The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

By Zen Mountain MonasteryReligion & Spirituality Buddhism

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Typical duration
42 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast episodes

February 08 Coming Together – Falling Apart
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 2/8/26 - Coming together, falling apart, are these the same? Different? Practice can show us the freedom of mind responding according to circumstance. In this talk, Hojin Sensei reflects on the koan from the Hidden Lamp, Chiyono’s No Water, No Moon, and what it means to keep practicing the dharma, to keep caring for something— even when it seems fragile, broken. How sometimes falling apart, or experiencing a heart breaking situation might be just the turning point needed to open up completely. Where do we find the self?
47 min
January 31 Meditation and Wisdom, Function and Essence
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/31/26 - The wellspring of wisdom in Zen is meditation. Yet wisdom alone is not enough; the path of liberation must also fully embody compassion. Compassion is not separate from awakening but an essential and indivisible expression of it, permeating every aspect of practice and life. In this Sesshin talk, Shugen Roshi encourages us to draw compassion close within our zazen, leaving nothing outside our practice.
42 min
January 28 Pursuing The Buddha Way – Bendowa
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/28/26 - Freeing ourselves through seated meditation, zazen, is the foundational practice at the heart of Zen Buddhism. In this exploratory talk, Shugen Roshi encourages us to be clear about what we’re doing, and how to do it, as well as why we are aiming to free ourselves and others from the suffering of this world.
49 min
January 25 What You Ought To Be
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/25/26 - 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.
44 min
January 18 Practicing the Path: Right Effort
Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Osho - ZMM - 1/18/26 - In a series of talks on the Eightfold Path, Gokan Osho looks at effort, one of the core concentration factors of the path. Early on in our lives we mostly overreach, becoming competitive or extremely self-critical, and sometimes give up all together. We get ourselves in tangles before we can learn through practice to undo the expectations and measurements, to find the right amount of effort needed to continue on the path and develop the clarity and stability we need.
36 min
January 11 Missing It, Seeing It
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 1/11/26 - 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. - From Master Wu-Men's Gateless Gate, Case 39: Yun-men Says You Missed It
43 min
January 04 An Auspicious Year
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 01/04/2026 - With a new year upon us we all have the chance to start fresh. This is always true because nothing is fixed, everything is subject to change, a truth of the dharma which we can verify for ourselves. We have accumulated experiences, memories, expectations, but those are not fixed either. In this perspective, the new year is auspicious because it is full of possibilities, revealing its potential as we take up life fully, with integrity, commitment and kindness. - From Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 39 - Jingqing's "Buddhadharma at the New Year"
40 min
January 04 Stillness Within the Pulses of the Pattern
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 1/4/26 - In this talk Hojin draws on the teachings of Zen Master Bankei and the importance of allowing the still point to find us. All so very relevant. His teachings point to something very simple and very radical: before thought, before preference, before judgment—seeing happens, hearing happens, smelling, tasting, touching happens. And none of that needs a self to make it happen. How curious!
The post Stillness Within the Pulses of the Pattern first appeared on Zen Mountain Monastery.
34 min
January 01 Fusatsu for the New Year
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - New Year's Eve 12/31/25 - Moral and ethical conduct in Zen practice involves the ongoing work of recognizing when we have fallen short of kindness, compassion, or honesty. The Renewal of Vows ceremony is an ancient Buddhist ritual that addresses the harm we cause. Through atonement, we acknowledge our transgressions—an essential act of turning karma and bringing benefit to the world, and of renewing our commitment to the vows we live by. Offered on the threshold of the new year, this talk brings Shugen Roshi's Dharma teaching directly into the realities of everyday life.
33 min
December 31, 2025 Fusatsu: Renewal of Stillness
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/31/2025 - Here, in a Fusatsu ceremony—a renewal of vows and an atoning for our transgressions—the foundation is stillness. Zazen is the activity through which we continually return to that stillness. Hojin Sensei encourages us to listen deeply, so that morality is not imposed but received, and our true nature can be discovered. From this place, grace naturally infuses our everyday actions.
The post Fusatsu: Renewal of Stillness first appeared on Zen Mountain Monastery.
37 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…