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 Emlyn Guiney
F E A T U R E D
September 8 Sunday Zen: With John Tarrant & Friends
September 21 Daylong: With John Tarrant & Tess Beasley
October 22–27 Fall Sesshin: with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers
- This event has passed.
TUESDAY ZEN: Are You Afraid of This Happiness? with David Weinstein
January 2 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Free – $10
REGISTER
Are you afraid of this happiness?
—Shakyamuni
This quote comes from the story about Siddhartha’s journey to awakening. One version of the passage goes like this:
Siddhartha is a child, not quite school age. He lies under a rose-apple tree, alone for a moment, unattended. A light breeze touches his face, there is dappled shade and the scent of grass. His eyes move slowly over the paddock. Nothing is on his mind. There is no fear, no tension, no desire. A question appears in his mind, the way a bird appears in the sky. The question is, “Am I afraid of this happiness?”
What strikes me about this koan is remembering how it appears in two places in the story of Siddhartha’s journey. Once when he is a child and again as he sits under the Bodhi Tree throughout his awakening experience.
There is a déjà vu quality to awakening experiences which is sometimes described as remembering that which we didn’t know we had forgotten. What we didn’t know we have forgotten is something we all don’t know we have forgotten—our experience of the place of no fear, no desire and no tension. We have all had those experiences, perhaps in childhood or another time, but either way we have forgotten them.
It is said that Zen mind is beginner’s mind, whether that happens in childhood or any other time in life. The mind of no fear, no tension and no desire. Awakening is remembering one of those experiences with our whole being.
Do you know what I mean?
—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
