PZI Teacher Archives
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Allison Atwill -
David Parks -
David Weinstein -
Eduardo Fuentes -
Jesse Cardin -
John Tarrant -
Jon Joseph -
Michelle Riddle -
Tess Beasley
The Fire Across the River (MK2)
KOAN:
Put out the fire across the river.
—PZI Miscellaneous Koans, Case 2
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.
Dharma Theme: Fire – The Extremes of Climate Change
Our era is undoubtedly difficult, and even crazy. We are in an underworld time. We know that we’re cutting down ancient trees, burning fossil fuels, melting the sustaining ice, finding leaders who pretend that we have no part in the changes that overwhelm us. We are suffering from forces greater than us and also from ourselves; we too are forces beyond our control.
Put Out the Fire – A Panel on Koan Practice & Pain
Jon Joseph Roshi assembles a panel of four PZI meditators who have varied experiences of chronic and severe pain. Koan meditation has helped all of them find a way to allow in the pain—to not exclude it—and to see it as a profound teacher and ally. Recorded May 31, 2021.
Meditation: Put Out That Fire across the River
An 18-minute guided koan meditation with Jesse Cardin Roshi of PZI & Awakened Insight in San Antonio, Texas.
One Day, My Child, All This Will Be Yours
Australia’s ancient forests were burning in September 2020. In the face of unfathomable loss John Tarrant writes, “It’s too early to despair, it’s always too early to despair. The world itself is a mystery school and teaches us what it needs. It gives us impossible tasks and impossible journeys, and all we can say is that we love the world without knowing outcomes, because it is the only world we have, and because we never do know outcomes.” Article for Lion’s Roar magazine, published September 14, 2020.
Stop the Fire Across the River
Allison presents a talk on another miscellaneous Koan, “Stop the fire across the river.” This is like stopping the war within ourselves: where does this fire arise within us and what form does it take? Passion, anger, demons, delusions all take form within us.
Allison demonstrates the possibility of working with the fire of anger through humor and diligent practice and attention to what flares up within the body. January 22, 2014.