The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast
Zen Mountain Monastery
Show overview
The Zen Mountain Monastery Podcast has been publishing since 2023, and across the 3 years since has built a catalogue of 128 episodes. That works out to roughly 95 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 38 min and 47 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-US-language Religion & Spirituality show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 2 weeks ago, with 34 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2025, with 75 episodes published. Published by Zen Mountain Monastery.
From the publisher
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 generation, since the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. Zen Mountain Monastery, the main house of the Mountains and Rivers Order, is one of the West’s most respected Zen Buddhist monasteries and training centers. Nestled in New York’s beautiful Catskill Mountains, the Monastery draws its strength from the ancient tradition of Buddhist monasticism. Since 1980, the Monastery has offered spiritual practitioners traditional and innovative ways to engage the dharma through a wide range of retreats and residential programs that unfold within the context of authentic, full-time Zen monastic training. The Zen Center of New York City: Fire Lotus Temple is the city branch of Zen Mountain Monastery. Supporting home practitioners in the metropolitan area, ZCNYC offers varied practice opportunities within the Eight Gates training matrix.
Latest Episodes
View all 128 episodesFusatsu: Unsurpassable Giving
Grass Grows On The Path
Energy For Awakening
Wonderous Jewel, Never Hidden
Not To Be Hindered
Jukai Ceremony at ZMM with Shugen Roshi – April 2026
Do You Know the Self—or Not?
Dharma Encounter: Wisdom and Compassion
Acupuncture Needle of Zazen
Finding the Monastery in Samsara
Entering the Wilderness
Just Resting, While Freely Going Forth
Spring 2026 Ango Opening Talk – “The Turning Words of Hongzhi”
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 3/22/26 – Shugen Roshi introduces the theme of the MRO Spring Ango 2026 training period, “The Turning Words of Hongzhi”.
Ango Opening Talk at Fire Lotus Temple
Aspects of Giving
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 3/15/26 – As the first of the Paramitas, or perfections, generosity is a virtue that leads to releasing the suffering we all experience, which was the primary focus of the Buddha’s teaching. Shugen Roshi reminds us that when we practice the dharma with the mind of generosity, we can hold everything that arises, and let diminish the disconnection between ourselves and all others.
Come to Rest in Actuality
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei and Danica Shoan Ankele, Sensei – ZCNYC – 3/15/26 – Buddha and Mara are figurative ways of portraying a fundamental seeming opposition within our human nature: Buddha stands for a capacity for awareness, openness, and freedom; with Mara representing a capacity for confusion, closure, and restriction. In this collaborative Dharma Talk Shoan and Hojin explore the four traditional teachings of the ways Mara appears. – This talk followed the Meeting Mara : the Art of Fearless Presence Retreat.
So Many Hands and Eyes
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 3/8/26 – When we are complete within ourselves, nothing is left aside as unimportant. All of it is important. We can look to the great bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, as one who does not make any distinctions whatsoever. All things have their skillful use, can be turned toward benefit, even those most difficult things, those most challenging moments. What we do moment to moment is what makes the path of practice and realization possible. How do we manifest compassion? By looking to what we do, moment to moment, as a very real living vow. – From Master Dogen’s 300 Koan Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye), Case 105 – “The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion”
It’s Right Here
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 3/8/26 – From The Hidden Lamp, Case #1: The Old Woman of Mt. Wutai – What is this desire to have a defined path in life and might the pointing in this koan give some friction to ask the larger question of what is moving us? Hojin takes up this teaching to address the mind that leans forward — imagining fulfillment later, somewhere else.
Vimalakirti’s Gate of Non-Duality
Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Roshi – ZMM – 3/1/26 – What did Vimalakirti say when Manjushri asked him to speak? In our own lives, how do we find freedom amid the dualities we encounter—sick or well, right or wrong, left or right? And what does the nonduality of form and emptiness reveal? When nothing stands opposed, where is the other side? In this talk, Shugen Roshi explores the nonduality of wisdom and compassion, and the selfless quality that makes each inseparable from the other. – From The Blue Cliff Record, Case 84: Vimalakirti’s Gate of Nonduality.
Mirror, Mirror ! – Reflecting without Division
Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei – ZCNYC – 3/1/26 – Listen to this invitation from a small convent in medieval Japan—Tōkeiji—where generations of nuns practiced zazen before a mirror, contemplating this question: “Where is a single feeling, a single thought, in the mirror image at which I gaze?” Awareness does not stand apart from experience. What might this mean in a world that so often feels divided? – From The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women: #34 — The Zen Mirror of Tōkeiji.