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Dancing Mountains (MK5)

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KOAN:

Make the mountains dance.

Note: Zaogongen is the local deity for one of the shamanic traditions in Japan (the Yamabushi) and it is said that the revelation of the tradition is to see Zaogongen as the mountains dancing.

—PZI Miscellanous Koans, Case 5

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Dharma Theme July 26, 2023

Dharma Theme: Landscape as Teacher

PZI Teachers

Koans
A Thousand Mountains (MK13), Blue Dragon's Cave (BCR3), Changsha Wandering in the Mountains (BCR36), Dancing Mountains (MK5), How Do You Cross a Stream?, Ten Thousand Feet Down (MK27), The Coin Lost in the River (MK64), The Fire Across the River (MK2), The Valley Spirit Never Dies (DDJ6), The Valley Streams Run Deepest Indigo
Tags
being carried, brocade, cave, climate change, field, forest, home, journey, lake, landscape, mountain, river, stream, valley, valley spirit, wandering
Category
Dharma Theme

When we wake up and see our true place in the universe, it’s as if we have stepped out of a landscape and then we’re willing to step back into it. We appear and go back into the brocade. Then, we have our true place in the universe.

19 Words

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Dharma Theme March 22, 2023

Dharma Theme: In the Wild – Mountain Koans & Poems

PZI Teachers

Koans
A Thousand Mountains (MK13), Be a Tiger in the Mountains, Changsha Wandering in the Mountains (BCR36), Dancing Mountains (MK5), Dongshan's Voice of the Cuckoo (MK52), Going to Wild Places (MK73), Silver Mountain and Iron Cliff (BCR 57), The Green Mountain Walks About (BS41), Tortoise Mountain Wakes Up, Yunmen's East Mountain Walks on the Water (EV49)
Tags
awakening, Dharma Theme, Free and Easy Wandering, iron cliffs, journey, Li Bai, mountain poems, Poems, poet Han Shan, poet Li Bai, silver mountains, solitude, struggle, wandering, wild, wildness
Category
Dharma Theme, Text

Eventually you come to a place where you can’t go on and you can’t go back. You have arrived at the base of cliffs; you can’t scale them, you can’t get around them, and there’s no handy tunnel through them. It’s a daunting place—that’s the point of it. And when you arrive here your life and your journey can become your own.

23 Words