Linji's Solitary Brightness (MK38c)
KOAN:
c. There’s a solitary brightness without fixed shape or form. It knows how to listen to the teachings, it knows how to understand the teachings, it knows how to teach. That solitary brightness is you.
– PZI Miscellanous Koans, Case 38c
Australia Is Burning
To love what you love is important in a time of catastrophe. To find what you love, know it. Have integrity, and be honest with yourself about it, and be generous with people. Walking the path never stops, and it is a beautiful thing. Transcript of John Tarrant’s talk in Winter Sesshin 2020.
The Journey Into Awakening – The Most Marvelous Thing
PZI Zen Online: The Journey into Awakening. A student asks Baizhang, “What is the most marvelous thing—a matter of special worth?” He answers, “Sitting alone on Mt. Courage Peak.” Our internal vastness is always there. The importance of an imaginative response to any time of change. The wisdom of an indigenous storyteller who embodies a much longer timeline of radical earth changes. The freedom of not being you. Dec 13 2020. Music posted separately.
Solitary Brightness – Nothing to Hang Onto
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 vastness is filled with light. These three koans reflect that in the time before we know or name. As recorded July 16 2020.
The Blue Dragon’s Cave – A Storehouse of Treasures
PZI Zen Online Audio: Blue Dragon’s Cave Sesshin, Sunday Talk. Small things, small moments of rest, peace, & awakening, like “Thank you.” Appreciating the discarded treasures. The very things that imprison me hold the freedom, if we can host them. Being at home with them. The Storehouse ONLY opens by itself – no prying or forcing. “Returning” in meditation. Leonard Cohen sings How the Light Gets In. As recorded July 28 2020.
I Carry Silence & Light – Muses in the Midst of Turmoil
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.
Stories from the interior – Solitude & Loneliness
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.
Australia Is Burning
John Tarrant speaks of fire sirens and the Queensland Magpie singing, 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? As recorded in Winter Session 2020.
Australia is Burning
John Tarrant walks us through the ancient forests he knew as a child. Fire sirens, the Queensland Magpie singing, and Linji’s Solitary Brightness. How do we live the life we have in the face of vast change? Audio recording from Winter Sesshin 2020.
The Brightness of the Blockage
The experience of being blocked; a major or minor imprisonment and of help arriving from unexpected sources.
That Solitary Brightness Is You
A discovery that all the Linji koans we are working with during the retreat are variants on Linji’s “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 reality, the brightness is there. As recorded in Summer Sesshin 2016.
Solitary Brightness Has No Fixed Shape or Form
John Tarrant gives a talk on Thursday evening of the summer retreat. 2016.