Meeting the Inconceivable with PZI
Meeting the Inconceivable is a podcast produced by Pacific Zen Institute for exploring Zen koans, dreams, and the creative life.
Pacific Zen Institute is a lively community of artists, innovators, and seekers of all kinds. Our talks weave traditional Zen and koan practice with poetry, art, archetypal and Jungian psychology, and eastern and western myth.
PZI deep-dive in-person retreats are held mainly in Northern California, but our members and gatherings extend worldwide through our online temple.
Our mission is to create a culture of transformation through meditation, koans, the arts, and conversations about the deepest matters. Join the koan revolution.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts.
And be sure to leave us a rating and review!
Pacific Zen Institute is a lively community of artists, innovators, and seekers of all kinds. Our talks weave traditional Zen and koan practice with poetry, art, archetypal and Jungian psychology, and eastern and western myth.
PZI deep-dive in-person retreats are held mainly in Northern California, but our members and gatherings extend worldwide through our online temple.
Our mission is to create a culture of transformation through meditation, koans, the arts, and conversations about the deepest matters. Join the koan revolution.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts.
And be sure to leave us a rating and review!
Podcast Episodes
Episode 3: The Golden Wind Revealing Itself
In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant explores a koan from The Blue Cliff Record featuring great Yunmen, the great Cloud-Gate: A student asked Yunmen, “When the tree withers and the leaves fall, what’s that?” Yunmen said, “The Golden Wind reveals itself.” — transl. by John Tarrant & Joan Sutherland Exploring the beauty and wistfulness of autumn, Tarrant describes it as…
Episode 2: In the Sea of Ise 10,000 Feet Down
Koans transform us through immersion and saturation, by dissolving the usual boundaries we keep between us and the world. If you have an unanswerable question, the koan is designed to open it. Today's episode explores a koan from the Miscellaneous Collection that poses: In the Sea of Ise,10,000 feet down, lies a single stone. I want to pick up that…
Episode 1: Guanyin’s 84,000 Hands & Eyes of Mercy
Today's episode centers on awakening as a practice of intimacy. Roshi John Tarrant takes up koan Case 89 from The Blue Cliff Record: Guanyin's 84,000 Hands & Eyes of Mercy: Yunyan asked Daowu, “How does Guanyin use all those hands and eyes?” Daowu answered, “It’s like feeling behind you for a pillow in the middle of the night.” “I understand.”…