PZI Teacher Archives
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Allison Atwill -
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Michelle Riddle -
Tess Beasley
Bankei's Miracle
KOAN:
Bankei was approached by a priest who boasted that his master possessed miraculous powers. This master could take a brush and write Amida in the air and the word would appear on a sheet of paper in the distance. Challenged to equal this, Bankei replied, “My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.”
—From Dazhu Huihai: The Record of Questions Asked by Disciples from Everywhere
A Valentine’s Day Bankei Koan Miracle
A search for the source of a Zen koan leads David Weinstein on a Valentine’s Day tour of koan history and many lineage teachers: “It’s like a murder mystery, tracing the clues, a prime suspect emerges, but then there’s a twist and it’s someone else, until finally, in the end I realize the prime suspect is me.”
My Average Life
“I like finding features of popular culture that point the way out of the mind’s prison. It is as if a trail of breadcrumbs had been left where least expected.”
Knock on Any Door – Daoist Masters & Zen Koans
Whatever your condition is, you can see the “I have joy.” Out of that emptiness, out of what seems unpromising—the dark material, the valley spirit, the enigma, out of the mystery, out of what I don’t understand—it just appears. The joy just appears.