PZI Teacher Archives

The Valley Streams Run Deepest Indigo

KOAN:

There was a student who asked a teacher, the teacher was Dalong [long means dragon, dragon teacher] and the student said,
“This physical body perishes, decays. What is the imperishable, what is the hard and fast body of reality? What is the body that doesn’t decay? This physical body decays, what is the everlasting body of the real?”
And the teacher said, “Mountain flowers bloom like brocade. The valley streams run deepest indigo.” 

—Blue Cliff Record Case 82

Audio December 19, 2022

Loving the World That Carries Us

John Tarrant

The body of form changes, but what is everlasting? Q: “What endures?” A: “Mountain flowers bloom like brocade. The valley streams run deepest indigo.” Everybody has it. We are on a journey with no fixed destination, and the moment we’ve been looking for is here. What carries us, if not the world around us? With solo flute improv from Micheal Wilding.

62' 52"
Audio June 15, 2020

The Everlasting Body Runs Deepest Indigo – Meditation for Troubled Times

John Tarrant

We are in the midst of great civil unrest around racism and the institutions that support it. Li Bai, Du Fu, Dalong & Primo Levi speak about what remains, what lives, what holds us in the universe—even as we feel most perishable, sad, defeated. The light is still there in all things, even without a foundation to stand on. As recorded June 14, 2020.

96' 32"