Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/29/2023 - From a verse appearing in Daido Roshi's "The Heart of Being" - Mn. Shoan talks about how we hear the verses of our teachers and ancestors. Some can seem abstract and heady, others can be heart rending and become practical instructions. Or all of that. What do we make of them?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/28/2023 - From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person - Gokan talks about Samadhi and how it manifests continuously in our lives.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/17/2023 - Mn Shoan recounts some of her encounters and experiences during her recent pilgrimage to Japan.

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 12/16/2023 - From The Eight Awarenesses of the Enlightened Person: Not Forgetting Right Thought - Mn Gokan encourages us to get to know our own deep patterns of remembering and forgetting.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/10/23 - The verses of Rohini, from the Therīgāthā - Poems of the Early Nuns - Likening our intentional practice to the natural process of respiration; the continuous flow of inspiration in our lives and the aspirations we make out of that, how does that work for each of us? This question is brought to mind when reading Rohini's verses about her own aspirations.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/08/23 - Teisho offered during the Fusatsu ceremony commencing Buddha's Enlightenment Vigil.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/3/23 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 35 - Touzi's "Harmonizing the Ten Bodies" - What is that common sense of distance, separation, between ourselves and others, and between the many aspects of ourselves? Shugen Roshi encourages us to relinquish our hold; to use the multitudinous opportunities to practice, through our meditation, through the precepts, in each moment, to understand our karma and transform it for the good.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/3/23 - From "The Hidden Lamp, Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women" - Hojin Sensei presents a koan of Lingzhao and her father, falling together. How do we fall with someone? How do we accept somebody’s support? And do we ever know that we are helping?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/26/23 - Hojin presents a koan based on a Chinese folk tale that takes on the question of identity, and speaks about its relevance for us today.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/26/23 - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo, Case 149 - Xuefeng's Rice Field - In the context of our liberation, our freedom from delusion, can we actually experience a fundamental truth that is not the creation of conditions, i.e. fundamental and unconditional? Shugen Roshi talks about the Buddha's realization of Dependent Arising, and the realization that to be free of the "conditioned" we have to make contact with that which is unconditioned... And what, where and when is that?