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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THURSDAY ZEN with David Parks: Taking Care of the One Not Sick
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When Dongshan was not feeling well, someone said, “Teacher, you are not feeling well. Is there anyone who doesn’t get sick?”
Dongshan said, “Yes, there is.”
“Does the person who doesn’t get sick take care of you?”
Dongshan said, “I have the opportunity to take care of the person.”
“What happens when you take care of that person?”
Dongshan said, “At that time, I don’t see the sickness.”
—Book of Serenity, Case 94
I have been revisiting the shoulds of life. I should go see so and so, call this person, do this thing. The other day, it was as simple as this: I should go feed the chickens and horses. What I have noticed is that the pay off for thinking should puts me farther away from the thing I should be doing. Oh, I can feed the animals later, or make that phone call tomorrow.
This works into my practice as well: I should meditate at least an hour a day. Even with my practice, should leaves me an arm’s length away from my actual life. Should points to the life that stands apart from the life I am currently engaged in.
Should binds me to the conventional, what I believe my life should be, what I believe others might want from me. With should, I am a ghost living in a ghost world, distant and far off.
Even while his teacher is ill, the student earnestly asks, “Is there one who is not ill?” “Yes,” he is told, “there is.” Here, the teacher points to that which in all of us is in accord with the Dao, the vast interconnected nature of things. Conventionally, we might think that this might have something for us, something that can fix the dis-ease, so with the student we might ask: “Does the person who doesn’t get sick take care of you?” That’s what we might think, “Shouldn’t that person take care of you?”
Dongshan turns the whole conversation around at this point by saying, “I have the opportunity to take care of the person.” This is an alternative to the convention that the well take care of the sick. One teaching upside down, says Yunmen. As Dongshan turns things around, I find myself leaving the shoulds of life and instead finding an opportunity, as Dongshan puts it, to be present to the moment, the unfolding of the Dao, here and now. This is before any sickness. Here, in the midst of coughing and sputtering with RSV I can find no sickness, no dis-ease.
—David Parks
COME JOIN US on Thursdays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation. All are welcome. Register to participate.
David Parks Roshi, Director of Bluegrass Zen
