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
- This event has passed.
TUESDAY ZEN with David Weinstein: What Is the Source of White?
REGISTER
Yangshan pointed to the statue of a snow lion and asked,
“Is there anyone who can go beyond this whiteness?” Yunmen said, “I’d have immediately knocked it over for him.”
Xuedou said, “He only explains knocking it over, he doesn’t explain helping it up.”
—Book of Serenity Case 26
We met Yangshan in Book of Serenity Case 15, when he planted his hoe in the ground in response to Guishan’s question about how many people were working in the field. In that koan Yangshan put his hoe over his shoulder and went off to South Mountain to help with the harvest.
This reminds me of the comments on the Snow Lion koan from Yunmen and Xuedou. Planting his hoe, knocking it over, putting her hoe over her shoulder and going to South Mountain, helping it up.
Then there is white—the color of purity, that single sheet of white silk. Some people try to scrub their mind clean of all thoughts, believing that is the Way, eliminating all impurities. But white is not the absence of color, it is the presence of all colors, just as the awakened mind is not the absence of thought.
Another koan involving Yangshan and his teacher Guishan came to join in the conversation. In that koan Guishan presents Yangshan with the case of someone saying, “There is only disorderly karmic consciousness and nothing whatsoever to rely on.” We cannot rely on the color white; we must go beyond it.
Taking a step off a 100-foot pole, the Hermit of Lotus blossom peak saying, “It has no power for the Way,” Zhaozhou’s “I do not abide in clarity,” and “What is the source of ‘No’?”—these also came along to join in the conversation.
What is the source of white?
—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
