PZI Zen Online

Tess tells a story about the confinements of physical pain and long isolation for a musician during Covid lockdown. What are the gifts of turning into the trouble and the fear? 7-minute excerpt from Sunday Zen on Memorial Day 2022.

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.

What are the properties of great silence? It cannot be tarnished or eroded, it can’t be given or taken away, but it can of course be obscured. The whole universe is holding it for you; we hold it for each other and for ourselves. Zen cliches are showing up, with the truth! January Sunday Zen on January 15, 2023. 6 minutes.

If awakening could come from anywhere, how would that change things for you? Wherever you are, even in the places you are certain the silence is NOT, it is there, enfolding you. Even at Walmart with a toddler, in a flood, or at the doctor’s office—it is there, blooming. From a January Sunday Zen session on January 15, 2023. 10 minutes.

Poet, teacher and essayist Naomi Shihab Nye, recorded in conversation with Jon Joseph Roshi in June of 2022.

Jon Joseph Roshi converses with poet and essayist Jane Hirshfield on her many volumes of poetry and essays, her worldview, Buddhist practice, and more. With comments & questions from John Tarrant. Complete session from October 24th, 2022.

After a relative dies, the ancestral wrongs and difficulty can disappear as we change towards a more expansive view. Dreams tell us not to ignore the great forces of life, even in our turbulent times. Our koan school relates to the shadowy dark materials—including instead of excluding, without being taken over by them. October 30, 2022

Amanda Boughton sings a Croatian song of connection to the land and flocks of sheep tended there. Recorded during the Ancestral Stories Retreat, October 30, 2022. 4 minutes.

We can accumulate things in life that become symbolic after we die. The real inheritance is in our hands and hearts, and is reliable no matter what the surface relationship may have been. When we are challenged, the ancestors show up. Meeting the Lord of Death is one of those challenges, and is part of meeting life. Excerpt from the Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022.

Ancient and indigenous cultures have different models for healing and dreaming, with different points of view often galactic or mythic. Including and opening to vastness when facing any problem allows for a wider range of solutions, and access to the hidden treasures that we have no idea are there for us. Excerpt from the Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022.

John Tarrant reads his new autumn poem about meeting the vastness of autumn, and meeting his father, the Lord of Death. From the Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022. 3 minutes.

What is my piece in this patchwork inheritance? We are complicated—we don’t always know what qualities and histories inhabit us. We come into these lineages in mystery…maybe the lineages find us. Our koan lineage is one of moments of awakening, passed down. Excerpt from Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022. 19 minutes.

After people die, our point of view about them can shift—it often becomes more vast. Problems with those who’ve gone before can dissolve. In our PZI School, this is why the shadowy dark material is important: when included, it helps it to dissipate so the taste of old wrongs can actually disappear. Excerpted from Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022. 7 minutes.

As part of Tess Beasley’s Memorial Day teaching, Allison Atwill comments on the death of Poppet, a difficult but beloved sheep. A ritual to mark the passing of someone you love, and the passing that is happening in every moment, is a vital gift of practice. 5 minutes. May 29, 2022. 5-1/2 minutes.

Tess Beasley talks about what it means to turn toward pain and loss by embracing uncertainty. Memorial Day 2022. 5 minutes.