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: Fengxue’s Iron Ox
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Fengxue taught, “When the ancestors make an impression on your mind, it’s like the working of the Iron Ox. When the impression goes away, it remains working. If the impression stays, its working is ruined. Making an impression and not making an impression can both be right only if the impression doesn’t go away and doesn’t stay.”
According to a footnote I have for this koan, the “Iron Ox” referred to was placed in China’s Yellow River to regulate its flow and minimize damage from flooding. I must admit I’ve never quite understood how that worked, so when I ran into an alternate possibility of imagining this koan, I was interested.
As it turns out, there really was an iron ox—originally there were eight of them, four on each side of the river. They were part of the earliest and longest floating bridge on the Yellow River, estimated to have been built around 724 A.D. Each ox weighed 70 tons, was 7 feet high, 9 feet long, and 6 feet wide. Each ox had six iron pillars attached at the bottom, which were 30 feet long and 2 feet in diameter. The pillars were attached at a 45-degree angle, opening to the front of the ox in such a way so that when the pillars were buried into the ground, they would prevent the ox from moving due to the pull of the cables supporting the bridge that were wrapped around the ox. After 500 years, the bridge was destroyed during a war, but the ox remained on the riverbanks.
The I Ching says, ”The ox is like kun—kun is the earth, and the earth is better than water.” So, supported by what the I Ching says about the nature of the ox, the iron ox on the riverbanks were considered a deterrent to flooding of the Yellow River.
Though they were not buried at the bottom of the river, the action of the Iron Ox supporting the bridge was the same. They didn’t move; that was their action: not moving.
Fengxue’s description of the action of the Iron Ox sounds like advice on how to hang out with a koan. When a koan makes an impression on your mind, don’t move, don’t do anything, just let it be. Reminds me of another koan that asks, “How is it that a fully awakened person cannot lift up their leg, or say something without moving their lips or tongue?”
—David Weinstein
COME JOIN US on Tuesdays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation.
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David Weinstein Roshi, Director of Rockridge Meditation Community
