PZI Events Calendar
W E L C O M E to the PZI Events Calendar! Here you will find all upcoming events and registration links for PZI Zen Online retreats, sesshins, and weekly meditations & talks. Search by individual event, day, or month. Save to your Google Calendar or iCal Calendar. No experience required to participate. All event times are Pacific Time. Questions? Contact Lucas at PZI Support.
F E A T U R E D
April 26: What Is This Light That Everybody Has? – Deep Sit Sunday Zen with John Tarrant & Tess Beasley
May 7–10: Say A True Word & I Will Stay The Night – Open Mind Retreat with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill
June 8–14: Dragons & Tigers, Oh My! – Our Great Summer Sesshin with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
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MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Timmy Falls Into the Well
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What are you trying to say, Lassie? Timmy fell into the well?
—Mr. Martin, Timmy’s stepfather in the TV show, Lassie
What is the way?
The clearly enlightened person falls into a well.
—Second of Baling Haojian’s Three Barriers, PZI MK Case 74
Something or someone always seems to be falling into a well.
And then there is the koan where Caoshan is talking to Elder De, coming in from a high altitude and poetic. The Elder is a little more barnyard:
“The Buddha’s true reality body is like space, its form is a manifest response to beings, like the moon in the water. How would you respond?”
Elder De said, “It’s like a donkey looking in a well.”
Caoshan said, “That was really good, but you said only eighty percent.”
De said, “Well, what about you teacher?”
“It’s like the well looking at the donkey.”
It has been a tough several months in our household with the decline and finally the passing of both Nonno and Nonni. A couple of nights after the last memorial, Lynne and I were brushing our teeth and a strange request came out of me. I’m not even sure why I asked it; perhaps to bring a small bit of levity back into our lives.
I asked her, “What was that thing you said about Lassie?” She said, “What? You mean a long time ago?” I said, “Ya, the thing about Lassie; you knew something. Something was said.” I couldn’t even recall the particulars but somewhere in my psyche it was important to me.
She said: ”What? You must mean when Lassie goes to the father, who asks: ’Lassie, what are you trying to say? Did Timmy fall into the well?’”
I absolutely lost it, burst out laughing and couldn’t stop until tears came to my eyes. It felt good to laugh again.
In the nineteen seasons the series ran on TV, in nearly 600 episodes, and with nine Lassies, Timmy never once fell into a well. Perhaps he left it for us to do.
We fall into the well. Then the well falls into us. The donkey is looking down, and at the same time the well is looking up. Relationships matter. A friend who was soon moving to Texas once said, “I am getting ready for San Antonio,” adding, “And San Antonio is getting ready for me.”
Indeed.
—Jon Joseph
COME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.
Jon Joseph Roshi, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
