Member Stories

I’m a 3 rd generation Japanese Chinese American Jew, born in San Francisco and living in Seattle with my
spouse. I practice naturopathic medicine and acupuncture, and while studying Chinese medicine has
been a way for me to glimpse into the world that my dad’s parents left a hundred years ago, I have long
thought of Zen as a roundabout way to touch the cultural roots of my mom’s Japanese parents and ancestors. But it was always something to read about, not to do, before I came to PZI.

In 2010, although I didn’t know it yet, I was enchanted forever by two of the great Dragons of the Pacific
Zen school when I heard John Tarrant Roshi and Joan Sutherland Roshi in conversation with Dzogchen
Ponlop Rinpoche here in Seattle. I’d already read John’s beautiful books about Zen, soul, and koans, and
I felt very lucky that Rinpoche invited John to teach in Seattle for a few years in a row. And even luckier
after that to co-host and organize a couple more of John’s pre-pandemic weekend retreats here.

Because of John’s interest and experience teaching integrative medicine fellows and physicians, he
kindly came several times to speak about The Arts of Attention at the natural health sciences university
where I used to teach. My clinical work has been enlivened and leavened by my practice with PZI, helping
me to be more perceptive and more present with people during the deepest times. I belong also to a
Jewish spiritual community that I love, and appreciate John’s familiarity with Judaism and his fond interest
as I blend my practices.

Everything I love most about PZI’s particular vast path of joy and freedom shows up especially in the
retreats. Whether in person or in the zoom temple made of all our glowing portals, they’re a day or more
together in deep time, and the whole cosmos can’t help but show up too. I love the interweaving of koan
meditation, silence with birdsong or rain, thoughtful conversation by turns tender and funny, teachings
that include ancient dharma ancestor stories and modern poetry, our dreams, world myths and music.
What is precious to me about being a member of PZI is getting to work one to one with the PZI teachers,
each a wonderful and profound human; the lively thoughtful conversations in the PZI email group, and
getting to see/read/hear the marvelous things that people make and share that reflect their practices;
access to the richness of years of written and audio teachings in the PZI Library; getting to support this
enchanting Dragon project and help it spread and continue.—Christy

Peter Bullen

Long ago in the freshness of youth, fearless, full of excitement and expectation, I wound up with my first teacher. I remember him saying that “before you become spiritual, you must become human.”

After decades now of spiritual practice in pretty much all the Traditions sought out by the hippies of yore, and still not sure if I had made it all the way to “human,” I came across John Tarrant (through some talks of his my wife pointed out to me.) 

My wife has incredible “pointing out” skills.

Maybe for the first time, listening to a teacher, I recognized my own everyday life. And had a tangible, felt sense of the honesty, tenderness, and ‘ordinary’ mind quality of the speaker. 

John will often say “You can’t do it wrong.”

So I qualified.

Which is nice.

Today, on a particularly gorgeous walk down an unspectacular, but totally transcendent tree-lined neighborhood street, my wife (also a PZI member) turned toward me and said “I know we are experiencing this differently, but it’s nice to be in it together.” A true teaching if ever there was one.

That’s how PZI feels to me. 

And I’ll take that.

I’ll even endorse it.

Amy Potozkin

I spent a lifetime in the theater—I fell in love with it as a small child and managed to stay immersed in it until I got laid off in 2020. A few weeks after being laid off as Casting Director at Berkeley Rep, I reconnected with the CEO of Stand & Deliver—someone I’ve known a long time—he had approached me in the past about working for him. The timing was perfect and I started working with him within a month.

So now I’m on my second career and I love what I’m doing. In a way, koans and the exploration with our community became a new form of theatre and storytelling…and I bring that spirit of curiosity, humor and playfulness to the work I do now and vice-versa. Getting laid off was a blessing in disguise but it was just grief at first. Such is life, right?

About a year before the pandemic started, I had decided to see if there were any local meditation groups, and did a Google search and found Rockridge Meditation Community…Zen? Ok. Koans? Whatever. I didn’t know what to expect. Meditation was happening and a Zen koan was read aloud by the teacher David Weinstein, and discussed. There was a break with tea and snacks followed by more discussion. I found myself surprisingly comfortable in that way that feels like “coming home” and it took me by surprise.

It continues to take me by surprise as we are two years into the pandemic sitting together on a Zoom screen patchwork quilt of faces, meditating together, discussing and reflecting. It’s amazing what can happen on Zoom…!…connection, compassion, laughter, tears, insight, transformation.

To name a few.

Amanda Boughton

PZI is unlike anything I’ve ever met.

Having sat with a few different meditation schools over the years, I feel absurdly lucky to have found PZI and love to spend time with the koans. Among many other good things, koans have been helping me notice the deep vastness that’s underneath all the habitual urges to push and pull at experience.

I’ve struggled with anxiety quite a bit throughout my life, and the koans are helping with that, too. They help hold frightening stories about life more lightly, and somehow turn just about everything into a friend; even anxiety becomes a friend, alive, vibrant, mysterious and good. I am so happy to be a PZI sangha member.

The people of PZI are so very lively, real, and warmhearted! I feel so thankful that I get to be walking along on the journey of life with this sangha, these teachers, and this wild and wonderful tradition.

This photo was taken about a mile deep in Pluto’s Cave, near Mt. Shasta. (Step by step in the dark! But also with a flashlight.)

Amanda sings PZI’s Four Boundless Vows, accompanying herself on ukelele:

https://www.pacificzen.org/library/the-four-boundless-vows-with-amanda-boughton-2

James Anthony

Oh dear lord. Lost, lost. Lost on dark paths of delusion, I wander through the six worlds–still expecting an answer, a solution. Like one day I will finally “get it.” I will get the right teacher, or workshop, or practice, and then I will finally understand everything, including myself. Then I will be allowed/allow myself to be happy, awakened, OK.
Well, that’s just silly, and obviously not happening. If I’m ever going to be any of those things, it will be right here in a moment not unlike this one, deluded as ever, not getting it–lost in the fantasy that there is something to get.
Or even in the fantasy that there is nothing to get.
There’s no end to it: it’s delusions all the way down. The delusion of awakening, the delusion of delusion. What is it? Right now–what is real and alive in my own heart-mind? What is it?
Perfect. And no doubt, eligible for a little improvement. Grateful for every delusion; Thanksgiving for every wrong move.

Courtney Keeler

I’ve been thinking lately about the unseen forces, all these hands and eyes, the light that is always at work, and the notion that the universe is carrying me along. I read John’s Rhinoceros book for the first time in 2011, when I happened upon it in the library—and then I promptly emailed him to say how great I thought it was (which is, to date, the only time I have ever done such a thing and maybe my way of throwing a rock at him—ha!) I read it over and over again.

I wanted my life to feel the way it felt to read that book. Unfortunately, koans didn’t make a lick of sense to me, no matter how many books on the subject I accumulated, and I was therefore able to make another entry on my list entitled “reasons my life is a big, fat fart.”

PZI is an entry on my list of reasons that my life is magical AND on my list of things that consistently make me cry like a wee baby. You’ve helped me to see my life with fresh eyes—not all the time, get a grip—but SOME OF THE TIME when things feel heavy and dark and I am able to remember that I am being carried through a dream and, hey, what’s wrong with heavy and dark, anyway?

All the wisdom and humor you share, the generosity of the amazing teachers, and all the love I can feel from this beautiful community, is a treasure.

Even if I never answer a single koan, I am so grateful to be with you.

Some of Courtney Keeler’s Artworks linked her from our KALPA Library

Michael Wilding, Artist & Musician

Michael is a musician and sculptor and a longtime meditator, having found his way to PZI through his teacher, Joan Sutherland. Michael prefers to let his works speak for him—and they do very well. His stunning flute and saxophone solos enhance meditations during our sesshins and Sunday Digital Temple gatherings.

His music is linked here in our KALPA Library.

View his sculpture.

Gina Fiedel

I slid unsuspectingly from my yoga mat into a koan practice in 2010. It began at the inaugural meeting with a group of friends brought together and led by Allison Atwill Roshi in Santa Barbara, California, that later took the name Coral Moon Zen. Koans snuck their way into me bit by bit. Now I’m saturated in the practice and the PZI sangha (of which Coral Moon is a part). My life has welcomed it and it, my life. 

Our membership is an inclusive, welcoming, ever-surprising, generous, wildly creative, gently nurturing and nourishing group. I’m captivated by the creative spirit and freedom of our project. A one-legged crow, a poem made from whatever’s at hand, a dog, a friendly dragon my father sang a song to, and the moon each take their seats with us along with untold others. It’s an enriching multi-limbed creature of many textures, energies, expressions. Each unique. 

I envisage life as a practice, work as a practice, and practice as a practice. Each piece influences the others and in my practice all the pieces of my life appear. My life feels changed and continually changing being here in the company of the sangha. 

It’s overwhelming taking a stab at describing how obstacles are falling away. My heart expands to fill my chest and suddenly I can see how to do the thing I’ve been longing for. Maybe the details are irrelevant. Most delightful may be how my eyes work with my ears, and my feet walk differently through time with all the things I encounter feeling the thread of connection. The joy in discovery, the depth in meeting and befriending even the harshest of moments. This and this and this.  

Things I love:

Not knowing where my practice is taking me. How the ordinary becomes vivid—even the most difficult challenges in my life are alive. Having a practice helps. It is always here no matter what’s happening.

The flow of inspiration, the teachers and how they teach us, the coming together, the support. The deep immersion of retreats when I put aside all other things. I love how we are here with each other reverberating together, each traveling in our own utterly individual way. Sometimes together, sometimes in solitude. That’s the thing. There is no prescription or formula at PZI.

No fancy place to get to. The destination is already here.

A few of Gina’s Artworks linked here from our KALPA Library.

Steve Lucas: PZI Board Member

At first glance, PZI seems like a bit of an alternative Zen sangha, and that is partly true.

But it is also a very traditional Zen sangha, in that it is steeped in the koan tradition dating back to the Tang dynasty. These koans come from the sayings and doings of Zen teachers and students who lived over a thousand years ago, and they communicate the experiences they had and how they lived their lives with intensity and spontaneity. The koans help us to live our own lives with this intensity and spontaneity.

Various monastic forms have grown and been passed down through the ages, helping to preserve the overall tradition, but maybe without all of the aliveness. So at PZI the forms have been adjusted and loosened over the years, when we think it works better that way.

When I first came to PZI, I noticed that the meditation retreats were less rigid than what I had experienced elsewhere, and I liked that, but that’s not what kept me flying coast to coast to come here once or twice a year.

That was because of the koans and the PZI way of teaching them.

Sacha Kawaichi

If you think this place is not for you, it is.

If you really think it is not for you, it really is.

PZI welcomes everyone. You don’t have to try and fit in because whatever you are is welcome. John’s work is about transformation, waking up and freedom. It is a home of depth, curiosity, and is innovative and real. It values creativity. Our lives become the avenue of awakening. “The path pulls you forward,” John Tarrant wrote.

I don’t work formally on koans but they now accompany me everywhere. That’s the beauty of koanville. Koans become exactly what you as an individual need. They enter around or beneath or through whatever barrier keeps you from freedom. For me, koans and paint and dreams go hand in hand in hand.

I can say my life has been completely transformed in a startling way.

When I went to John Tarrant’s Open Mind Retreat 7 years ago, it was the first time I had participated in a group in 45 years. I have a rare and poorly understood speech impediment. I was extremely self-conscious about my faltering, quavering, spastic speech. I’d basically given up participating in the world. I tried everything to get out of the self-conscious jail. Therapy, meditation, Botox in my throat, speech therapy, bodywork, and other meditative practices.

Then I read John’s book. His connection to the life of intimacy, tenderness and awakening called to me. It was the exact note I never knew I was longing to hear. And, with my intense anxiety right along beside me, I went to an Open Mind Retreat.

I have now been a member of PZI for over 7 years.

I am Jewish, practice Zen, and volunteered pre-pandemic with the homeless at a Catholic Agency. I write and paint and put my work out into the world. I became a photographer who helped document the lives of the poor. I speak up in groups now too. Yes, with the impediment. I participate in life and the world.

Inner and outer arise together.

I am accompanied by my fellow members and the teachers at PZI. The individual work with extraordinary teachers is a gift beyond imagining.

This is truly a one-of-a-kind community and practice. It is a joy to be a member.

And we laugh a lot, too.

Some of Sacha Kawaichi’s artworks linked here in our KALPA Library

Jordan McConnell

Jordan McConnell is a guitar player, guitar builder (luthier), one-time touring musician with the Grammy and Juno award-wining band, The Duhks, and is a regular Temple Musician at PZI on Sundays and in sesshins.

Here are some examples of Jordans musical gifts. And here are his custom made guitars – things of beauty and light.

He would like his music to speak for him.

Asa Horvitz

Asa Horvitz grew up in Northern California and found out about Pacific Zen Institute from high school friends, almost 15 years ago.

Since then he’s been to college, gone on a Fulbright scholarship to Poland to do theatre, started a number of bands, lived in New York City a few times and also Italy, for more theater and music work. Meditation and koans are a way to stay both somewhat sane and also creative.

I don’t remember exactly why I came to PZI but I was sixteen and miserable, and learning to deal with my mind seemed like a good idea.

I was walking around the Santa Rosa Junior College neighborhood one night, ran into a friend, asked him what he was doing, and he said “going to meditation.” I was intrigued and followed him down the street into the living room of a comfortable house that had been converted into a zendo. After 40 minutes of meditation with a koan (which I’d never heard of before), tea, a talk, and a lot of belly laughs, I felt unexpectedly happy and knew I’d found something like home.

Between 2006 and 2012 I lived as a student in Connecticut, France, Italy, and Poland, and later in New York, Philadelphia, Warsaw, and on the road in the States and Europe with a touring band. As a member, I was able to come to retreats on scholarship, and do individual koan work with teachers in person in California and via phone and Skype on the road. This was an incredibly important through-line for me; it held me through the transition to college and out into the early post-college years, through the death of a close friend and the economic ups and downs of being a young artist (or young person of any kind). I’m deeply grateful that the teachers have found a way to work with those of us who don’t live in California full time.

What’s most exciting to me about PZI is that it is bringing koans alive in our lives, in the 21st century. This doesn’t mean it’s new-age, it just means that we don’t draw arbitrary boundaries around where or when koans get to change our lives or inform what we do. And this is exciting to me; I don’t know of any other community like this.

After years of working with koans and noticing how they were informing my work in music and performance, and after a lot of conversations with John and the other teachers, I decided to tackle the problem directly.

So in 2012-2013 I organized and directed an international project based on using koan work with actors and musicians. We spent two months in residency at the Occidental Center for the Arts, meditating and working with koans and developing a performance based on what we discovered. PZI served as the umbrella organization for the project and John guided us in koan work.

There’s more information and some video online: http://www.koansandperformance.tumblr.com/

What’s been so amazing about my time with PZI is that my perspective on myself, on the world, on my work, and on the mind, has changed and deepened many, many times. I’ve (maybe) become a little less of a jerk. I’m more comfortable with the pain of life. I’ve become more honest with myself and more likely to follow what I really love. I enjoy myself more.

PZI has been a place where this change can happen, where I can talk to people who are interested in koans and in creativity and in the world, and where ideas and the deep experience of life that meditation brings us can be shared. And I’m proud to say that I’m a member.

Chris Gaffney

Chris Gaffney has been a PZI member for a rather long time now. He’s a professor of Physics at CSU Chico and is a co-leader of Dharma Buffet in Chico, too. His sometimes scientifically rigorous approach to ideas makes Zen conversations more interesting, and also more wild, since modern physics is pretty “out there.” Chris is funny and wise and warm-hearted, too. On PZI’s online discussion forum recently, Chris was reflecting on the value of conversation and companionship at PZI, and we asked him if we could include his thoughts here, since they have a lot to do with the question of why membership and community matter. He said yes, so here you are:

I’ve been thinking about conversations and gratitude. The universe can be mind-blowing, but what strikes me most is how natural the process of “mind blowing” is. In many cases it seems my mind is “blown” when it is brought to a full stop, if even for a moment. There does (for me) seem to be a correlation between the abruptness of the slowing and the depth of the stop—no time to construct the radar to defend against the penetration. It does seem that the “natural” world, the part not designed by us human people (vs. the other people, like the coyote people), easily calls up in us the “mind-blown” state: nobody home.

The reason “conversation” brought this thought up is that I get to hear coyote conversations on a regular basis, since where I live is in quite rugged, open country and coyotes have a right fine time with it. Their flow of conversation is different from that of human people, and I’ve yet to hear a monologue—the call is always responded to. Sometimes there is a lone singer in one location, and a chorus removed by a quarter of a mile (really bad guess of distance there). Sometimes all the voices are together—I think of John saying “A good day is when all the voices are in the room,” and it seems the richest conversations are these. There will be dead silence for hours, then one coyote will start, and within five seconds many have joined. The range of voices is tremendous—and while I can’t really follow individual song lines, it has the variety of any conversation between ten people. And then it will stop just as abruptly as it began. This cycle might repeat once, twice, more, never. Can’t say for sure.

What has emerged consistently is that I will drop whatever suffering I am busy attending to and listen. I guess I don’t drop the suffering, otherwise it’s loss wouldn’t be as predictable. The coyote conversation steals it away. It is an animal delight I possess, and some sense that it is important to listen. It is important to not miss it. Now why would that be? Why would I have such a feeling? A vast conspiracy, spoken and unspoken, is at work. And it does feel like a blessing that has been given me, and like all good blessings it comes without the least smidgen of merit on my part.

Jan Brogan

Membership in our community brings me joy.

Jim Snarski

Jim Snarski is also known as Captain Jimmy because he was a longtime commercial jet pilot and now flies small planes taking sick kids and their families to places they need to go. He’s been with PZI for a while now, sits with the community, comes to retreats, and helps out as a volunteer when he can. Here’s what he says about being a member:

I learn a lot about life from the movies. The other night at the zendo, Numa, Patrick and I somehow got on the subject of the Big Lebowski. In the closing scenes of that film, Jeff Bridges as The Dude is talking to Sam Elliot as The Stranger in the bowling alley. As the Dude departs, clutching two beers, the Stranger says “Take it easy, Dude. I know that you will.” The Dude turns back, smiles, and says to the Stranger, “The Dude abides.” Elliot turns to the camera and says “The Dude abides. I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowing he’s out there, the Dude, takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners.”

This got me wondering about what it means to abide. The dictionary offers several meanings: the most pertinent I think defines abide as “to endure” and “to be patient.” I can only speak for myself as one of them thar sinners when I say that before I came to PZI, I wasn’t very good at abiding. Oh, there were occasional forays into abideness but they never seemed to last long. To endure anything was only on an if-I-absolutely-had to-basis and patience was a quality as rare as a rainbow in the Sahara.

And then, a few years ago, a dear friend suggested I stop just reading about Zen and actually participate. What a concept! As time went by, in a turn of phrase I’ve heard often from people whose lives have shifted, something happened. Now I don’t know if it was the sitting, or the teaching, or the example of my bodhisattva companions suffused with the ability to abide but I found myself abiding more and more. Oh, not all the time and not always well but nonetheless far better than the pre-Zen me.

As the Stranger so cogently observed, “sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.” I suspect I’ll never be able to abide perfectly and that’s okay. I’d like to be out there takin’ ‘er easy for all the beings of the world but that ain’t gonna happen. So I’ll just abide as best I can when the need arises and think of the immortal words of Oliver Twist, standing with his bowl clutched in his little hands before the master and pleading,”Please, Sir, I want some more.”

Jim’s amazing wildlife photos are found here.

Denise Fujiwara

Denise Fujiwara dances in Toronto and all over the world with her company, Fujiwara Dance Inventions. She found koans intriguing but scary until John Tarrant showed her how to be friends with them.

Creating dances and living are koans too.

When I first encountered koans in my youth, I was deeply intrigued but also intimidated.  It wasn’t until I read John Tarrant’s work that I discovered one could make friends with them.
Eight years ago, I did a weekend retreat with John and I told him I was about to embark on a month long walk, the 88 Temples pilgrimage on Japan’s Shikoku Island, and he offered me the pilgrim’s koan, “Not knowing is most intimate.”  It accompanied me on the long days of walking, observing, wondering, discovering and getting lost.  Every day, in many ways I was confronted by not knowing.  I didn’t know anyone, whether I would get a bed for the night, what I would eat, and often, where I was.

It was disturbing, occasionally frightening, and also gloriously freeing.  I was not knowing all day, every day during that month.   When I returned home to Toronto, not knowing stayed with me and I discovered that even in the midst of all that was familiar, I could still not know and be in freshness and wonder.

l live in Toronto, Canada, have been able to attend PZI retreats from time to time and now attend online.  Being a part of the Sangha enriches my life.  The teachers and my dharma chums  discuss and reference Koans playfully and with openness creating innumerable paths to insight.  The koans I once found so intimidating are now everyday sources wonder.  Who knew?

See some of Denise’s dance inventions.

What makes Denise Fujiwara’s dance work intriguing? It gently teases you in and surprises you with its imagery and intelligence. The work asks questions and investigates them with instinct, heart and skillful rigour to create acclaimed dance works that move with images, words and music. Denise’s company has performed across Canada and on four continents in festivals, theatres, galleries and site-specific locations.

Amaryllis Fletcher, PZI Cantor

Amaryllis heard a lot of live music as she was growing up, with her pianist and composer father and his friends and colleagues playing in the family house. She found that the violin was her instrument and focused her studies on it.

Amaryllis has been our PZI cantor for many years in sesshins and Sunday gatherings, singing, chanting, and playing music.

Listening to music raised the question for her, “What is just  hearing, no thoughts?”

That question, along with the vicissitudes of life and love, brought her to Zen meditation.

Treasures continue to appear and bless even after these many years of making music and exploring mysterious questions.

Some of her music: PZI “sutra band,” playing Bach in sesshin

Jon Taylor

I was a kid who always felt scared. I rarely felt good enough. I felt separate from other people. I tried to make myself invisible. I was always trying to hide. 

I believed that if I was perfect then I couldn’t be hurt. Vulnerability was deemed unacceptable. I was very quiet and didn’t like to talk. I related better with animals and felt protected by them and protective 

of them. I didn’t want to be a member of the human race. I was a good athlete and in sports I felt powerful and safe and like I belonged. When I was 12, I began playing tennis and soon after entered tournaments. When I was 13 or I came across a couple of books that mentioned zen & its relationship to sports. These books really resonated with me and from then on I’ve kept a connection with zen. 

After college I started teaching tennis for a living. Funny that I chose a career requiring me to communicate and connect with people so closely. I was at once terrified of having to talk to people and yet passionate about finding ways to clearly show students to play. I didn’t trust my intellect to help me figure out what to say, so I learned to rely on intuition. Something I learned I could rely on while playing sports. 

A few years into teaching I started working with a student who spoke no english. I had to find ways to teach without spoken language. This was very challenging but we found ways to work together well and she kept coming back for lessons. This was like showing her a Koan as opposed to explaining. Later on, I was married to a woman who has 2 developmentally disabled children, who had speech and language difficulties. Later we had a child together who was born very prematurely and has many serious medical issues. He is, to this day, non-verbal. I was overwhelmed and decided to take up zen practice formally. I found a chan center and started going to the talks and classes regularly. I felt pretty at home and at the center and started attending retreats. Long hours sitting still in zazen was excruciating as I came face to face with myself and lots of really intense and painful aspects of me.   

Sitting has helped me learn to face life and not run from it. I became willing to feel all the fear, shame, anger, grief and pain of life. Over time I became able to accept uncertainty and the fact that life was not in my control. 

I learned to stay with what I felt in my body and to keep dropping the narrative I had going on in my mind. It’s this skill of staying present that I believe is what allowed me to survive COVID in March of 2020 without panicking. At times I really didn’t know if I had another breath in me. I had to surrender to each moment. This experience has changed my life both in good & bad ways. 

Physically things are much tougher but my appreciation of people and life is much greater. I’ve learned to be grateful to be alive.

Alison McCabe

I came by slant to PZI. I was in psychoanalytic training, struggling, and happened to look at my advisor’s website that referenced John Tarrant. Curious, I looked him up, bought his Rhinoceros book, and went to an Open Mind Retreat. It was unlike any retreat I’d been to. (I’d spent many years sitting 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreats.) Filled with poetry, koans, tales, and conversation—I loved it.

Welcoming, mysterious, impossible to grasp—my mind relaxed, or at least at times it did! Sitting with a koan, even when the koan seems to not open or I don’t “get it,” the world opens, shining, in its brightness and in its dreariness.

I’m more ok with my life for a time. “This is the group I want to grow old and die with,” I said to my husband after our first weeklong sesshin.

I am so glad I have found it.

Friends

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