2023 Summer Sesshin

On some level, we are not human beings! Zhaozhou’s dog koan often leads off sesshins. When you throw yourself in with the dog, you make your whole body a mass of doubt. Your eyebrows are entangled with the Zen ancestors.

Dongshan was still perplexed until he crossed a stream and saw his own reflection. He realized a great understanding: the end of self-consciousness. He wrote, “It now is me, I am not it.” All the impediments to inclusion fell away. Sentient or non-sentient teachings, he was included.

I’m a great buffalo. Why won’t my beautiful tail pass through the window with the rest of me? What is that wonderful tail? John Tarrant gives a dharma talk in Summer Sesshin.

In sesshin, we are fish moving in and out of the depths. The treasure lies in the realm you do not wish to investigate. If you can face your fear and go there, a great watery tenderness arises as the heart opens.

John Tarrant opens the Great Summer Sesshin – Creatures of the Summer Dawn. If you just don’t try to work things out, the universe will take over. Whatever appears, don’t believe it! Enjoy yourself. 

What makes the old man in the koan stay and talk to Baizhang? What is that ‘turning’ in practice, in life? Allison Atwill explores questions of time and karma, forms of suffering, and more during Summer Sesshin.