Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/27/2023 - What is this quiet place in our heart-mind where we can enjoy serenity and tranquility? Do we have to reach for it? Or is it right here? Gokan examines the third of "The Eight Awarenesses of the Bodhisattva".

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 07/26/2023 - What does Faith mean and what does it encompass in our Buddhist tradition? In this 3-part series, Shugen Roshi talks about the Aspiration to Awakening Through Faith and its many aspects which are the essentials of Buddhist teachings and practices. In this first talk, Shugen Roshi looks at the aspect of understanding; understanding through practicing the Paramitas.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZMM - 07/23/2023 - Hojin Sensei brings us back to the breath. And to the Buddha's teaching in the Ānāpānasati (Mindfulness of Breathing) Sutra, looking at the practice of paying attention to our breath - and the fruits of doing so. She reminds each of us to be careful not to take breath practice for granted, citing John Daido Roshi's heartfelt admonition: "If you really give yourself to breath practice, it will take you to the depths you need to go."

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZCNYC - 7/23/2023 - Zen Master Wumen Huikai wrote, "Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life." In this talk, Shoan explores this teaching, which profoundly points to the heart of Zen practice.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 7/16/2023 - Hojin cites the case "Advice of the Caterpillar," written by Daido Roshi on the conversation between Alice and the Caterpillar, from Alice in Wonderland. The Caterpillar asks Alice "Who Are You?" In Zen practice, this is one of the central inquiries: Who are we, really?

Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/16/2023 - What is it to be satisfied? How much is enough? Can we be satisfied with the way we are right here, right now? Gokan delves into these questions of desire and satisfaction, and brings it back to our zazen, asking: how does our zazen practice help us to understand knowing how to be satisfied? Gokan shares from "The Eight Awarenesses of the Bodhisattva", a succinct teaching the Buddha gave during the last days of his life. Master Dogen also taught the same in his last days in the Shobogenzo Fascicle "Eight Awakenings of Great Beings." And our more recent ancestor Maezumi Roshi made the same admonitions.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/15/2023 - Shoan shares a poem by 14th Century Kashmiri mystic Lalleshwari about "coming home" and asks where do you find yourself in relation to "seeking", "home leaving", "longing"? These activities may seem to imply the need to find, to get somewhere, to be finally satisfied. Yet the non-dual wisdom of Lalleshwari tells us that she's at home when "the truthful one finds me". Lalleshwari seems to say the same thing as Master Dogen: "To carry the self forward and realize the ten thousand dharmas is delusion. That the ten thousand dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightenment."

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei- ZCNYC - 07/09/2023 - Hojin Sensei offers a "care package" for uncertainty, interweaving poetry and Dharma teachings. In the midst of the small and large uncertainties of life, fear often arises. Zazen, Hojin says, is a practice of choosing to enter into uncertainty and not-knowing. The poems and teachings she offers invite us into that wondrous, wild space.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Senior Monastic and Dharma Holder - ZMM - 7/09/2023 - Shoan looks in wonderment at the image of "two arrows meeting in mid-air"... Our seemingly ordinary experience and activity in everyday life is none other than the great universal self, Buddha Mind. Reflecting on a poem from the medieval Buddhist nun Fayuan, Red Pine's commentary on the Diamond Sutra, Master Dogen's Jinzu (Miracles) and Genjokoan (Actualizing the Fundamental Point), the teachings of Kosho Uchiyama, and an essay from Audre Lorde, Shoan expresses it: "May We Realize the Buddha Way Together".

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM 07/02/2023 - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 17 - The National Teacher Calls Three Times - Shugen Roshi talks about the koan, trust, faith, the student-teacher relationship; the teachings, and questions that bootstrap us onto the Bodhisattva Path. Our journey here calls for the kind of understanding that supports/inspires/guides our activity. And this activity in turn enriches our understanding and the cycle continues. In that sense the aspects of the Noble 8-Fold Path and the 6 Paramitas are interdependent, actualizing together.