The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

By Zen Mountain MonasteryReligion & Spirituality Buddhism

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Typical duration
42 min
per episode

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The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast episodes

June 14 Contemplating Buddha
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Osho - ZMM - 6/14/26 - What is already present is the authentic form of Buddha, not different than your own body and mind. We may think there is something broken that needs to be fixed about ourselves, or that we’re lacking in some way. Zazen is the authentic form of Buddha, and returning to yourself again and again is the contemplation of our own true self. Gokan Osho takes up this teaching and encourages us to see ourselves “without distractions and without duality, going beyond conceptualizing,” to contemplate Buddha.
33 min
June 13 Living in Inquiry
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 6/13/26 - When inquiry is alive within us, every thought we think can end with a question mark — perhaps even an exclamation mark — rather than a period. There is freedom in this openness, in loosening our fixed certainty and allowing experience to remain alive and fresh. Hojin Sensei explores a passage from the Diamond Sutra: “Develop a mind that abides nowhere.”
40 min
June 07 The Inner Wilderness
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 6/7/26 - How Buddhism uses the term "attachments" is often misunderstood as being something bad, which should not happen, but our sense of self is made up of a series of attachments: to identity, position, and so on. When we see through these many ideas of who we are, we can eventually settle our minds and experience our true nature. Using an ancient koan and the words of Henry David Thoreau, Shugen Roshi explores the world of attachment and how to bring clarity by exploring the inner wilderness to find the true nature of the self. (From the Gateless Gate, Case 44 - Basho's Stick.)
40 min
May 31 Dharma Encounter with Shugen Roshi
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 5/31/26 - Mundane truth, enlightened truth, from the beginning are all together one. But there are snags that grab us, some of them repeatedly. Hongzhi describes our original mind this way: “from the beginning it is fundamentally all together complete, undefiled, clear down to the bottom.” In this Dharma Encounter with the sangha, Shugen Roshi asks: how do each of us use our difficulty, troubles, heartache and anger to relieve our suffering? How do we heal? The sangha shares the many ways we turn, rather than heaping on destruction, and practice reality with a heart of wisdom and compassion.
1 hr 17 min
May 30 Does That Person See It, Or Not?
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 5/30/26 - Zen is filled with koan stories asking this question: do they see it or not? Do you see “it”? Shugen Roshi says that we see only as far as our penetrating vision can reach at any time. And yet that is plenty. Our present experience invites us to look further and not solidify our moment to moment experience. The Path is not linear in the usual sense, although there is practice and realization, much more valuable is learning to ask, to get curious, and to practice every aspect of our lives. (From the Book of Serenity, Case 51 - Fayan's "Boat or Land".)
49 min
May 29 What Can’t Be Fought For
Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei - ZMM - 5/29/26 - The true self, what is that? It was the question put to Monk Ming by the sixth ancestor and opened for him the Way. This pivotal moment is something that makes Zen what it is, what can’t be planned, can’t be sought after, but still it’s the heart of our practice. Shoan Sensei asks us: what do you have faith in, and what do you still hold at arm’s length? How can you, through practice, embrace the gift of your pure Buddha Nature being offered right now? (From the Gateless Gate, Case 23 - Think Neither Good Nor Evil.)
44 min
May 28 A Rice Cake. Just A Rice Cake.
Ron Hogen Green, Sensei - 5/28/26 - Going beyond our ancestors, going further than they could go, is the task of every student of the dharma. What is the ultimate truth? In other words, asks Hogen Sensei, who is this person asking the question? Going beyond conceptual thought, what is it? Here where you are, fully alive, what is it now? Close the gap, as Daido Roshi used to say, and you go beyond the ancestors. (From the Book of Equanimity, Case 78 - Ummon's Rice-Cake.)
39 min
May 24 Mind and Environment
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/24/26 - Shugen Roshi asks: “When you’re thinking of the thinking mind, what do you find there? And where will you go from there?” At the heart of bodhicitta — the wish to bring suffering to an end — are the questions: What are we contributing? What kind of environment are we creating through our thoughts, words, and actions? Cultivating bodhicitta is how we make our freedom real and, ultimately, what we are able to offer to others. (From the Book of Serenity, Case 32 - Yangshan's "Mind and Environment")
44 min
May 21 Fusatsu: Right Speech
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 5/21/26 - Are the words you are about to speak true? Verify them first through your own experience. Are they of benefit? Are they agreeable or disagreeable? Know your intentions and consider carefully before speaking. Drawing from the early teachings, Shugen Roshi offers the Buddha’s guidelines for practicing right speech in ways that bring an end to conflict and suffering and offer a path of liberation. (Dharma Discourse during the May 2026 Fusatsu Ceremony at ZMM)
24 min
May 19 Dark to the Mind, Radiant to the Heart
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 5/3/26 - This talk explores what Hongzhi calls the “mysterious pivot,” a sudden shift that disrupts thinking and reveals direct, lived experience. Drawing on Dharma teaching and the Arts, Hojin highlights how loosening the mind of grasping, defining, and securing opens the heart to a deeper, more immediate ‘shock of recognition’ of our true nature.
32 min

About The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

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The Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) is a Western Zen Buddhist lineage established by the late John Daido Loori Roshi and dedicated to sharing the dharma as it has been passed down, generation to…