Dharma talks from Clouds In Water Zen Center

Clouds in Water Zen Center
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Welcome to the Clouds in Water Zen Center Dharma Talks podcast! We post our Sunday dharma talks from various speakers, including talks from 202o to the present. Clouds in Water is a vibrant and inclusive community in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition, with a mission to awaken the heart of great wisdom and compassion. Founded in 1994, we regularly offer meditation, classes, and retreats. We are located in the historic Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul, and everywhere via Zoom. We welcome people of all backgrounds and faiths. If you enjoy listening and would like to make a donation, please visit our website.

  1. Ancestral Herbalism and Gathas of Nature by Joanna Hill and Rev. Rin LaJoy

    6d ago

    Ancestral Herbalism and Gathas of Nature by Joanna Hill and Rev. Rin LaJoy

    Date: 2026/05/24. Speakers: Joanna Hill and Rev. Dr. Rin LaJoy. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. Joanna Hill is from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. My clan is the Bullhead (Wawaazisii) which is one of the five original clans of the Anishinaabe People. The Wawaazisii clan people are mediators, teachers, scholars and healers. My Ojibwe name is Kiizhibaayaanimadookwe, which means Whirlwind Woman. I am an Indigenous Herbalist. I use and practice my ancestral wisdom when working with the plants. I've had lifelong relationships with plants but when I started to learn more deeply about my cultural teachings and ceremonies this opened a door for me and deepened my relationships with the plants. I am deeply grateful for my elders and spiritual teachers. Rin LaJoy (he/him), PhD is a plant evolutionary biologist by training and received his doctorate degree from the University of Minnesota in 2014. His dissertation research focused on how long-lived trees respond to changes in their environment to predict how they will respond in the short-term and evolutionarily to climate change. His research primarily focused on tropical ecology, and he had the privilege to spend half of his graduate career living and working in Costa Rica and Honduras. His academic interest now revolves around how to effectively teach biology in a way that is meaningful, accessible, and relevant in multicultural college classrooms. Rin is a priest-in-training at Clouds in Water and is most interested in how Buddhist teachings can be used to unravel systems of harm and oppression. Rev. LaJoy referred to the following readings in his talk: The Way of the Bodhisattva and Dhammapada .

    43 min
  2. Practicing In The Moment With The Ingredients Of Our Lives: Talk For Buddha's Birthday by Rev. Sosan Flynn

    May 17

    Practicing In The Moment With The Ingredients Of Our Lives: Talk For Buddha's Birthday by Rev. Sosan Flynn

    Date: 2026/05/17. Speaker: Guiding Teacher Sosan Theresa Flynn. Clouds in Water Zen Center. Sōsan has studied and practiced Sōto Zen Buddhism since 1992, receiving Dharma transmission (full teaching authority) from Joen Snyder O’Neal in 2012. Sōsan's areas of teaching include body awareness in Zen, loving-kindness practices, and the intersection of Buddhist practice and racial justice. She has a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and has worked in both community mental health and staff training.

    25 min
  3. The Five Aggregates and a Wasp by Rev. Fukutoku Ann Morishita

    May 10

    The Five Aggregates and a Wasp by Rev. Fukutoku Ann Morishita

    Date: 2026/05/10. Speaker: Rev. Fukutoku Ann Morishita. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. Fukutoku is a Sōto Zen priest in training at Clouds in Water Zen Center. She has practiced Soto Zen Buddhism for the past 15 years. In May of 2021, Fukutoku took home leaving vows with Rev. Sojun, Diane Martin of Udumbara Sangha in IL. Sojun was transmitted by Rev. Sekijun Karen Sunna. In 2022, Fukutoku began Zen training with Rev. MyoOn, Susan Hagler. Fukutoku served the general community as a hospice nurse for the past 11 years. Prior to studying Buddhism, Fukutoku was a member of the Evanston, IL, Quaker Friends' Meeting for ten years.

    40 min
  4. Buddhist Teachings : A Prescription for Healing by Rev. MyoOn Susan Hagler

    May 3

    Buddhist Teachings : A Prescription for Healing by Rev. MyoOn Susan Hagler

    Date: 2026/05/03. Speaker: Rev. MyoOn Susan Hagler. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. MyoOn began her Zen practice in 1980 at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center (MZMC). She was ordained in 2003 by Tim Burkett and received Dharma transmission from Dokai Georgesen in 2018. She has had the opportunity to practice at all the MN Zen centers as well as Green Gulch in CA, with Hokyoji Zen Practice Community being her primary place of practice from 2010-2019. MyoOn joined the teacher-ryo at Clouds in early 2019 as a transmitted teacher. For MyoOn, life’s experiences and the people she has crossed paths with have been her greatest teachers.

    40 min
  5. Giving and the Practice of Generosity by Rev. Sosan Theresa Flynn

    Apr 26

    Giving and the Practice of Generosity by Rev. Sosan Theresa Flynn

    Date: 2026/04/26. Speaker: Guiding Teacher Sosan Theresa Flynn. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. Sōsan has studied and practiced Sōtō Zen Buddhism since 1992, receiving Dharma transmission (full teaching authority) from Joen Snyder O’Neal in 2012. Sōsan's areas of teaching include body awareness in Zen, loving-kindness practices, and the intersection of Buddhist practice and racial justice. Sōsan was raised Catholic and practiced Catholicism for many years before embracing Buddhism as her primary religion. She has a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and has worked in both community mental health and staff training.

    35 min
  6. Wandering Boundless and Free by Rev. Jūken Zach Fehst

    Apr 20

    Wandering Boundless and Free by Rev. Jūken Zach Fehst

    Date: 2026/04/19. Speaker: Rev. Jūken Zach Fehst. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. After first encountering the Dharma and studying meditation while living in South Korea in 2006, Jūken entered the path of formal practice in 2014 as a member of the Brooklyn Zen Center, and was ordained a priest by Sōsan Flynn at Clouds in Water in 2025. He is a chaplain on-call with M Health Fairview hospitals, and works with youth as a mindfulness teacher at the Minneapolis Juvenile Detention Center and as a public high school educator, where he teaches English to recent immigrants.

    45 min
  7. Touching the Earth by Rev. Myo-O Habermas-Scher

    Apr 13

    Touching the Earth by Rev. Myo-O Habermas-Scher

    Date: 2026/04/12. Speaker: Rev. Myo-O Habermas-Scher. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. Myo-O is a fully ordained Sōtō Zen priest, having received transmission in 2012 from Dokai Georgesen. She began Zen practice in 1975 with Katagiri Roshi, who was her root teacher, and studied with him until his death in 1990. She also studied and practiced in the Vipassana tradition for twelve years. She is the originator of VoiceWork™, a somatically based voice training, which she offers in private practice, and has taught at several colleges and universities. She is presently a consulting teacher at Clouds in Water Zen Center.

    36 min
  8. What Does Life Ask Of Us by Rev. Shodo Spring

    Apr 5

    What Does Life Ask Of Us by Rev. Shodo Spring

    Date: 2026/04/05. Speaker: Rev. Shodo Spring. At Clouds in Water Zen Center. Shodo Spring has belonged to the natural world for as long as she can remember. She grew up running half-wild in the fields and woods of northeastern Ohio, with early mornings on the shore of Lake Erie and long days outdoors alone in the woods and creeks. Civilized human society was more difficult. She studied physics hoping to understand the universe, then psychotherapy to understand humans, then Buddhism to free herself – all while voraciously reading in history, anthropology, archaeology, political science, philosophy, and spirituality. She joined a series of political movements, finally focused on environment and environmental justice, what would be called deep ecology. Along the way Shodo started one of the first battered women’s shelters, worked as a community organizer in inner-city Cleveland, trained to become a psychotherapist, and explored spirituality including Sufism, Dianic witchcraft, and shamanism, practiced nonviolent social change, and finally entered the practice of Zen Buddhism, which unlocked her internal cage. Shodo has two children and four young-adult grandchildren. She has practiced Zen for over forty years and taught for twelve. She still works part time as a psychotherapist. Shodo’s written work includes Take Up Your Life: Making Spirituality Work in the Real World (Tuttle 1996), editing Shohaku Okumura’s The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” (Wisdom 2018), numerous essays in anthologies, and an ongoing monthly blog. Shodo’s ordination name means “right way” or “true path.” That path integrates activism with spiritual practice and deeply nourishing engagement with the earth. Shodo has participated in long retreats, public sitting meditation as activism, and walking hundreds of miles, including leading the 2013 Compassionate Earth Walk along the planned northern route of the KXL pipeline. Mountains and Waters Alliance expresses her vision of humans working with the beyond-human world to heal and regenerate life on earth. She lives on a small farm which serves as a learning laboratory for growing those relationships, and as a residential community of practice.

    47 min
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About

Welcome to the Clouds in Water Zen Center Dharma Talks podcast! We post our Sunday dharma talks from various speakers, including talks from 202o to the present. Clouds in Water is a vibrant and inclusive community in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition, with a mission to awaken the heart of great wisdom and compassion. Founded in 1994, we regularly offer meditation, classes, and retreats. We are located in the historic Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul, and everywhere via Zoom. We welcome people of all backgrounds and faiths. If you enjoy listening and would like to make a donation, please visit our website.

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