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 Emlyn Guiney
F E A T U R E D
September 15 Sunday Zen: With John Tarrant & Friends
September 21 Daylong: With John Tarrant & Tess Beasley
October 22–27 Fall Sesshin: with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
- This event has passed.
THURSDAY ZEN: Sitting Alone on the Mountain – with David Parks
April 27, 2023 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Free – $10
REGISTER
A monk asked Baizhang, “What is the matter of extraordinary wonder?”
Baizhang said, “Sitting alone on Daxiong Peak!”
The monk made a deep bow.
Baizhang hit him.
—Blue Cliff Record, Case 26
It is all here—the question, the iconoclastic answer, the bow, and the hit. You might think this a parody of Zen, until, of course, you consider the teacher, Baizhang. “Oh,” you might think as you meet this ancestor, “something real is happening here.” Actually, it can’t get more real. The student looking for the extraordinary is pointed towards meditation, just sitting, present to life. The extraordinary? The miraculous? Just this!
To pick up a koan is to pick up your life as it is in this moment. The tea woman picks up the tea, Baizhang sits “alone.” That’s interesting too, this sitting alone in the moment. It is never more real than that. Remember the Buddha upon awakening, “Above the heavens, below the heavens, only I, alone and sacred.”
Come join us Thursdays, for koan meditation, a dharma talk, and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.
I hope you will join us.
—David Parks Roshi, Director of Bluegrass Zen
