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
- This event has passed.
WEDNESDAY ZEN: Step by Step in the Blue Dragon’s Cave – with David Weinstein
REGISTER
The storehouse of treasures opens of itself. You may take them and use them any way you wish.
—Dogen
A while back, we had a retreat that was devoted to “The Cave of the Blue Dragon.” According to the story, the Blue Dragon, who is fierce, is guarding a pearl of great value, sometimes called the “wish-fulfilling gem,” or “Mani Jewel.” That is the same mani as in Om Mani Padme Hum, the national mantra of Tibet: “Praise the Jewel in the Lotus.”Imagine living in a country that has a national mantra.
The wish that the Mani Jewel can grant you is awakening. There is an air of danger and difficulty associated with entering the cave, as there is with become awakened. Of course there’s the dragon, but there is something else that is also daunting. The area between the entrance of the cave, and where the Blue Dragon is located, is filled with all of the strategies and unskillful mind-habits I have employed to protect my ways of creating suffering for myself. In order to get to the Mani Jewel, I have to pick up each one of those things and set it aside, so I can pass through. That’s what I do in meditation—I don’t get rid of anything, I just put it to the side.
But those are the things I have been using to navigate my way through life, and putting them aside is like flying blind, and that’s scary. At the same time, those things we pick up and put aside are actually treasures themselves—gates to experiencing the relief of putting them aside, which is a treasure. The freedom that comes with not relying on anything, step by step in the dark, is a treasure. So the Cave of the Blue Dragon and the Storehouse of Treasures got all mixed up for me back then.
Now, with the theme of our upcoming retreat being “Door After Door Opening Inside,” I find myself again thinking about the Storehouse of Treasures. How each of those things that we pick up and set aside is a door taking us deeper and deeper inside the Cave of the Blue Dragon. We have to set each treasure aside, including the treasure of awakening, and then even forget that we have set anything aside, to be truly free.
Join us for a koan, meditation, dharma talk, & conversation.
All are welcome. Register to participate.
—David
