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
May 7–10: Say A True Word & I Will Stay The Night – Open Mind Retreat with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill
May 17: Sunday Zen with John Tarrant, Allison Atwill & Tess Beasley
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: Filling a Sieve with Water
REGISTER
A teacher said, “It’s like filling a sieve with water.”
The student thought about this for some time but didn’t understand.
The teacher got a sieve and they went to the sea.
The student poured water into the sieve and it poured out again.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
The teacher threw the sieve out into the ocean, where it floated for a moment and then sank.
Filling a sieve with water sounds like a task you might encounter in a fairytale. Something along the lines of picking out a wagonload of poppy seeds from black flour dust or telling the king how many hairs he has on his head.
In the case of the person assigning such a task in fairy tales and myths, they do not expect anyone to succeed, and even hope for failure.
In the case of the koan, inviting someone to fill a sieve with water is suggested knowing that the person can accomplish the task and may even have already accomplished it, though they don’t know it themselves.
That task is our life and we are always living it, whether we notice it or not. Our life may feel like a sieve full of holes, as we feel unable to hold onto anything. But not being able to hold onto anything is just the way life is, the way a sieve cannot hold onto water.
We can spend a lot of time trying to plug up the holes of our life/sieve and may even succeed in being able to make it hold water. But then it is no longer a sieve, and it is no longer life. To fill a sieve with water is to appreciate that like the cracks that let the light in, holes in a sieve, in our life, let the light and life in.
And what about that moment when the sieve floated before it sank?
—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
