Search Results
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 in 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.
Green Glade of Meditation: 10,000 Feet Down, The Stone
John Tarrant talks about living in an underworld time, in a descent as a culture and as a world, and as a planet. Accepting the descent, and accepting the quality of being lost when it appears, is profoundly important. And there’s a great, strange, and interesting mystery in that.
Awakenings of Linji & the Great Chan Teachers
John revisits the awakenings and koans of the great teachers, among them Yunmen and Linji. The love, and attention, and faithfulness at the heart of the stories and teachings of the Chan ancestors is their gift to us. And everything we bring to it is an addition into this great heritage, and is part of the layering. Transcript from a video talk in Fall Sesshin 2019.
Enter Here, Step Through
Day two of 2018 Winter Sesshin. John Tarrant introduces the great koan “No,” a gift from the ancestors. The gift is what happens when we hang out with the koan. “No” as the purest gate. When we step through, we find out we’re here! It’s not personal, you’re harmonizing with the universe. Transcript from a recording on January 17, 2018.
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.
New at Pacific Zen Institute
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.
Register: Dreams of Awakening – Sunday Meditation & Talk with John Tarrant & Friends
SUNDAY DECEMBER 5th
PZI Digital Temple: 10:30am
PST The Universe
Register: The Way Is Beyond Words – Monday Meditation & Talk with Guest Teacher Eduardo Fuentes
MONDAY DECEMBER 6th
PZI Zen Online: 6pm PST
The Universe
All PZI Members Invited: Morning Meditations in the Open Temple through Year’s End
NOV-DEC 2021
PZI Digital Temple
The Universe
Register: PZI Talk LIVE! Finding Yourself in a Story – Tuesday Eve with Gaffney & Hitchcock
TUESDAY DECEMBER 7th
PZI Zen Online: 5pm PST
The Universe
Register: Buddha’s Life In Your Own Heart – A Two-Day Retreat with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley & Michelle Riddle
DECEMBER 11th & 12th
PZI Digital Temple 10-4
PST The Universe
Support Us
Through your generosity, you help people find their own path into awakening, keep our doors open to everyone regardless of means, support our teachers, and help our systems run smoothly.
The PZI Scholarship Fund
Your contributions to this fund go directly to help us offer generous scholarships for attendance at PZI Zen Online 1-day & 2-day retreats, and at our three annual 4-day sesshins in the PZI Digital Temple. There is no replacement for this generosity.