HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM JOHN TARRANT & PZI ! Another year has gone— a hat on my head, straw sandals on my feet. —Basho with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. —Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey”

At New Year 2008

Today, I notice that I’m grateful for having a practice, for having access to the pattern in things. The vines and the pear trees are brown and grey in Sonoma County now, and white clouds and grey sky are visible through them. The branches have become bare essences of themselves. Just to look at and experience things as they are has always been a way into the heart of Zen. The experience of thusness is a free territory for everyone, a moment of awakening that once it is noticed becomes available at other times.

The past disappears into dreams and stories, and the future keeps parting and flowing around us. We are always traveling along the cliff of the now. What makes the traveling alive and interesting is having a practice. A practice makes the activity of blundering along the roads into a pilgrimage, something of value in itself.

The bare essence of practice seems to be paying attention. Just breathing is enough, just having a stream of thoughts and feelings, just eating, just remembering, just laughing, just being impatient, and all the human things—appreciating the thusness. Koans let us into the deepest level of noticing in this way.

It’s nice that having a practice works, it reliably brings us into the now and the thusness. I have the sense that the trees practice with us and the sky, and the last hummingbirds hovering at the sage in the garden, and the people hurrying to do their New Year shopping. Wherever we go we are in the company of Bodhisattvas. It’s nice also to have Bodhisattvas who practice in the same way as we do, who always have a koan with them and are willing to sit each day and let the world come to rest.

So thanks to all of you who work to keep PZI happening, and thanks to all who sit and come to retreats, and thanks to all who donate money. It’s good to have companions on the way.

—John Tarrant
Senior Teacher, Director of PZI

May your New Year be happy

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