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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TUESDAY ZEN with David Weinstein: Entering the Bath Together
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In the old days there were sixteen bodhisattvas.
They all got into the bath together and realized the cause of water.
They called out, “This subtle touch reveals the light that is in everything.”
—Blue Cliff Record Case 78
Being in retreat last week felt like this koan, though it was more like fifty bodhisattvas entering the bath together.
During the course of retreat I heard various experiences of entering the water. Some people entered the water easily but after a couple of days things got too hot. Others had a hard time getting in from the get go, lowering themselves slowly inch by inch. Some folks seemed to dive in, with various results.
The same was true for the sixteen bodhisattvas in the version of this story that appears in the Surangama Sutra. That version goes on to say,
We did not wash off dirt, did not wash the body.
We achieved peace of mind and obtained the state of no-possession.
If you have ever entered a bath so hot that once you were in you didn’t want to move because each movement renewed the experience of first entering the water, which was no easy matter, then I think you have some idea of what obtaining a “state of no-possession” is like.
As if to emphasize the point about not washing dirt off, Xuedou, who first collected the one hundred cases of the Blue Cliff Record, commented in his verse on this case:
If the sixteen ancients said they were enlightened,
Let them emerge from the scented water, and I would spit at them!
We don’t do this practice to purify ourselves, to rid ourselves of delusions. If that is what you are doing, watch out for Xuedou’s spit.
—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
