PZI Events Calendar
W E L C O M E to the PZI Events Calendar! Here you will find all upcoming events and registration links for PZI Zen Online retreats, sesshins, and weekly meditations & talks. Search by individual event, day, or month. Save to your Google Calendar or iCal Calendar. No experience required to participate. All event times are Pacific Time. Questions? Contact Lucas at PZI Support.
F E A T U R E D
April 26: What Is This Light That Everybody Has? – Deep Sit Sunday Zen with John Tarrant & Tess Beasley
May 7–10: Say A True Word & I Will Stay The Night – Open Mind Retreat with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill
June 8–14: Dragons & Tigers, Oh My! – Our Great Summer Sesshin with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
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MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Who Is Hearing the Sound of the Rain?
REGISTER
Early this week we wound our way up the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains to begin a fall meditation retreat at the Mount Madonna Center. On the way up, we were met by slashing rain and terrific winds as the first major storm of the year swept in from the Pacific, only a few miles away. “Who is hearing?” became the thematic koan of the sesshin, as we gathered the first night in the zendo, listening to the drumming of rain on the darkened zendo roof. The coast redwoods and Chinook salmon were happy at the sound of the storm, and so were we.
Early on in the sesshin we spoke of seasonal influences: Yunmen’s golden wind revealed itself; Wumen’s lovely poem appeared:
In spring flowers, in autumn the moon
In summer cool breezes, and winter snow.
If idle concerns don’t cloud the mind,
This is the very best season.
And as the days unfolded, the “thusness” of sitting together in silence, the soft clucking of wild turkey hens searching for acorns in the oak copse, the clinking of spoons in bowls of warm morning gruel, and the soundless sound of a strawberry sunrise over the Pajaro Valley. All brought an immediacy and intimacy to our shared time.
Several hours south of Santa Cruz, just over the Big Sur ridge is Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. David Chadwick, one of its founding monastics and life-long chronicler of the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki (d. 1971), will be visiting our Pacific Zen Luminaries series to discuss his new book, Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir about the first year of the monastery’s founding, in 1967. Suzuki, best known for Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970), a compilation of some of his talks, was the founding abbot of Tassajara, San Francisco Zen Center, and Green Gulch Farm. HIs teachings have touched millions of people over the past half century.
—Jon Joseph
From an August 12, 1971 talk at Tassajara:
Unless you go through emptiness, you are not practicing. But if you stick to an idea of emptiness, you are not a Buddhist yet. Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflowers, a cup of sun, So I tried it too. It was wonderful. The whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower. If you say, “Oh, this sunflower doesn’t really exist, that is not our zazen practice.
Suzuki’s final lecture on August 21, 1971:
To solve our human problem doesn’t cover all of Buddhist practice, and we don’t know how long it takes to make the buddha trip. We have many trips: work trips, space trips, the many trips we must have. The buddha trip is a very long trip. This is Buddhism. Thank you.
COME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.
Jon Joseph Roshi, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
