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. Questions? Contact Corey Hitchcock.
F E A T U R E D
PZI Retreat in Session: Storehouse of Treasures with John Tarrant & Friends, Sept. 27–30
Sunday Zen: with John Tarrant on October1st
Fall Sesshin: In Person with John Tarrant & Friends, Oct. 24–29
Zen Luminaries: Special Guest Pico Iyer on Oct. 30
- This event has passed.
WEDNESDAY ZEN: A Well Sees A Donkey – with David Weinstein
June 21 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Free – $10
REGISTER
Xaoshan asked Elder De, “The body of reality is like space.
It responds to things—manifesting its forms the way the moon appears in the water.
How do you explain this responsiveness?”
De said, “It’s like a donkey looking into a well.”
“That’s most of it, but not the whole thing.”
“What’s it like for you?”
“It is like a well looking at a donkey.”
—Book of Serenity Case 52
This koan about a donkey and a well brought the peach blossom koan to mind, in which reality is met, just as it is, without any of our overlay—nothing but peach blossoms. That sounds like a donkey seeing a well. There’s a me seeing the well but without the overlay—the way the empty sky receives whatever passes through it.
In our practice, we cultivate a mind that reflects what comes in front of it—without putting up filters, without putting up projections or ideas—like the moon in water.
The student’s response is good, as far as it goes. But it leaves out the other side of the coin. To say that awakening is like a donkey seeing a well speaks to the way something is still being held onto: the donkey. Caoshan’s response of “a well sees a donkey,” takes away that which is being held onto.
When you experience “a donkey sees a well,” there is nothing to know. When you experience “a well sees a donkey,” there is no one who knows. No subject, no object: your body and mind are like the vast sky.
The donkey is the donkey and the well is the well, and simultaneously the donkey is the well and the well is the donkey, and all the barriers come down. Life is not something to be observed from a corner. Seeing by being seen, being seen by seeing.
Join us for a koan, meditation, dharma talk, & conversation.
All are welcome. Register to participate.
—David
