Linji's Solitary Brightness (MK38c)

Audio PZi Zen Online: our lives right now are an exercise in not knowing. Surprising intimacy in new forms of communication and meditation. But really there is nothing to hold onto. And that c=vastness is filled with light. These three koans reflect that in th etime before we know or name. As recorded July 16 2020.

Blue Dragon’s Cave Sesshin, Sunday: Small things, small moments of rest peace awakening, like ‘Thank you’. Appreciating the treasures discarded. The very things that imprison me hold the freedom, if we can ‘host’ them. Being home with them. The Storehouse ONLY opens by itself – no prying or forcing. ‘Returning’ in meditation. Leonard Cohen sings – How the Light gets in. Sunday July 28.

PZI Zen Online: Three threads: Anna Swier’ s poem: ‘There’s a Light in Me’. The light in us wholly unharmed even in extremes of suffering, a place for the Muses to meet us. ‘Terma’ – a Tibetan teaching hidden in physical objects or even concealed in your mind or memory- written in indecipherable Dakini script, to be found by you. Concealed in physical objects or even in your mind/memory, written texts or even email! little reminders that we are already awake. When we hold light and silence everyone can feel it it changes the field. As recorded June 16th 2020.

Audio PZI Zen Online -Taking the role of the host everywhere & Abiding Nowhere guide Allison’s talk. Solitude as resting in vastness. Loneliness – you may even be in company, but something is missing. revisiting childhood’ solitude and the solitude of mountain trails. Abiding ‘somewhere’ keeps me out of vastness.

John Tarrant introduces the Queensland Magpie singing fire sirens and walks us through the ancient forests he knew as a child. How do we live the life we live in the face of this vast change? What is this?

The experience of being blocked; a major or minor imprisonment and of help arriving from unexpected sources.

A discovery that all the Linji koans we are working with during the retreat are variants on: ‘There’s Nothing I Dislike’. They all appear from this core. The solitary brightness with no fixed shape or form is yours. If you ‘Only don’t object’, or exclude the reality, the brightness is there.