 02 2025 46 mins  
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 2/2/25 - The spiritual journey is a path of discovering our true nature. The Ten Ox Herding pictures are a pictorial depiction of the training we each have to put together in our own body mind from the methods and teaching offered in this wisdom tradition. Hojin begins this talk with a live painting of the second ox herding picture: Finding the T

Zhaozhou’s “Mu” and Skillful Compassion

Jan 26 2025 45 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/26/25 - The sole purpose of a koan is to help the student experience their true nature. As a skillful means, a koan helps us see where we are clinging, and the karma we carry in this life. Yet even an enlightened being has this karmic body to grapple with. The challenge is to be in complete intimacy with our true nature, as it is, as we are.

Who Let the Dog Out?

Jan 25 2025 45 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/25/25 - Like a gourd in water—push it down and it turns over and pops back up—we all begin practice easily unsettled. Shugen Roshi looks at this koan of Zhaozhou’s Dog from the Book of Serenity and asks: how do we work with our impulsive nature? With our underlying tendencies? *Part 2 of 3.

Gentle and Strong

Jan 23 2025 34 mins  
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Dharma Holder - 1/23/25 - The dharma song of Shitou describes the simplicity possible in the mind of practice. With this settled awareness we can see how habits are formed and re-formed again and again. Gokan brings alive the ease and gentleness that can become the mind of zazen as we practice letting go of habitual thoughts and tendencies.

It’s Not About The Dog

Jan 22 2025 47 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/22/25 - From Master Wu-Men's Gateless Gate - Zhaozhou's "Mu" - Within the realm of words much can be known, but how do we study the realm which is inexpressible in words? The Buddha’s profound realization of true reality is accessible to everyone, but how do we walk that path? How does working with a koan take us beyond the words themselves

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Bodhisattva’s Living Legacy

Jan 19 2025 45 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 1/19/25 - Invoking the life and words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Shugen Roshi celebrates his "living legacy": the power of love and its manifestation in the Beloved Community to heal a troubled world. He draws from King's speech on the "new phase of the civil rights struggle", given the year before his assassination, and his calls for an equali

At the Heart Of Your Path

Jan 12 2025 38 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/12/25 - Gateless Gate, Case 16: The Bell's Sound and the Priest's Robe - We have these forms in Zen for meditation, for liturgy, for taking a meal and for practicing the dharma together. But what use is a form? How can we use forms without getting caught up in the form itself? To benefit from Zen practice as a vehicle to liberate ourselves fr

The Practice of True Reality

Jan 11 2025 21 mins  
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Dharma Holder - 1/11/25 - Freeing ourselves of the suffering born of strong emotions, how do we keep the heart open and able to feel without overwhelm or shutting down? And how do we establish concentration and find the vast capacity of our minds? Gokan brings forth the grounded, supported way of being awake to all that is unfolding in “the immense reality�

Joshu’s Stone Bridge

Jan 05 2025 38 mins  
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 1/5/25 - From the Blue Cliff Record, Case 52 - Entering the new year, we can reflect on how we are holding our practice, how it supports our connection with others, and whether we are clear on our aspiration to practice well. To take up the practice of selflessness means we let go of high and low, better than and less than, to learn from every scrap