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: Guishan’s No Foundation
REGISTER
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!”
—Book of Serenity Case 37
As I have been spending time with this koan, I’ve been recalling how there is nothing like travel to appreciate disorderly consciousness being boundless with no foundation to rely on. Planning for a trip is an exercise in the attempt to make things orderly, which is an exercise in disorderly consciousness itself. Plane reservations, hotel reservations, reservations for tours, guidebooks. How about when you are told that the seats printed on your boarding passes, 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 not only that, but the two seats you do have are not together.
Or how about when when the plane taking you to Europe on a 12–hour non–stop flight, has only one working toilet for the entire plane…you can imagine the kind disorderly consciousness that
might arise, not to mention feeling there is no foundation to rely on, you cannot even rely on a working toilet. Or when Google maps correctly leads you to a shop that it listed as open, but it is closed…even more that can’t be relied on.
I suppose it’s no different than the kinds of situations I run into in my everyday life. But, traveling is a kind of adventure. Sure, I make plans and get reservations when I’m not traveling, 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 “traveling,” even when I’m home, might be what Basho was thinking about when he wrote:
“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
—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
