PZI Teacher Archives

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

Text February 15, 2023

A Valentine’s Day Bankei Koan Miracle

David Weinstein

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.”

1009 Words

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Article September 16, 2021

My Average Life

John Tarrant

“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.”

1541 Words
Text August 6, 2020
3034 Words