The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 12/07/25 - Celebrating Buddha’s Enlightenment, enjoy this talk of Hojin Sensei’s in looking at Buddha’s most important teaching —the story of his own journey to enlightenment. It is worth repeating as an essential guide for our own spiritual journey. In order to do this well we have to learn how to lean in. Rumi writes: You are the source of milk. Don’t milk others! We have a channel into the ocean, Beg for that love expansion. Meditate on this” If we are willing, ability is given.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/30/25 - This talk on a koan from an early Chan teacher is taken up by Shugen Roshi to look at the ubiquity of our dualistic habits of mind. Koans work with language to help us see our minds more clearly, to see where we cloud ourselves with judgements and bias and distract ourselves with endless arguments. Just forget the two sides and see into the true reality right before our eyes. - From the Book of Serenity - Case 27 - Fayan Points to a Blind

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei - ZCNYC - 11/30/25 - Into this season of gatherings with family, friends, communities, Hojin Sensei illuminates ways we might practice relationships on this noble path in taking up this koan and Dogen’s guiding practices on embracing the ways as a Bodhisattva. This practice of choosing the larger heart. - From The Hidden Lamp: Stories of Awakened Women - Case 99 - Let’s Become Enlightened Together.

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi - ZMM - 11/22/25 - This final section of Shugen Roshi’s Genjokoan commentary looks at the dynamic tension between conceptual learning and the experience of insight. Insight brings clarity, but it is practice which allows the space to open, so that wisdom and compassion arise together. When we experience what reaches everywhere, the tyrannical repetition of samsara begins to slip away. - Fall 2025 Ango - Genjokoan Series of Talks - Part 12 (final)

Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei - ZMM - 11/21/25 - How do we know what is ultimately true? In this koan from the Mumonkan, Shoan Sensei delves into the ordinariness of profound truth that is everywhere; its depth and benefits within reach. And yet there is still practice and investigation that must be engaged to feel into the distinction. - From Master Wu-men's Gateless Gate, Case 19 - Nan-sh'uan: "Ordinary Mind Is the Tao"