The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

Ron Hogen Green, Sensei – ZMM – 9/27/26 – Drawing on Dogen’s teaching that all beings are Buddha nature, Hogen Sensei asks how we bring this truth to life through practice. What inner resources do we draw on in difficult times, and where do they come from? In facing illness, navigating relationships, and making moral choices, how do we bring forth wisdom and compassion amid uncer...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 9/26/26 – Drawing on Dogen’s Bussho, Shugen Roshi explores the seemingly contradictory teachings that all beings are, have, or have no Buddha nature. If Buddha nature isn’t something we can possess or acquire, what are we realizing through practice? These teachings invite us to loosen our grip on fixed ideas and discover for ourselves what th...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZMM – 9/25/26 – In this Fusatsu talk, Hojin Sensei explores renewing our bodhisattva vows and practicing loving-kindness through the Three Pure Precepts. What does it mean to live by vow rather than be driven by our habitual karma? When we’re hurt or in conflict, can we see ourselves and others as more than our worst actions? Through humility, curiosit...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 9/24/26 – The Buddha realized that all beings are capable of awakening to their true nature. Dogen echoed this truth by saying that all beings are Buddha nature, emphasizing that this is our very nature, not something we can gain or lose. If we could “have” Buddha nature, then we could also “not have” it. This subtle shift in emphasis opens u...

Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei – ZMM – 9/23/26 – The path of the bodhisattva is not always a convenient one, and probably not as we imagine it to be. We may struggle; it may feel prickly. So how do we stay on the path of unburdening ourselves and waking up? Transformation means getting very clear about what hinders us—about the inner conditions that keep us from being truly and comp...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 9/20/26 – What is the cause of suffering, at its root? The bodhisattva vow is to put an end to suffering and its causes—but how do we put that vow into action? First, we have to see clearly what is causing harm: to see into our delusions and the ways in which they give rise to suffering. And then we need to act. When we slow down and consider...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 9/13/26 – This formless Buddha Nature, how does it manifest? Is it large or small? Shugen Roshi quotes the great teacher Nagarjuna, “If you want to see buddha nature, first, let go of your pride,” first let go of the certainty with which we bestow value on things and on people. Let go of our sense of self that separates self and all others. W...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 9/13/26 With Hojin Sensei officiating, four students formally receive the sixteen Buddhist precepts, taking up these living teachings, living vows in the company of the sangha with family and friends. Alexis Waller: Myokan (“Wondrous Intuitive Wisdom”) Joan Guiterrez: Yūsei (“Profound Quiet Mystical Vow”) María José Gimenez: S...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 9/6/26 – Stories are one of the primary ways that we create and re-create suffering in our own minds, and this folk tale of Ch’ien and her soul in a Zen koan lends itself well to the study of mind and reality. With practice comes a fresh awareness of the narrative, and we can see it changing even as we tell it again. When the habit ener...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 9/6/26 – Taking up Emily Dickinson’s practice—“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine”—Hojin Sensei stares into the words should and shouldn’t. “We should observe carefully,” implores Dōgen in Busshō, his fascicle on Buddha Nature. Dōgen explains that the a...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – 8/30/26 – Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of the MRO 90-day Fall Ango 2026 training period: “Buddha Nature.”

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/30/26 – Join Hojin Sensei offering opening remarks to the practitioners at Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn to begin the Fall Ango Practice Period: “Now the hundreds of grasses are actually gathering for the Fall. Plucked from the entire earth, there would be ten million stalks. One flower with five petals opens in the sky and the mud. Wit...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 8/29/26 – Breathing, sitting, walking, all of these ordinary activities offer the capacity to train the mind. But in what? Awareness, non-grasping, insight, stability, all these good qualities essential for liberating ourselves and others. Training is a vessel, it holds whatever we bring and it carries us along as well, a vehicle for practice...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/29/26 – The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is where Buddha gives the four postures: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. The instruction is essentially to know the body as it is disposed: “when standing, one knows, ‘I am standing.’” walking they know: ‘I am walking.’ When sitting they know: ‘I am sitting.’ And when lying down they know: ‘I am lyin...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 8/23/26 – Breath is the quality that brings and sustains life–an inspiration of what enters us and provides nourishment. To have aspiration, in a sense, is the desire and motivation inspired by the Dharma which brings us into practice, inspired by our own internal call. When we cultivate even a small aspiration toward awakening, we enco...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/23/26 – Someone asked the teacher: “Are you lonely”? Hojin takes up these senses of loneliness, solitariness and aloneness. The Buddha taught, “All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.” Can you relate? (From The Hidden...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 8/22/26 – Many times our practice can be simple and straightforward. But when conditions become adverse, how do we stay on the path? The Dharma points us toward beneficial qualities within ourselves that we can cultivate and draw upon for strength—to support our focus, deepen our faith, and develop clarity. Sometimes called the Beautiful Qual...

Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei – ZMM – 8/21/26 – What do we aspire to in our practice? What are we looking for? This deeply personal question can help us find our way among the many Dharma offerings we encounter, which can sometimes feel difficult to take up. In this vast, wide world, why practice? Why? This fundamental question opens many fruitful avenues of practice. Looking withi...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – 8/19/26 – What are the qualities that help, or hinder, our ability to enter and sustain practice on a path of liberation? What to cultivate, what to mindfully let go of? The Buddha and later practitioners studied and taught these ways to support our practice, to best support us in this life, for the life of all beings. Shugen Roshi offers this guiding ta...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZMM – 08/16/2026 – Drawing on Dogen’s Mountains & Rivers Sutra and various texts on walking meditation, Hojin Sensei brings alive a study of how we move through space and time. Drawing on the “virtue of walking” as a constantly alive practice , she asks: how does stillness move? How does practice on the cushion stand up and move through all aspect...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – 8/9/26 – With effort in practice, we bring forth our natural aliveness. To do this we make an effort to let go of self-clinging and other ways we deplete our energies. Even with expectations of the way we imagine “letting go” to be, when we encounter the reality of how tight we grasp on to our attachments, can we yield our fixed and self-centered ideas?...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/9/26 – The Buddha said that all conditioned things—all things that begin to exist at a particular time—are impermanent, and will eventually decay and disappear. Aging is normal. Illness is normal. Death is normal. Yes, I will be separated from what I hold near and dear. My only real possessions are my actions. This is normal for everyone, no...

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – 8/2/26 – Koan study can turn our minds inward, showing us where we get stuck in our own habitual tangles and ways of thinking about reality. What is the true nature that ’mind training’ can reveal? Shugen Roshi brings alive the subtle teachings of Zhao Zhou with this question. Through practice, we gain some ground in working with our own minds, therefore...

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – 8/2/26 – “A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies, there is no end to the air.” Following a retreat at the temple, Avian Traces, Hojin Sensei speaks about being with her mother recently in her dying process, and a bird showing up on the windowsill making contact. She links this with other stories of birds and the fact that birds have been sho...

Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei – 7/26/26 – In sesshin, the deep work of transformation is held within a supportive container. Yet each of us must still discover the capacity for faith as we learn to settle the mind and realize our true nature—our fundamentally free nature. This cultivation of faith can be understood in three ways: faith in practice and the path, faith in the boundlessness...