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Hereʼs what we have for "sesshin 2020":
Fall Sesshin 2020: Closing Ceremony
PZI Fall Sesshin – Sunday evening closing ceremony. Sarah Bender chants, music from Jordan McConnell, Amaryllis Fletcher reads – Joy on the Roads, teacher summations and goodbyes. As recorded October 4, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Music for Meditation with Michael Wilding
PZI Fall Sesshin: Music from Michael Wilding on Alto Sax, Oct 1, 2020. As recorded.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Sutra Service with Amaryllis Fletcher & Jordan McConnell
PZI Fall Sesshin: Sutra service in the afternoon during sesshin. Featuring Amaryllis Fletcher – cantor & violin. Jordan McConnell – vocals & guitar. As recorded October 4 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: There You Are! with David Weinstein Oct 4
PZI Fall Sesshin: There You Are – Dharma Talk with David Weinstein, as recorded Oct 4 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Afternoon Sutra Service Oct 3
PZI Fall Sesshin: Sutra Service Oct 3. Amaryllis Fletcher & Jordan McConnell.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Musical Opening with Jordan McConnell
Fall Sesshin: Oct. 2 Musical opening interlude for evening session with Jordan McConnell. ‘Four Green Fields’ – Celtic Ballad. As recorded October 2, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Relaxing – Evening Words with David Weinstein Oct 2
PZI Fall Sesshin: Evening words with David Weinstein – Relaxing on the raft and finding the ferryboat. As recorded Oct. 2, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: When You Stop Chasing About
PZI Zen Online Audio: Fall Sesshin – Evening dharma talk with John Tarrant. If you are chasing about, “Where will you meet today?” We forget we are free in every moment. The image of a withered tree. When we let everything come to rest, we hear the dragon murmurings. As recorded October 2 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020, Gathering In the Valley of Our Time: One Treasure Hidden in the Body
PZI Zen Online: Fall Sesshin – Gathering in the Valley of Our Time. Evening talk and entire session with John Tarrant. Music by Jordan McConnell. As recorded October 3, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Not for Anything Else – Morning Talk with Allison Atwill Oct 3
PZI Fall Sesshin: Allison Atwill asks – What is “my” first principle? A question that does not need an answer but furthers our chasing about! The Emperor in us asks this again and again. But, like Huangbo, we have come “Not for anything else!” – just this perfect life. As recorded October 3, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: The Koan Raft – Morning Talk with Jon Joseph
PZI Fall Sesshin: The Koan Raft – with Jon Joseph Roshi. What is a koan? A koan is a “public case” in Chinese. Koan practice develops a resonance with all things. Any section or word in a koan is a gate. As recorded October 2, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Evening Words with John Tarrant Oct 1
PZI Fall Sesshin: Gathering in the Valley of Our Time – John Tarrant’s evening words. Why did we come here? “Not for anything else.” Huangbo’s response on his arrival. Trusting your own experience in sesshin. Any moment of noticing is oneness with emptiness. The Valley Spirit holds us. Whatever arises in meditation is for you, and not wrong. October 1, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: HOPs Jan Brogan & Chris Gaffney Open the Fall Sesshin Vessel
PZI Fall Sesshin: Audio Excerpt – Opening the evening with Heads of Practice Jan Brogan & Chris Gaffney welcoming the group. As recorded October 1, 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Opening the Vessel with John Tarrant Roshi Oct. 1
PZI Fall Sesshin Audio Excerpt: John Tarrant Roshi’s opening talk. As recorded October 1, 2020.
Audio: Fall Sesshin 2020 Opening Remarks with Tess Beasley
PZI Zen Online: Audio excerpt from Tess Beasley Sensei’s opening talk at Fall Sesshin. Harvest Moon, and leaning into the images that hold us for sesshin, the ancient vessel. Moon haikus. “Where is Your Light?” As recorded October 1 2020.
Fall Sesshin 2020: Music – Four Boundless Vows with Jordan McConnell
PZI Fall Sesshin: Jordan McConnell’s beautiful rendition of the the Four Boundless Vows. As recorded October 2, 2020.
Blue Dragon’s Cave Sesshin: Four Boundless Vows – Ryan McCoy
Audio: Ryan McCoy sings and plays guitar for the Blue Dragon’s Cave Summer Sesshin – Friday eve, closing June 26th, 2020.
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.
Dharma Theme: Gathering in the Valley of Our Time – All Sessions & Excerpts
Dharma Theme: Fall Sesshin 2020 – Gathering in the Valley of Our Time. All audio sessions, opening and closing ceremonies, sutra services, and excerpts of talks. October 1-4 2020
Don’t Try to Cage the Blue Dragon
Audio excerpt: Koans are much more than “tools” – they do you! Your very heart mind is it, so have the intimacy of your life even into death. Friday eve. Summer Sesshin 2020.
Every Day Is a Good Day
Yunmen said, “Before or after the full moon, every day is a good day!” The light of sesshin infuses us. In a “good day” the light is in you, just how it is—this is not an achievement, you are in the gift of the universe. The tenderness of the good day. Our whole lives opening to now. You can’t bully the Dao, it’s bigger than you! Not getting in the way of life. Also: Dreams, Linji’s death, and more. Video recorded in Winter Sesshin 2020.
Every Day Is a Good Day!
The whole thing about Chan is that it’s an improvisational culture. Because we love it? No, because that’s what life is! That’s the good day. Not-knowing is intimately tied to the good day. It’s not an achievement—it’s the gift of the universe, and you are in the universe having received the gift. Poetry, dreams, Linji’s death, and more. As recorded in Winter Sesshin 2020.
Australia is Burning
John Tarrant walks us through the ancient forests he knew as a child. Fire sirens, the Queensland Magpie singing, and Linji’s Solitary Brightness. How do we live the life we have in the face of vast change? Audio recording from Winter Sesshin 2020.
Obstacles & Gates: Refuge & the Bodhisattva Path
Deshan is determined to prove his scholarly certainty. He encounters two teachers who help him see the light. John talks about refuge; What is it? Why take refuge? What is the rakusu? PZI’s approach—working with refuge vows as koans. Zen ultimately rests in mystery and uncertainty. Linji says, “Have confidence in the light always working inside you.” Music with Jordan McConnell. Sunday talk as recorded Feb. 28th, 2021.
Dharma Theme: The Teachings of Zen Master Ma
PZI Dharma Theme: The teachings of Mazu. A curated list of references from our KALPA Library, on this old teacher in our lineage.
Taking Part in the Gathering
This is 8th century Zen ancestor Shitou Xiqian’s great song, the Sandokai—or Taking Part in the Gathering, as translated by Joan Sutherland and John Tarrant. This foundational text is often read at Winter Solstice. “When you let these words in, you encounter the ancestors.” Winter Sesshin January, 2020.
Freely I Watch the Tracks of the Flying Birds
Everybody, every time, has its own difficulty and crisis. This is ours. We can trust our own lives that brought us here, and perhaps we have something to do here. And we don’t know what that is but we’ll find it as we keep walking. The thing about the meditation path is, I don’t have to think a lot about what’s mine to do. You just give yourself to the meditation, and it’s produced for you. It’s given to you. The path opens by itself, you know. Transcript of PZI Zen Online Sunday Talk with John Tarrant, recorded March 29 2020.
The Everlasting Body Runs Deepest Indigo: Meditation for Troubled Times
PZI Zen Online Transcript: It’s a very strong thing to be human, you can be subjected to all sorts of great forces. And sometimes you can win through, and sometimes you die. But we’re all of us doing that, all the time. So I was thinking about friendship and how good it is to love each other and how good it is to have friends and to make peace in our hearts to meet each other. Sunday talk with John Tarrant, recorded June 14 2020.
On the Banks of the Ghost River – The Ballad of Tam Lin, Part 2
PZI Zen Online 1-Day Retreat: On the Banks of the Ghost River, afternoon session. Reflections on the koan and the story of Tam Lin and brave Janet. Comments. Tess Beasley & John Tarrant reflect. Sesshin closing. As recorded Oct 31 2020.
The Nature of Practice
Practice. The notion of practice, as something you embody, and you walk through, and you are—rather than something you add, like something added to gasoline. There’s also a sense of moving in the dark, in some way that’s positive. So that in a practice, “not knowing” is on your side.
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Register: Hearing Secret Harmonies – with John Tarrant & Friends
SUNDAY AUGUST 8th
PZI Digital Temple: 10:30am
PDT The Universe
Register: Fall Sesshin with John Tarrant & Friends – Metamorphosis
SIX DAYS: OCT 19-24
The PZI Digital Temple: 4:30pm
PDT The Universe
Dharma Theme – In the Palace at the Blue Cliff – All Dharma Talks from Summer Sesshin
A curation of sesshin dharma talks on a single page, for easy finding and listening. A sesshin is more than the sum of its parts or its recorded talks—it is timeless play in the universe and with each other. As recorded in the PZI Digital Temple, June 22-27, 2021.
What Is the Mysterious?
Sunday Talk excerpt from John Tarrant’s Free & Easy Wandering Series. In uncertain times, Dalung’s koan is something to trust. The mystery of your life is endless, the mystery gives endlessly. As recorded May 23, 2021.
I Vow to Do Good: Vows as Koans, Part 2
I Vow to Do Good—the second of the Three Pure Vows. Talks by Allison Atwill, Tess Beasley & Jesse Cardin from The Three Pure Vows as Enduring Koans of Everyday Life; Part 2 of a 3-part series on the vows of our tradition. Complete session, as recorded June 14, 2021.
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