PZI Teacher Archives
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The Coin Lost in the River (MK64)
KOAN:
The coin lost in the river is found in the river.
—PZI Miscellaneous Koans, Case 64
Losing Things, Finding Things
In meditation things come and go, as in life. In Zen the experience of loss contains a treasure. There is gold inside the loss whether of a person, a country, or a beloved house. Grief dissolves everything. The valleys of life are important for developing empathy. Mazu gives us the path to walk through the demons: Help others cross. Make yourself a raft. An Indigenous saying: Inside the last tear, happiness is hiding.
Losing Things, Finding Things
In meditation things come and go, as in life. In Zen the experience of loss contains a treasure. There is gold inside the loss whether of a person, a country, or a beloved house. Grief dissolves everything. The valleys of life are important for developing empathy. Mazu gives us the path to walk through the demons: Help others cross. Make yourself a raft. An Indigenous saying: Inside the last tear, happiness is hiding.
Dharma Theme: The Storehouse of Treasures Opens by Itself – 2023 Online Fall Retreat
Here you will find links to dharma talk audios from PZI’s Online Fall Retreat: The Storehouse of Treasures Opens by Itself with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers. Includes music from Amaryllis Fletcher, Amanda Boughton & Jordan McConnell. Recorded in the PZI Digital Temple, September 27–30, 2023.
Fall Retreat: What Is Lost In the Bath?
What is this life? The nature of what appears is always changing—it’s something we feel together in ‘the bath. Prajna, or wisdom, is learning to recognize and see accurately. We can suddenly see that everything is okay and here, and yet it’s a dance. We find it; we lose it again. In practice, as in life, lost things return or cycle in and take their leave again.
Fall Retreat: What Is Lost In the Bath?
What is this life? The nature of what appears is always changing—it’s something we feel together in ‘the bath. Prajna, or wisdom, is learning to recognize and see accurately. We can suddenly see that everything is okay and here, and yet it’s a dance. We find it; we lose it again. In practice, as in life, lost things return or cycle in and take their leave again.
Dharma Theme: Landscape as Teacher
PZI Teachers
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.
Zen Luminaries: A Conversation with Buddhist Translator Thomas Kirchner & Jon Joseph
Thomas Kirchner has translated, annotated, and edited great works in our Chan lineage, including Entangling Vines: Zen Koans of the Shumon Kattoshu, The Record of Linji, and more. He is a longtime Zen practitioner, was born in the US, and has lived most of his life in Japan. He joins Jon Joseph for a wide-ranging conversation about his life in Zen.
11 The Coin Lost in the River – The Zenosaurus Course in Koans
Zenosaurus Curriculum 11: This koan offers offers the chance of finding that there is a home in traveling, in the smell of toast, the chill of the morning air and even in the feeling of being far from home.
Lost And Found
The practice part of it is that it doesn’t matter if you think you lost the coin and start to be unhappy about life. That is another theory. And it doesn’t matter how many times that theory rises. Even that theory is the coin. A koan practice means that you go back to the river over and over again and you can trust that process.
Coin Lost in the River is Found in the River
Jon Joseph gives a talk during Fall Sesshin: September 22, 2017.
How to Practice Zen Koans
A koan is a little healing story, a conversation, an image, a fragment of a song. It’s something to keep you company, whatever you are doing. There’s a tradition of koan study to transform your heart and the way you move in the world. Article by John Tarrant published in Lion’s Roar magazine, March 2016 and September 2018.