The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 8/22/26 – Many times our practice can be simple and straightforward. But when conditions become adverse, how do we stay on the path? The Dharma points us toward beneficial qualities within ourselves that we can cultivate and draw upon for strength—to support our focus, deepen our faith, and develop clarity. Sometimes called the Beautiful Qualities, or Beautiful Mental Factors, these qualities can sustain and strengthen our practice, especially as we encounter negative conditioning and our habitual patterns.

Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei – ZMM – 8/21/26 – What do we aspire to in our practice? What are we looking for? This deeply personal question can help us find our way among the many Dharma offerings we encounter, which can sometimes feel difficult to take up. In this vast, wide world, why practice? Why? This fundamental question opens many fruitful avenues of practice. Looking within—deepening our zazen—we discover this vastness, this world, and, within it, our freedom. (From the Gateless Gate, Case 16 – The Sound of the Bell and the Seven-Panel Robe.)

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – 8/19/26 – What are the qualities that help, or hinder, our ability to enter and sustain practice on a path of liberation? What to cultivate, what to mindfully let go of? The Buddha and later practitioners studied and taught these ways to support our practice, to best support us in this life, for the life of all beings. Shugen Roshi offers this guiding talk during the Hazy Moon sesshin.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZMM – 08/16/2026 – Drawing on Dogen’s Mountains & Rivers Sutra and various texts on walking meditation, Hojin Sensei brings alive a study of how we move through space and time. Drawing on the “virtue of walking” as a constantly alive practice , she asks: how does stillness move? How does practice on the cushion stand up and move through all aspects of our lives?

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – 8/9/26 – With effort in practice, we bring forth our natural aliveness. To do this we make an effort to let go of self-clinging and other ways we deplete our energies. Even with expectations of the way we imagine “letting go” to be, when we encounter the reality of how tight we grasp on to our attachments, can we yield our fixed and self-centered ideas? Shugen Roshi explores this energy of aliveness with the Five Powers of the Buddha as well as a koan from Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo. (From The True Dharma Eye, Case 44: Guishan’s “I have already exhausted myself for you.”)