# Mountains and Rivers are Sutra

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/earth-dreams-zen-buddhism-and-the-soul-of-the-world-6415534/mountains-and-rivers-are-sutra
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/earth-dreams-zen-buddhism-and-the-soul-of-the-world-6415534/mountains-and-rivers-are-sutra.md
Podcast: [Earth Dreams: Zen Buddhism and the Soul of the World](https://stenobird.com/podcast/earth-dreams-zen-buddhism-and-the-soul-of-the-world-6415534)
Published: 2026-03-15T17:40:00+00:00
Episode link: https://amykisei.substack.com/p/mountains-and-rivers-are-sutra
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/191025263/d5bd2acfe38ed249b27d806766111365.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/earth-dreams-zen-buddhism-and-the-soul-of-the-world-6415534/episodes/mountains-and-rivers-are-sutra
Duration seconds: 1799

## Resource

I will be joining the Mud Lotus Sangha in West Virginia for our first sesshin of the year. Sesshin is now often translated as a Zen-style meditation retreat. But the words meditation and retreat are mis-leading. It is in its truest sense a practice of recognizing our true nature, of touching, encountering the heart-mind that abides everywhere. We are going to the mountains of West Virginia to practice. Stepping back into Mountain time to learn from the mountains, waters and great earth. To be students to the world before thought, which continues to blossom in the midst of all our human-made problems. Preparing for sesshin is like preparing for death. It is preparing for the unknown, for encountering the mystery. It is a practice and path of discovering who and what we are when we aren’t engaging constantly in the impulses and desires of modern life—with its near endless supply of surface level distractions and pleasures—that often keep us from encountering the deep questions and true satisfaction of our being. During sesshin we will be exploring the Mountains and Waters Sutra by Dogen Zenji . And we are also taking up this sutra on Monday nights, as part of the Monday Night Dharma teaching offered weekly on zoom (more info below). It is a beautiful teaching that scholars, ecologists, practitioners, artists, mystics, activists, poets have turned to over the centuries for inspiration on this path of being human, of living awake to our deep interconnection with all beings. So for the next couple months, we will be walking in the mountains together. We will be journeying in Mountain Time, studying the teachings of mountains and waters and how they are relevant in our own lives as modern, urban, technological beings. One of my questions is, can the teachings of mountains an…

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