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
- This event has passed.
OPEN MIND RETREAT: There and Back Again – Pilgrimage of the Inner Life with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
This event is currently at capacity.
Email registrar Eleanor to be put on the the waiting list: [email protected]
There and Back Again: Pilgrimage of the Inner Life
Summer Open Mind Retreat
with John Tarrant, Allison Atwill, & Tess Beasley
August 7–10, 2025
Thursday Eve through Sunday Noon
Commonweal Center, Bolinas CA
IN PERSON
Out and back…
We are so often on a journey, keeping company with each other.
In the beginning of practice, mountains are mountains, and rivers are rivers.
After we have been practicing for some time, some years, we notice that mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers.
As practice continues, however, we go deeper into the mountains, following the thrush’s song, and we too become deeply thus, and we find that mountains are again mountains and rivers are rivers once more.
It is the great journey assisted by dreams, meditations, courage and trust.
It gives the shape to our lives. The ancestors keep us company.
Becoming aware of the journey, realizing that we are on a great journey, yes that helps a lot.
—John Tarrant
Join us for an exploration of the great way of Zen—koans, stories, meditation and dreams. We’re looking forward to it, and there are limited numbers, so if you want to come, sign up soon.
John Tarrant and PZI Teachers will lead this retreat with a group of twenty-five participants or fewer. There is usually a mix of experienced meditators and complete beginners. We sit in a circle and meditate until it’s time to listen or talk, until it’s time to take a walk and gaze at the ocean, put our faces into the wind and feel our hearts shift in new and unexpected ways.
Pacific Zen Institute’s Open Mind retreats come out of our impulse to make a Zen meditation retreat that is native to American culture. When we take away the barriers to understanding, things just naturally shine.
This is a residential retreat held in a beautiful place on the ocean with a simple feel, and wonderful food.
People find that this retreat has a powerful effect on their lives and understanding of the practice of the inner life and the world of work and personal interaction.
It has the deep strength of an intensive meditation retreat inside a form that works for people with different levels of meditation experience. It has a flexible schedule that works well for those who would like to bring a partner or a friend.
No particular background in spiritual practice is required.
Bring a notebook. Also, if you want to paint or draw or play an instrument you can bring your gear.
RETREAT DETAILS
Cost
Member Shared Room (double): 895
Member Single Room: 1125 AT CAPACITY
Non-Member Shared Room (double): 945
Non-Member Single Room: 1175 AT CAPACITY
Location:
Commonweal Center, 451 Mesa Rd, Bolinas, CA 94924
Dates and Times:
Four Days & Three Nights
Begins Thursday, August 7th, at 7:00 p.m. (dinner at 6, check-in at 4)
Ends Sunday, August 10th at 12:00 p.m.
Registrar:
For retreat, registration, and PZI Member Scholarship questions,
Contact Eleanor Silberman at [email protected]
In Bolinas, the grey whales are migrating north with the calves close in, pelicans fly by like royalty, osprey carry fish and hermit thrushes pass through. Foxes are stealing shoes, small badgers are peeping out of holes, the ocean is breaking on Duxbury reef, and the great forces carry us too, as we had hoped.
In the field of meditation we welcome a spring that is larger than our difficulties or fears. There is a joy and renewal. We don’t have to get back into life. We are there already. —John Tarrant
John Tarrant Roshi taught Zen in a traditional Japanese manner for about 15 years and then developed new ways to teach people who had no previous experience of Zen koans or even of meditation.
John has a Ph.D. in psychology and is the author of Bring Me The Rhinoceros & Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life, and The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul, & the Spiritual Life. He directs Pacific Zen Institute. He has a special interest in leadership and in creativity.
