UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud

189: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

Welcome once again to UnMind, the podcast of Great Cloud, my Zen name, also published on Substack, and as my DharmaByte in the newsletter of the Silent Thunder Order (STO

187: Dichotomy

Welcome, once again, to my UnMind podcast, also published on Substack, and as my Dharma Byte in the newsletter of the Silent Thunder Order (visit www.STOrder.org — STO).

187: Zen Is Not A Religion

Welcome to another segment of the UnMind podcast and DharmaByte column. I would like to share a concern about something I have witnessed in the propagation of Zen. I am a

186: Category Error

Beginning with this segment of the UnMind podcast and DharmaByte column, I want to depart from commenting on the content of my Substack postings, which feature chapters f

185: Metta Sutra / Loving Kindness Sutra

 Welcome to another installment of my Dharma Byte column and UnMind podcast. We have initiated a Substack posting of the unexpurgated reference texts for this series, bas

184: Surangama Sutra

In the introduction to “The Surangama Sutra, A New Translation” by the Buddhist Text Translation Society, the section on “The Reasons for the Teaching” explains six reaso

183: Four Immeasurables part 4 -- Equanimity

The fourth and last of the immeasurables of Buddhism is translated as "equanimity" — in Sanskrit, upekkha. Has the ring of authenticity, doesn’t it? Equanimity, not so mu

182: Four Immeasurables part 3 -- Empathy

The third of the Four Immeasurables of Buddhism, as defined online, is sympathetic joy, or empathy, I have long taken to indicate the kind of genuine delight that one can

181: Four Immeasurables part 2 -- Compassion

The second of the Four Immeasurables of Buddhism, compassion is a term that is frequently bruited-about in Zen circles, the ubiquity of which extends to the customary ref

180: Four Immeasurables part 1 -- Loving Kindness

From a downloaded document from one of my online dharma dialogs — dated June 8, 2016, but otherwise unidentified — we find the following definitions of the Four Immeasura

179: Connecting the Dots Part 6

APPROACHING THE SINGULARITY Siddhartha Gotama, the founder of Buddhism, known as the Buddha — as well as the Ancestors of Zen — struggled mightily to express the essence

178: Connecting the Dots Part 5

This segment is excerpted from the introduction to a yet-to-be-published manuscript of selected podcasts from 2020 forward. The working title is "Speaking with One (Zen)

177: Connecting the Dots Part 4

From time to time over the nearly 50 years since the establishment of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center, a significant number of its members and its affiliates in the Silent Th

176: Connecting the Dots Part 3

In this third installment of my "DharmaByte" column and "UnMind" podcast, exploring the general subject of Zen in our Times, we turn to the last of three suggested topics

175: Connecting the Dots

As I mentioned in the last installment, when thinking about content for the next Dharma Byte or UnMind podcast, I turn to my collaborators for inspiration: Hokai Jeff Har

174: Zen in Our Time

"Zen in Our Time" and "Connecting the Dots" are themes that I have hit upon for 2025, forming the thread running through (one meaning of "sutra") all of my DharmaByte new

173: Connecting the Dots

ZEN IN OUR TIME “Connecting the Dots” Some of you A few may have undergone formal training, in Zen or other meditative traditions, or you may be a relative newcomer to

172: Zen Ps & Qs

Speaking of watching your Ps and Qs, when taking up the way of Zen meditation, it may seem all too easy to get things backward. In fact, according to the great Zen ancest

171: Natural Meditation

In the new Thursday Workshop I have initiated for 2025, I am attempting to lay out in great detail what I believe to be the most natural way to meditate: zazen before Zen

170: Happy New Moment

In the previous segment of UnMind, titled "the least important thing," I closed with a call for submissions; quoting myself:   If you have any topics or areas of intere