Description
Sensei Michelle Riddle gives the morning talk on day five of PZI’s 2025 Summer Sesshin: Mountain Flowers Bloom Like Brocade, Valley Streams Are Deepest Indigo. Recorded on June 20, 2025, at Mount Madonna Center.
Summary
Featured Koan: Blue Cliff Record Case 36
One day Changsha went wandering in the mountains.
When he returned, the head of practice met him at the gate and asked,
“Where have you been?”
“Wandering in the mountains.”
“Where did you go?”
“I went out following scented grasses and returned chasing falling blossoms.”
—transl. by John Tarrant & Joan Sutherland
Sesshin Koan: Blue Cliff Record Case 82
Someone asked Dalong, “The physical body perishes. What is the pure everlasting body?”
Dalong said, “Mountain flowers bloom like brocade, valley streams run deepest indigo.”
Wanting to be special: We are special, and we are not special.
When there is “free and easy wandering,” like Changsha in the mountains, then there is nothing you do not already have.
How does the truth come through that particular person? Through that particular teacher?
—Michelle Riddle
Sensei Michelle Riddle gives the morning talk on day five of PZI’s 2025 Summer Sesshin: Mountain Flowers Bloom Like Brocade, Valley Streams Are Deepest Indigo. Recorded on June 20, 2025, at Mount Madonna Center.
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