Caoshan asked the old student De, “The body of reality is like space.
It responds to things—manifesting its forms the way the moon appears in the water.
How do you explain this responsiveness?”
De said, “It’s like a donkey looking into a well.”
“That’s most of it, but not the whole thing.”
“What’s it like for you?”
“It is like a well looking at a donkey.”
—Book of Serenity Case 52
The Pacific Zen Institute is a community that embraces koan practice, creativity, and real life. Our mission is to create a culture of transformation through meditation, koans, conversation, and the arts. Join us
The Manifestations of the 1000-Armed Goddess of Mercy
Great Fall Sesshin with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
Santa Sabina Center in Northern California
October 22–27, 2024
When we are asleep we sink down into the dream world where we are not ourselves and we are all connected. When we wake, we might rise up forgetting to worry or be separate. The things of the world come to us. And when you let each thing be as it is, you might see in each thing the face of the thousand-armed goddess of mercy. That is the touch of the heart of the goddess.
Join us for our Great Fall Sesshin. This is a retreat about welcome and mercy and clarity, how we are still connected as if we were asleep and full of love whether or not we know it yet. Get details here
What’s Current
Sunday Zen with John Tarrant & Friends
The Zen Master and the Ruler of the Land
September 15th, 10:30 am PDT
PZI Online Temple
REGISTER
Our lives are the universe talking to itself—the wind bending the grass, the goldfinches pouring through the garden like honey, the feeling that life all makes sense and the feeling that life doesn’t make sense—all of this is ours. In late spring, birds are singing on their nests at night. Our thoughts and feelings are simple too. There is something beautiful about being alive, just the simplest part of being alive is everything.
Meditation is not very complicated. It just means noticing that everything is alright, even when things are difficult, there is something alright in us. Our lives have a grace and a kindness in them before we started looking for grace or kindness. We are not living the wrong life.
Here’s a little story: Zhaozhou and the Ruler of the Land.
The Governor asked, “Master, do you practice?”
Zhaozhou said, “It would be a disaster if I did.”
Ma said, “If you yourself do not practice, to whom can you teach the practice?”
Zhaozhou said, “You.”
Ma said, “How can you call someone like me a practitioner?”
Zhao said, “If you did not practice, how could you have overcome hunger and cold, and attained the status of a Governor?”
With tears in his eyes the Governor bowed in gratitude.
Waking up is something we do together, in the online temple on Sunday. We love it when you join us.
—John Tarrant
Featured from Our Archive:
The Power of Koan Practice
Koans seem true to life because they rely on uncertainty, surprise and the imagination. They depend on the inconceivable, which is the largest part of life.
At the same time, if koans leap, they take off from a specific place, they depend on the everyday world of the kitchen and the garden and on precise language.
In this way they are like art; they encourage you to move beyond your self-imposed limits by offering a fresh view of things you have already seen, or think you have already seen. Through the koans you find freedom by entering life more fully.
—Article by John Tarrant published in Shambhala Sun Magazine, 2003
Recent Zen Luminaries Video:
Marie Howe: New & Selected Poems
Marie Howe’s poetry is luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life. Her long, deep-breathing lines address the mysteries of flesh and spirit, in terms accessible only to a woman who is very much of our time and yet still in touch with the sacred.
—Poet Stanley Kunitz
Koan Meditation
Weekday Mornings
Online Open Temple
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Fall Open Temple: All welcome
September 2nd–November 1st
Practice leaders bring koans and poems, ring the bells, and hold a cushion for you!
Calendar of Events
Pacific Time
What’s in the PZI Library?
Explore our vast online library of dharma talk videos, audios, transcripts, compilations, clips, koans, and more!
Check Out PZI on YouTube!
From Our Archive
Text
Silver Cliffs and Iron Mountains
You are not going to find freedom in areas where you are already wise and a Buddha. Eventually you come to a place where you can’t go on and you can’t go back.
It’s a daunting place—that’s the point of it. And when you arrive here your life and your journey can become your own.
—John Tarrant, Summer Sesshin 2017
Video
Everywhere! It’s Everywhere You Look
Great knowledge enters in when we are not grasping for things.
Zhuangzi said,
We wander in borderless vastness; Great Knowledge enters in, and we don’t know where it will ever end.
—John Tarrant, Sunday Zen 2023
Video
In Front of the
Dead Tree Cliff
Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming—the joys and pains of life, of forgetting and remembering.
Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange. What is it to receive one? What comes with that?
—John Tarrant, Sunday Zen 2023
Upcoming Events
New to Pacific Zen Institute? Welcome!
WELCOME! At PZI we’re creating a culture of transformation through meditation, koans, conversation, and the arts. Explore and connect in PZI Zen Online events, our extensive Koans and Liberation Project Archive (KALPA), and more.
Fall Open Temple Pass – Weekday Morning Meditations
BEGINS SEPTEMBER 2nd
PZI Online Open Temple
The Universe
Sunday Zen with John Tarrant & Friends: The Zen Master and the Ruler of the Land
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 15th
PZI Online: 10:30 AM PDT
The Universe
Daylong Retreat with John Tarrant & Tess Beasley: Zen and the Goddess Part I
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21st
PZI Zen Online: 9:30 AM PDT
The Universe