PZI Teacher Archives

Linji's True Person (MK38b)(BS38)

KOAN:

There is a true person with no rank, who is always coming and going through the portals of your face.

—PZI Miscellaneous Koans, Case 38b (Record of Linji) & Book of Serenity, Case 38

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Dharma Theme May 1, 2023
135 Words
Text March 26, 2023

Falling with the Koan NO

John Tarrant

John Tarrant gives a talk on Zhaozhou’s NO: This koan is often offered as a first “gate,” but I think you need to already be in trouble and falling before it’s useful. Life is always offering us that cliff—that door of falling. When you’re falling, you can’t screw it up because actually there’s not a lot you can do. But what you do will be very free and won’t be constrained by the usual. From a recording made in Fall Sesshin 2022.

5207 Words
Text September 23, 2021

Awakenings of Linji & the Great Chan Teachers

John Tarrant

John revisits the awakenings and koans of the great teachers, among them Yunmen and Linji. The love, and attention, and faithfulness at the heart of the stories and teachings of the Chan ancestors is their gift to us. And everything we bring to it is an addition into this great heritage, and is part of the layering. Transcript from a video talk in Fall Sesshin 2019.

4443 Words
Text February 11, 2021

A True Person of No Rank, No Color, No Gender: Seeing Through All Distinctions

John Tarrant

I was thinking about history and beauty and what an old old thing human suffering is, and how intrinsic it is. And we keep making things better and then they keep getting worse, and we’re making them better and they get worse. I guess I just wanted to say that it’s really good to have a practice at any time. Meditate—it will help. You will come from a position of peace rather than just fighting yourself. Being yourself, the true person, no rank. Transcript of PZI Zen Online Sunday Dharma Talk with John Tarrant Roshi, recorded June 7, 2020.

6372 Words
Text October 8, 2020

7: The True Person Has No Rank – The Zenosaurus Course in Koans

John Tarrant

Zenosaurus Curriculum 7: The mind goes “label, label, label” until it doesn’t, and a different possibility appears. If you really show up in your own life, you don’t have rank.

808 Words