Description
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.
Landscape as Teacher
Links to Audio, Video, & Text on the topic
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.
Wandering in Landscapes
AUDIO: Free & Easy Wandering: Following the Scented Grass – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Spring 2021
GUIDED MEDITATION: Free & Easy Wandering – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Spring 2021(clip)
The silence, the free and easy wandering, is in your heart. All you can do is wander and dance with it.
—John Tarrant
Valley
KOAN: The Valley Spirit Never Dies – Daodejing
DHARMA THEME: Gathering in the Valley of Our Time – Fall Sesshin 2020
AUDIO: The Valley Spirit Never Dies – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Spring 2021
AUDIO: Mother’s Day: The Valley Spirit Never Dies – John Tarrant, Spring 2022
Mountain
KOAN: A Thousand Mountains – PZI Miscellaneous Collection Case 13
KOAN: Dancing Mountains – PZI Miscellaneous Collection Case 5
KOAN: Changsha Wandering in the Mountains – Blue Cliff Record Case 36
AUDIO: The East Mountain Walks on the Water – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Winter 2022
TEXT: Following the Scent of Flowers – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Spring 2020
DHARMA THEME: In the Wild – Mountain Koans & Poems
Forest
In the forest, I stopped wanting things to be a certain way. I stopped reaching past the place I was in, stopped turning the visible world into assessments, and forgot who I was. This was a taste of what the old Buddhist teachers called “emptiness.”
—John Tarrant
TEXT: One Day, My Child, All This Will Be Yours – John Tarrant, Lion’s Roar magazine, Fall 2020
Cliff & Cave
A student asked Jiashan, “What is Jiashan’s state of mind?”
Jiashan answered, “Monkeys, clasping their young to their breasts, return beyond the green peaks: A bird with a flower in its beak alights before the blue grotto.”—Entangling Vines Case 99
KOAN: Blue Dragon’s Cave – Blue Cliff Record Case 3
AUDIO: Discoveries, Pearls & Treasure in the Blue Dragon’s Cave – Tess Beasley, Summer Sesshin 2020
AUDIO: Journey into the Blue Dragon’s Cave – Guided Meditation, John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, 2020
DHARMA THEME: Magical Creatures & Dragon Teachers
DHARMA THEME: In the Palace at the Blue Cliff – Summer Sesshin 2021
Ocean & Sea
KOAN: Ten Thousand Feet Down – PZI Miscellaneous Collection Case 27
AUDIO: Swimming Through the Titanic – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Summer 2023
AUDIO: Ten Thousand Feet Down, the Stone – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Spring 2020
AUDIO: Adamantine Sea: Dream Diving – Jon Joseph, Monday Zen, Spring 2020
River & Stream
Mountain flowers bloom like brocade. The valley streams run deepest indigo.
—Blue Cliff Record Case 82 (excerpt)
KOAN: How Do You Cross a Stream? – Record of Dongshan
TEXT: The Coin Lost in the River – John Tarrant, Zenosaurus Course in Koans, Chapter 11
VIDEO: Every Action Is a Dharmic Action – David Weinstein, Summer Sesshin 2017
TEXT: The Everlasting Body Runs Deepest Indigo – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Summer 2020
TEXT: A Great Current Carries Us – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Fall 2022
AUDIO: Loving the World That Carries Us – John Tarrant, Sunday Zen, Winter 2022
Related materials & koans
If you have time to chatter, read books.
If you have time to read, walk into mountain, desert, and ocean.
If you have time to walk, sing songs and dance.
If you have time to dance, sit quietly, you happy, lucky idiot.—Nanao