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PODCAST

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud

Silent Thunder Order

A podcast of original teachings and music by Zenkai Taiun Michael Elliston Roshi, guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order.

religion & spirituality buddhism

All Episodes

00:15:13

148: Election Year Zen #3

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/04/03

In this segment, as promised, we will return to the seemingly zero-sum game being played out in the political arena, under the rubric of “Election Year Zen,” episode #3. As I pointed out in closing the second segment: This, too – “politics” is the Dharma. While the course of action that Buddha and the Ancestors of Zen undertook, within the constraints of their cultural context, may not have had obvious political motivations, the very act of establishing and maintaining Zen practice whether in the

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00:21:35

147: Zen and Zero

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/03/27

Monday, March 11, was my birthday, as I mentioned in the last segment of UnMind. Wednesday, March 27th, happens to be my late brother’s birthday. So in his honor, let us continue exploring the theme of Time — its seeming passage and constant presence. He was a professional jazz pianist and teacher of music, and so was fully immersed in time. Once upon a time, while discussing time signatures in music, such as four-four time, three-four time — the familiar waltz tempo — and so on, he leaned toward

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00:21:40

146: Zen and Design Thinking

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/03/20

BRINGING ORDER OUT OF CHAOSIt might be said that the function of the discriminating mind (S. citta), in the most general sense, is to render what is perceived as chaos into what may be perceived as order. Of course, this is not an original idea, and has an associated idea that chaos, as we perceive it, may be thought of as a higher level of order, one that is not accessible to our perception. This idea resonates in both the world of Zen and that of art and design thinking.One would have to speak of

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00:17:09

145: Time and Zen

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/03/13

Monday, March 11, 2024 is my 83rd birthday, and coincidentally the deadline for this segment of UnMind, in order to drop on Wednesday the 13th. I did an exercise in visualizing my personal timeline this last year, and will share it with you in this installment. You will have to visit the website to see the illustrations (link), but for now, as we say in professional design circles — when a design board presentation got lost in checked baggage — “Picture this, guys!” Been there, done that.I began by

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00:17:25

144: Election Year Zen part 2

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/03/06

As promised, at the beginning of each month in 2024, we return to the topic of “Election Year Zen,” with my “DharmaByte” column (DB) for the Silent Thunder Order monthly newsletter, followed by my first subsequent “UnMind” podcast (UM) of the month. To review the underlying rationale for this approach to a topic most practitioners would prefer to avoid, please refer to last month’s DB and UM if you have not already done so.In an earlier DB from June of 2023, I had broached this subject gingerly, and

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00:17:49

143: Zen = More is Less

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/02/28

In our last segment of UnMind, on the meaning of “less is more” — a central axiom of design thinking coined by the famous architect, Mies van der Rohe — I introduced the notion that this adage may be usefully applied to Zen, as well. The simplicity of lifestyle and paucity of possessions surrounding the history of Zen, in China and Japan in particular, speaks to the general question regarding happiness and satisfaction in life: How much is enough? In this segment we will consider how “more” can

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00:14:20

142: Zen = Less is More

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/02/21

In the last segment of UnMind, the second installment discussing the sameness and differences I have noted in teaching Zen or design as a profession, I wrapped up the essay by mentioning the concept of “control,” as it might apply to either or both: In meditation circles, we often hear phrases such as “controlling the breath” or “emptying your mind of thoughts.” These represent attitudes 180-degrees from that in Zen meditation, which is not one of exerting control, but rather relinquishing any real

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00:15:04

141: Teaching Design and Teaching Zen

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/02/07

If you are paying an undue degree of attention to the details of my UnMind podcasts, you may have noted that the last segment was titled “Teaching Zen & Teaching Design,” while this one is “Teaching Design & Teaching Zen.” A trivial difference without a distinction, you might say. The emphasis on design thinking may have been a bit confusing, and Zen will be the major focus of this one. But either is here used as a foil for the other, in the spirit of “Harmony of Sameness and Difference,”

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00:12:52

140: Teaching Zen and Teaching Design part 1

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/01/31

As I mentioned in one of the prior segments of UnMind: In zazen, as well as in Zen writ large, we embrace a directive from the first great Ch’an poem by Master Kanchi Sosan:To move in the One WayDo not reject even the world of senses and ideasIndeed embracing them fully is identical with true enlightenmentThis is the most direct testament I have come across to refute the charge that Zen is somehow anti-intellectual. Those of us who take up the Zen way do, however, recognize the limitations of the

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00:15:22

139: Zen and Politics

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2024/01/24

After taking a holiday hiatus from my DharmaByte column and UnMind podcast, in collaboration with my publisher and producer, we have determined a new direction for 2024, or a new way of extending our past direction. As this is the quadrennial election year in the American national political cycle, we feel it is time, and timely, to address the relationship of Zen practice in particular, and the teachings of Zen Buddhism in general, to that of governing, and more broadly, our civic duty as citizens

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00:02:05

UnMind December 2023 Announcement

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/12/13

This is UnMind, and I am producer Shinjin Larry Little. After restarting the UnMind podcast in April of 20-23 with episode 106, we’ve met you almost every week for the past 33 weeks with fresh insights and teachings from Great Cloud Michael Elliston Roshi. Due to multiple competing priorities at this time of year, we will take a brief and well-deserved break through the rest of the calendar year. We look forward to meeting you all, and the new year, with more fresh content and insights about the

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00:19:35

138: Zen and Zazen

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/12/06

In this segment of UnMind, I would like to return to the basics of Zen, after a foray into some of the darker topics of the times, in particular the horrific conditions of global strife in which we find ourselves immersed these days. It’s a bit like being trapped in the middle of a train wreck where we cannot turn our gaze away. Life has always existed on the edge of death, aging and sickness — the three cardinal marks of dukkha, or “suffering” — Buddha’s sine qua non of the conditions of existence

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00:15:03

137: Compassion and Passion

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/11/22

I sometimes ask the producer of the UnMind podcast whether there is any subject he would like me to address, that he thinks is timely, and that others might find to be of interest. He sent me the following note: I was re-reading notes I've made in a Brad Warner book (“It Came From Beyond Zen”) and he made two points that are hitting me today. He interpreted Dogen's chapter “Kannon” and then commented on the interpretation: To me the basic idea of this whole essay is that compassion is intuitive

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00:16:42

136: War and Karma

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/11/15

I hesitate to add yet another voice to the cacophony of cries of agony, suffering, outrage and acrimony emanating out of Israel, Gaza, and surrounding Arab states, exacerbated by the 24/7 chattering class. Not to mention the ongoing carnage in Ukraine, which seems to have slipped under the global radar. But I fear that if we in Zen do not try to address these terrible global realities in the context of Buddhism, it may be taken as an indication, or an admission on our part, that Zen, along with its

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00:16:00

135: Updated Noble Path part 2

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/11/08

In the last segment we ended with the suggestion that you, dear listener, might construct your own Noble N-fold Path based on your vision of the Noble Truths, with the proviso that you may have to articulate what the existence of suffering means to you, and how you might pursue a path to its cessation in modern times. In doing so you may discover that there are more origins of suffering in your life than simple craving, although craving is not simple. You may also find, upon closer examination, that

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00:13:58

134: Updated Four Noble Truths part 1

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/11/01

To elicit the bigger picture of the place of Zen and zazen in our world of practice, I would like to refer you to a couple of semantic models illustrating the interrelationships, or operative interfaces, of the various components of the Four Noble Truths, along with the dimensions of the Noble Eightfold Path that we all encounter on a daily basis, both on the cushion and off. Turning to Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, we see that they can be modeled as a system, the simplest geometry for which is the

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00:16:00

133: Human Nature vs Buddha Nature 2

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/10/25

In the next two segments: number 132 and 133 in the sequence, we repeat a subject that we took up in number 113 and 114; namely the buddha nature versus human nature; some of the sameness and differences between what we refer to as “human nature” and what we refer to in Zen as our “original nature,” or “buddha-nature,” “buddha” meaning “awakened one.” Please bear with the repetition; there is new material here as well. And much of what is to be said about the place of Zen in America bears

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00:13:58

132: Human Nature vs Buddha Nature 1

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/10/18

In the next two segments: number 132 and 133 in the sequence, we repeat a subject that we took up in number 113 and 114; namely the buddha nature versus human nature; some of the sameness and differences between what we refer to as “human nature” and what we refer to in Zen as our “original nature,” or “buddha-nature,” “buddha” meaning “awakened one.” Please bear with the repetition; there is new material here as well. And much of what is to be said about the place of Zen in America bears

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00:17:24

131: The Noble 'N' Fold Path

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/10/11

The Noble Eightfold Path, the fourth of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, amounts to a prescription for practice, an octet of dimensions of daily life to pay strict attention to, in order to bring about Right View and Right Understanding, the dyad which, in combination, comprise Buddha’s idea of Right Wisdom. Right, or correct, wisdom in daily life will come about naturally through the daily observation and practice of Right Conduct: right speech, action, and livelihood; along with Right

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00:20:02

130: Personal vs Communal

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud ·

2023/10/04

Continuing with our discussion of various turning points in living the Zen life, we will examine the Buddhist tradition of “leaving home” to become a mendicant, with its unexamined but intrinsic root question of what, exactly, we mean by “home.” The monastic ideal of “leaving home” is repeatedly praised by Master Dogen in the ordination ceremony known, in Japanese, as “Shukke Tokudo” — which translates as something like “leaving home, sharing the dharma.” In lay householder practice, we do not

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