Mountain Rain Zen Dharma Podcast

Unmon Jacob Butula 's talk offers a clear perspective on chapter 9 of Zoketsu Norman Fischer and Sue Moon's book What is Zen? If our tradition is primarily about integrating the dharma into everyday life, with no steps and stages, why is zen so full of complicated rituals and hierarchies? _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks t...

In this talk, Mysohin Kate McCandless suggests that the more we attend to our relationships with the elements, the better we can care for the beings and ecosystems with which our lives interdepend. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider suppor...

Nin-En Susan Elbe continues our dharma seminar on Sue Moon and Zoketsu Norman Fischer's book, What is Zen?, offering the insight that zen art can open us to an ineffable truth that goes beyond words. Can art be an expression of spirit? _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value...

Shinmon Michael Newton explores how we might wholeheartedly engage the Way when cooking, cleaning, tending the sick and elderly, caring for a pet - asking if we can bring a joyful sense of service to our labour. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please c...

Kakuko Kaye Simard explores Sue Moon and Zoketsu Norman Fischer's understanding of the promises and fruits of awakening.  _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountainrainzen.org/donate . A full archive of recorde...

Myoshin Kate McCandless offers various practices which can help us maintain and care for our sangha relationships. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountainrainzen.org/donate . A full archive of recorded teachings...

What do ritual and tradition evoke? How do the precepts help us commit to compassionate action? Can we understand religion as daily life? Myosen River  offers the third talk in our dharma seminar on the book What Is Zen: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind   by Norman Fischer and Susan Moon. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to don...

In this ZED Talk (Zen Engaged Dharma), Roshin Carmen Mills illuminates how volunteer work – "selfless service" – serves the self, while also serving the greater whole and cultivating a deeply held sense of inherent value and connection. All the while, taking a sly poke at consumer capitalism. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible than...

Myoshin Kate McCandless offers insight into how forms and rituals such as bowing and chanting bring us into our bodies and nurture community. Week two of our dharma seminar on the book What Is Zen: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind   by Norman Fischer and Susan Moon. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwi...

Shinmon Michael Newton offers insights into why Dogen venerated Avalokiteshvara, and how an act of true compassion, karuna, is an act of wisdom. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountainrainzen.org/donate . A full...

Shinmon Michael Newton presents the first in a series of seminars based on the lively Q&A book What Is Zen: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind by Norman Fischer and Susan Moon. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work...

Myoshin Kate McCandless describes how the eight-fold path and the eight awakenings support us in knowing how much is enough, even as we are steeped in a culture of hyper-materialism. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work a...

Nin-en Susan Elbe offers the final talk in our ten week dharma seminar on Kosho Uchiyama Roshi 's book: Opening the Hand of Thought .  We each live in the world as an individual self operating within the realm of desires, aversions, categorization and separation. In this chapter, Uchiyama Roshi explores how practicing goal-less zazen can bring us to meet our "true" self, which fully...

Shinmon Michael Newton shares teachings about mantra and suggests the Heart Sutra is chanted the better to drink it in, helping gather body and mind in times of distress, loss, and confusion.  _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting...

Mysohin Kate McCandless discusses how to practice with hindrances. When we free ourselves from fear, that gift extends out through the world in ways that we may never know. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountain...

Myoshin Kate McCandless asks if we can enter mountain time and invites us to explore the notion that we might all be wind-bells in the dharma wind, manifesting the particular song of our lives. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting...

Myoshin Kate McCandless describes the senses as dharma gates, through which we interact with our environment. The Heart Sutra suggests that this body - this life - is the medium, the gift we are given to help us fully awaken to the true nature of our being. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community....

Shinmon Michael Newton gives an insightful overview of dependent origination - how everything affects everything. You and I are all part of a great dance, and are woven in to the process of causal relationships. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please c...

Shinmon Michael Newton begins to examine in what way the Heart Sutra provokes, evokes, and points a finger at the boundless nature of our lives. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountainrainzen.org/donate . A full...

Shinmon Michael Newton affirms the culture of mutual support and interdependence which makes sesshin a safe place for practicing being open to our non-separateness.  _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountainrainzen...

Myoshin Kate McCandless opens the ninth annual MRZC Summer sesshin by introducing the theme for the week: T he Heart Sutra - Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom.   _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supporting our work at mountainrainzen.org/donate...

Shinmon Michael Newton helps unpack the final chapter of Kosho Uchiyama  Roshi's book, Opening the Hand of Thought , in which there are seven clear instructions on how to orient our lives to practice. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please conside...

Joko Claire Talbot explores how, given human beings live in the flow of impermanence and suffer the burden of thought, in what way does zen help us learn to enjoy every sandwich and every bike ride?! _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please consider supp...

Myoshin Kate McCandless shares experiences from her recent pilgrimage to Ireland, and asks how we might reconcile human contradictions at the personal, national and global levels. How do we resolve the human koan in which we are all implicated? _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find v...

Is zazen selfish? What is the self? Are we belligerent squashes or are we all in this together? Myosen River Shannon explores these and other questions in her talk on Opening the Hand of Thought chapter 5. _____________________________________________________________ These talks are made possible thanks to donations from our worldwide community. If you find value in these teachings, please conside...