Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 1/5/25 - From the Blue Cliff Record, Case 52 - Entering the new year, we can reflect on how we are holding our practice, how it supports our connection with others, and whether we are clear on our aspiration to practice well. To take up the practice of selflessness means we let go of high and low, better than and less than, to learn from every scrap of the dharma on how to free ourselves and others. Shugen Roshi takes up this teaching of the old Buddha Joshu to illuminate our path.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 1/5/2025 - What are we seeking? The spiritual journey is a path of discovering our true nature. The Ten Ox Herding pictures are a pictorial depiction of the Zen training path of enlightenment. Hojin begins this talk with a live painting of the first oxherding picture: Searching for the Ox, followed by a talk on this beginning stage of training: feeling an "offness" in our life, the raising of the Bodhi Mind, and the sense that some kind of search is on! Watch Hojin Sensei draw the first ox-herding picture: https://vimeo.com/1044299063

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/31/24 - All conditioned things are dukkha, but we are not bound by them nor are we limited by them. The Noble Path, which has come to us through others, works in any and every situation. We have Buddha Mind; we have pure undefiled nature. This is the way to offer the world some goodness through our aspirations and practice, and live a life without regret.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - 12/30/24 - This Fusatsu talk was given on the evening before New Years Eve to the sangha at Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn on how practice is not linear and moves in a circle or spiral pattern. The Bodhisattva Vows behold the direction.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - 12/30/24 - From the Book of Serenity, Case 100 - How does the purity of Buddha Nature still give rise to all the havoc, confusion, and suffering in our human lives? In this talk given during the Rohatsu sesshin, Shugen Roshi takes up this fundamental question: if all is emptiness and impermanence, what is it that needs to be done to experience the ‘peaceful dwelling’ within samsara, and to liberate all beings within the phenomenal world?

Danica Shoan Ankele, Osho - ZMM - 12/29/24 - On a liberative path, we know we want to feel better but the enormity of the task, and the continuous “undoing” that it promises, can give pause. Shoan Osho explores the conditions of the Buddha’s enlightenment experience, and brings to the center Sujata’s role as the nourisher of life, as well as the cosmic female image of Prajna Paramita, the Mother of all Buddhas. Such images are in fact an emanation of each of us, our many forms of no-form, and are as limitless as space.

Kien Martin, MRO Monastic - ZCNYC - 12/29/24 - A Path of Faith, Doubt and Determination.

Prabu Gikon Vasan, Senior Lay Practitioner - ZMM - 12/28/24 - In the Buddha’s early sutras there are teachings which encourage an honest assessment of our state of being, no matter what the circumstances, as the very stuff of our liberation. Senior lay student Gikon explores how dharma practice supports this sometimes difficult but deeply freeing inquiry into our state of being, be it health or any mind state, and the liberating practice at our fingertips within samsara.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 12/22/24 - How do we practice ideals such as “morality” and “equality” and bring them to life? Invoking Wendell Berry’s text The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice, Shugen Roshi explores how words are too often used without clarity about their function in real life events, and how this is a fundamental aspect of the Buddha’s teaching, that words and reality are in alignment.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/22/24 - Hojin Sensei introduces us to Ancestor Mugai Nyodai, the first woman Rinzai Abbot in the Zen tradition from 13th century, Japan. Referring to a story from The Hidden Lamp: Chiyono’s “No Water, No Moon”, Hojin brings up this ability to exercise our freedom to keep things together or let things come apart all according to circumstances.