The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/30/26 – Join Hojin Sensei offering opening remarks to the practitioners at Fire Lotus Temple in Brooklyn to begin the Fall Ango Practice Period:

“Now the hundreds of grasses are actually gathering for the Fall.

Plucked from the entire earth, there would be ten million stalks.

One flower with five petals opens in the sky and the mud.

Without doubt it will naturally bear fruit.”

—Dogen’s words opening an Ango practice period.

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/29/26 – The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is where Buddha gives the four postures: walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. The instruction is essentially to know the body as it is disposed: “when standing, one knows, ‘I am standing.’” walking they know: ‘I am walking.’ When sitting they know: ‘I am sitting.’ And when lying down they know: ‘I am lying down. When our body is aligned and upright the bodies energies begin to settle and circulate in a way that is balanced and the mind too settles into a calmer place. In this talk Hojin explores “when standing, one knows, ‘I am standing.’ It seems simple to just stand, but is it? (Zazenkai Talk)

Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 8/23/26 – Breath is the quality that brings and sustains life–an inspiration of what enters us and provides nourishment. To have aspiration, in a sense, is the desire and motivation inspired by the Dharma which brings us into practice, inspired by our own internal call. When we cultivate even a small aspiration toward awakening, we encounter the possibility of freeing ourselves and liberating others. Shugen Roshi reminds us that we each have influence within our own sphere of living. So, what is our aspiration? What will we do with this very precious life?

Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 8/23/26 – Someone asked the teacher: “Are you lonely”? Hojin takes up these senses of loneliness, solitariness and aloneness. The Buddha taught, “All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.” Can you relate? (From The Hidden Lamp #48: The Old Woman’s Relatives)

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.