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The Ink Dark Moon: Love Is the Mess of the World

Our Q’s & A’s of love and Zen, from The Ink Dark Moon Sunday session. In Zen nothing is excluded. Turning toward everything, even what doesn’t fit with our description of reality. We long to be seen as we truly are and are equally terrified of the possibility of being found. What your heart longs for is in your life now! Audio excerpt, as recorded Feb. 14 2021, PZI Zen Online.

The Ink Dark Moon: Calling Myself Beloved

Allison Atwill explores cases against life and love, the ways we block the universe’s gifts—and how we “abide somewhere” by clinging to lack. Or, we hang on to what we have like Deshan and his commentaries. We want to be included, “to feel beloved on earth.” Where is love in Zen? Included! Audio excerpt from The Ink Dark Moon. As recorded Feb. 14 2021, PZI Zen Online.

The Ink Dark Moon: What Is It To Meet Things?

Tess Beasley asks, “What is it to meet things?” as she introduces The Ink Dark Moon – stories on Meetings, Love, and Zen. Love brings something forth in us. We stop into noticing and find ourselves within the vast, strange territory of love. Poems from Kyoto’s Golden Age. The beauty of longing, missing, loss. Dokusan, the meeting without barriers between student and teacher. Audio excerpt from The Ink Dark Moon. As recorded Feb. 14th 2021, PZI Zen Online.

The Ink Dark Moon: Of Love and Zen

Atwill, Riddle & Beasley give us The Ink Dark Moon – stories of Zen and Love on Valentine’s Day. Complete session with music and The Four Boundless Vows. Jordan McConnell plays Love Me Tender. As recorded Feb. 14th 2021, PZI Zen Online. 59 minutes.

The Ink Dark Moon: Love Me Tender – Music for Meditation

Music for meditation during Atwill, Riddle & Beasley’s The Ink Dark Moon. A Valentine’s Day day gift from musician Jordan McConnell. Audio excerpt as recorded Feb. 14 2021, PZI Zen Online.

The Traveling Moon and the Cuckoo’s Call

Audio Excerpt: PZI Winter Sesshin. Jon Joseph reads poems and reminds us that even deep in jumbled mountains the cuckoo is calling us home. 2 minutes.

6 The Moon Sets At Midnight – The Zenosaurus Course In Koans

Zenosaurus Curriculum 6: The koan shows the enormous life-changing possibility that we might be making fine decisions, and the universe might be carrying us along very nicely if we are not jostling and worrying and striving.

Dharma Theme: Guanyin In the Pavilion Under the August Moon

PZI Dharma Theme: “Guanyin Manifesting in the Elements: Space, Earth, Water, Air, Fire.” A Dharma Theme? It’s a gathering, a curation of events from our vast KALPA library, based in a theme that is current in our online sessions and practice. We’re offering a compilation of various types of files: transcript, audio, art, music, and video—all from PZI teachers.

Audio Excerpt: Water Moon Guanyin with Tess Beasley

PZI Zen Online: Audio excerpt from Guanyin in the Pavilion Under the August Moon. Tess Beasley Sensei and the winged pavilion of summer. The various ways compassion can manifest. Water offers compassion at unfathomable depths and in reflections. As recorded Aug 16 2020.

Fiery, Radiant Guanyin in the Pavilion Under the August Moon with Allison Atwill Roshi

PZI Zen Online – Audio: Fiery Guanyin in the butterfly tent with open wings. Allison reminds us of all the elemental manifestations of Guanyin as Space, Earth, Water, Air, and finally Fire. Guanyin manifests solutions from unseen space in any situation that is deemed unfixable. Fire is an ancient symbol of transformation but also shows itself through Gunayin as the inner radiance of all things. Every appearance has its own brightness. The koan of the great temple fire of Engaku-ji Temple in Kamakura, in which everything was burned and yet nothing was destroyed. One of the 100 Samurai Koans. As recorded, with Michael Wilding on flute. Aug 30, 2020

Guanyin’s Breath in the Pavilion Under the August Moon with Sarah Bender Roshi

Audio: PZI Zen Online – Guanyin in the Pavilion Under the August Moon with Sarah Bender Roshi manifesting Guanyin as air with ‘Breath Sweeps Mind’ and the call and response we employ meeting her compassionate nature. Appropriate response is Guanyin’s territory. Fayan’s …’the fresh breeze that arises when the great burden is set down.’ Sarah presents her field notes on Guanyin as wind, breath, release, and the Sutra of Endless Life. Michael Wilding on flute, Ryan McCoy on 4 vows, vocals and guitar. As recorded August 23 2020

Guanyin’s Watery Nature in the Pavilion Under the August Moon with Tess Beasley

Audio: Guanyin in the Pavilion with Tess Beasley. Guanyin’s watery nature. Water: ‘the softest compound that can overwhelm the hardest’. Compassion dissolves and connects us. The ‘call and response’ of our relationship to Guanyin. A force greater than any striving. Like Buddha at the brink of starvation opening to the offering of milk. We can’t know how she will call us or what our response will be. The great intimacy & spaciousness of abiding nowhere together. She enters when we need a new path. Michael Wilding on flute, Jordan McConnell guitar, Amaryllis Fletcher, Cantor on violin. Aug.16 2020.

Guanyin Touches the Earth – In the Pavilion Under the August Moon with Michelle Riddle Sensei

Audio – PZI Zen Online – Guanyin in the Pavilion with Michelle Riddle Sensei -Touching earth as Guanyin. Falling – Layman Pang and his daughter Ling Zhao fall together. The subtle and varied flavor of Guanyin’s manifestations – her/his shape/form/gender shifting qualities. As recorded August 9 2020. Michael Wilding on flute, Jordan Guitar. Amaryllis Fletcher, violin.

Guanyin in the Pavilion under the August Moon – Intro with All 4 Women Teachers

PZI Zen Online- Audio as recorded August 2 2020.

Before There is Moonlight – First Rank of Dongshan’s Five Ranks

PZI Zen Online – We are in a time ‘before moonlight’ with covid and massive unemployment that has resulted- with great unknowns ahead. Dreams in zen are not so different from waking life. We make up stories about what will happen. But we are passing through a gate of meeting and not recognizing. How do you make your way? Step by step. As recorded May 25.

Vimalakirti & His Daughter, Moon Like Beauty

Allison relays the story of the encounter between Manjushri and Vimalakirti. Manjushri, among the 32,000 Bodhisattvas sent by Buddha to Vimalakirti’s , and asks him on his sick bed: ‘How do the Bodhisattvas enter the gate of non-duality?’ The response is an intimate silence. Allison’s story includes the karmic path that his daughter, Moon Like Beauty bore on her way to enlightenment.

Coral Moon

Allison Atwill, “Coral Moon,” 2013. Acrylic on birch panel with silver leaf, 30″ x 40″.

PZI Art Card #12: Each Branch of Coral Holds Up the Moon

The Moon Sets at Midnight

We have such a passion to know and to be certain but, in practice, much of what we think of as knowledge is just untested thoughts. As the Heart Sutra says, even thoughts are empty, and if we are willing not to know, willing to walk through life without believing every thought that rises, then we’ll find a path out of suffering.

Each Branch of Coral Holds Up The Moon

Roshi John Tarrant gives the third of three koans for Bare Bones retreat. The head of the koan is: “What is the sharpest sword or the sword which will cut even the finest piece of hair in two?” The response to the question is, “Each branch of coral holds up the moon.” February 22, 2013.

Each Branch of Coral Holds Up the Moon

Allison Atwill Sensei describes the making of her amazing art piece inspired by the koan, “Each Branch of Coral Holds Up the Moon.” January 24, 2013.

Moonlight on the Path

One of the places I think this really appears for me that I find interesting is, if I take that koan view of there’s not really a ground for this, it’s all coming up out of the vastness, it appears like the moonlight, it’s just there. I didn’t make it appear.

Dragons of the Blue Cliff Retreat: Hands & Eyes, Part 2

How does the bodhisattva of compassion use all those hands and eyes? How do I express Guanyin? How is Guanyin showing up in my life? John Tarrant’s afternoon meditation & talk, Part 2 of this two-session Dragons of the Blue Cliff 1-Day Retreat. In the PZI Digital Temple, as recorded June 6, 2021.

Free & Easy Wandering Series: Knock on Any Door

Allison Atwill & Tess Beasley are guest hosts in John Tarrant’s Free & Easy Wandering Series. They each tell a story of being at a threshold—knocking on doors not knowing who would answer, and how the gifts of the universe appeared. PZI Zen Online, as recorded May 30, 2021. Vows with Jordan McConnell. Music for meditation from Michael Wilding archived separately.

Free & Easy Wandering Series: Mysterious Meetings in a Mysterious Time

We’ve been in a long monastic retreat during this pandemic. Time has slowed. We are opening up gradually now to the world, as more people are vaccinated. We realize we are not going back to anything. The time is changing. We’re all stepping off into the mysterious. Musician: Jordan McConnell. PZI Zen Online: As recorded May 23, 2021.

Every Day Is a Good Day

What is the journey for? What is it to have this life? We’re in it—it’s so marvelous, so overwhelming and so incomprehensible. You’ll find, I think, that you can’t stand back from it and answer that question. So the “good day” is just how it is. It’s like the gift of the universe, and you’re in the universe, having received the gift. Transcript of John Tarrant’s dharma talk in Winter Sesshin 2020.

Sudden Awakening

“In even the simplest life, pain and disappointment accumulate—and at some moment everyone longs to walk through a gate and leave the past behind, perhaps for an earlier time when the colors were bright and the heart carried no weight. The quest for a fresh start is so fundamental that it defines the shape of the stories we tell each other.” Article by John Tarrant published in Lion’s Roar magazine on July 1, 2007.

Enlightenment Is Something We Do Together

Conversation is itself a kind of meditation, a way we can accompany each other through life. We can share errors, painful mistakes, dreams, losses, discoveries, or just the ordinary glowing things. That’s a good day. Article by John Tarrant published in Lion’s Roar magazine February 18, 2014.

One Day, My Child, All This Will Be Yours

Australia’s ancient forests were burning in September 2020. In the face of unfathomable loss John Tarrant writes, “It’s too early to despair, it’s always too early to despair. The world itself is a mystery school and teaches us what it needs. It gives us impossible tasks and impossible journeys, and all we can say is that we love the world without knowing outcomes, because it is the only world we have, and because we never do know outcomes.” Article for Lion’s Roar magazine, published September 14, 2020.

The Names and Shapes of Things

Bandicoots, wombats, and numbats surely do look as you would expect anything with such a name might, and there’s something wondrous about that. Musings and poem on how the world appears from silence, John Tarrant Roshi.