Profile
We are a lively community of lay practitioners in the Sanbo Zen lineage, deeply committed to awaken, liberate, and protect all beings through the Three Treasures of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Our Santa Fe campus has a lovely zendo, hiking trails, and lodging in the mountains just outside the city. We also have a robust online community of practitioners tuning in from around the country and the world to our zendo, as well as to our online sangha forum.
We offer free, public, hybrid community meditation seven days a week, both onsite and online, along with a weekly Book Group, two weekly talks, and a weekly Intro to Zen class. You can see our full weekly schedule here. We also offer regular, hybrid Zen-style retreats, ranging from daylong (Zazenkai) to weekend to 6-day.
We are a socially engaged center through our Ecodharma offerings. These are weaved into our regular schedule, including Ecodharma-themed Wisdom Wednesdays on the first Wednesday evening of each month and our semi-monthly sangha-led Turtles EcoDharma group. We also have dedicated Ecodharma retreats and events, such as Ecodharma May (a month-long focus on Ecodharma practice and study) and land stewardship workshops.
Practitioners are welcome to study with us onsite beyond our retreats through our personal practice retreats, offering a chance to more deeply integrate Zen practice into everyday life.
Our Center operates under the guidance of Associate Zen Master Valerie Forstman. Valerie came to Mountain Cloud with a shared vision of the core of the Zen path, a way of coming home to who we truly are. In keeping with the Sanbo Zen tradition, this path or ‘way’ may include koan training, “just sitting” practice, or simple breath awareness practice, all of which funnel into what it means to undergo the immense change of heart implied by the term “awakening.” What a joy and what a rich process it can be, not just to taste this, but to embody it and live it out in lives of compassionate service.
