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 Karin Pfluger
F E A T U R E D
October 6: Sunday Zen at 10:30 AM PDT with John Tarrant & Friends
October 22–27 Fall Sesshin: The 1000-Armed Goddess of Mercy
November 16 Daylong: Zen and the Goddess Part II
TUESDAY ZEN with David Weinstein: Relying on Disorderly Consciousness
October 8 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Free – $10
REGISTER
Relying on Disorderly Consciousness
Guishan asked Yangshan, “Suppose that out of the blue, someone asks you, ‘All sentient beings only have disorderly consciousness, boundless and with no foundation to rely on.’ How would you conduct an inquiry into this?”
Yangshan said, “If a student like that came, I’d call, ‘Hey so and so!’ When the student turns her head, then I’d say, ‘What is it?’ Then I’d wait while she thinks about it. Then I’d say, ‘Not only is disorderly consciousness boundless but also there is no foundation to rely on.’”
Guishan said, “Good!”
We just got back from two weeks in Europe: half in Spain and half in Italy. Nothing like travel to appreciate disorderly consciousness being boundless.
Planning for the trip is an exercise attempting to make things orderly, which is an exercise in disorderly consciousness itself. Plane reservations, hotel reservations, reservations for tours, guidebooks.
But when you are told that the seats on your boarding pass, which you chose so carefully months in advance, are not the seats that you are going to be sitting in, you can imagine the kind of disorderly consciousness that might arise. And when the plane taking you to Barcelona has only one working toilet for the entire plane, you can imagine the kind disorderly consciousness that might arise. Or when Google maps correctly leads you to a shop that is listed as open, but it is closed … it doesn’t feel like there is much that can be relied on.
I suppose it’s no different than the kinds of situations I run into in my everyday life. But traveling is an adventure. Sure, I make plans and get reservations, but when in ‘traveling mode’ there is a higher likelihood of me appreciating that part of the adventure is things not going the way they are “supposed” to go and being open to see where they do go.
Remembering that I am always ‘travelling,’ even when home, might be something like what Basho was thinking about when he wrote,
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Join us Tuesday.
—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
