Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi

Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 01/11/2026

From Master Wu-Men’s Gateless Gate, Case 39: Yun-men Says You Missed It

Three core aspects of Zen practice are morality, calming the mind, and insight into the nature of reality. Without this third element, wisdom-insight, Zen isn’t truly a liberating practice. Shugen Roshi explains that insight differs from analytical or conceptual thinking; it’s a direct, lived experience. The path requires that these three aspects be cultivated together, so that a settled, unobstructed mind becomes capable of seeing more clearly and of realizing insight that is genuinely transformative.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi

Zen Mountain Monastery, Mt Tremper, New York, Sunday 01/25/2026

The bodhisattva path is not known as such to everyone who walks it, and this was especially true for Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who dedicated all his efforts to bringing about a renewed commitment to liberty and justice in our troubled country. His life was a bodhisattva life. Our own efforts to change the streams of harmful conditioning, bias and habitual formations require our own clarity and commitment, and so these lessons must be applied to all that we do. This talk was given on occasion of the Sangha Harmony Advisory Committee (SHAC) member retreat at ZMM.