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.
TUESDAY ZEN with David Weinstein: The Alchemical Process of Losing and Finding
July 30 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Free – $10
REGISTER
Someone asked, “What is meditating and seeing things just as they are?”
Yunmen said, “A coin lost in the river is found in the river.”
“Where is my phone? Where are my keys? Where are my glasses?” I ask myself these questions, accompanied by a sinking feeling in my gut, multiple times a day. I am not sure if it is getting worse, or I am getting better at noticing it more. Recently I was looking for a pair of scissors that I had just used and put down, which had mysteriously disappeared, though I had not moved. I found the scissors where I left them, right in front of me. That’s when the koan about the coin lost in the river paid me a visit.
I remembered that this saying of Yunmen’s was the response to the question, “What is meditating and seeing things clearly?” Rather than a description of a static state, Yunmen gives a description of a process. The process is losing and finding and then losing again and finding again. Reminds me of the alchemical process of dissolution and coagulation.
Those scissors that I was looking for were hidden under a piece of paper that I had placed on top of them. Just like the way I obscure my ability to see things clearly by putting things, ideas, my opinions and agendas, on top of what’s there. Of course, then there is the added story that I put on top of that, something along the lines of “Who moved them?” or “Not again!” or “What’s the matter with me?”
The fact is, I lost my attention before I lost the scissors and it found me again in the midst of having lost it. Sometimes an awakening experience is described as remembering something you did not know you had forgotten. It was kind of like that. I noticed that I was clinging to my idea about where I left the scissors and my idea about myself, when I remembered my attention, which I had not noticed that I had forgotten. I had the spaciousness to be able to look other places than where I thought I left them. I was able to be aware of other possibilities.
Lost anything lately? Find it? What was that like?
—David Weinstein
COME JOIN US on Tuesdays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation.
Register to participate. All are welcome.
David Weinstein Roshi, Director of Rockridge Meditation Community
