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
Dongshan
Invoking the Light: A New Year’s Meditation Revel
The old boat is sailing off laden with its gifts and sorrows, and the New Year—who knows what it will bring, what we will discover, what new fear will confront us and what we will love?
Invoking the Light: A New Year’s Meditation Revel
In order to wake up we need to fall asleep, to surrender to the great current that we know little about and which we cannot control or direct.
Front Foot & Back Foot Walking
One of the metaphors for awakening is spring. And don’t be afraid of how marvelous and powerful this thing is that’s carrying us, because it’s your nature and it’s a precious thing. And if we came here for anything, it’s that.
Dharma Theme: Sickness and Medicine
Usually, casually, I think of myself as being well. When I am sick, wellness is the me I imagine I’ll get back to. I can’t always be sure what is healing and what is the opposite.
Dharma Theme: Creatures of the Summer Dawn – Summer Sesshin 2023
Here you will find links to audio and video dharma talks from PZI’s Great Summer Sesshin: Creatures of the Summer Dawn with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers. Includes music from Amaryllis Fletcher, Michael Wilding and Jordan McConnell. Held in person at Santa Sabina Center from June 12–18, 2023.
Summer Sesshin: Dongshan’s Journey of Awakening
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.
Summer Sesshin: Dongshan’s Journey of Awakening
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.
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.
Dharma Theme: Meeting the Inconceivable
What you can conceive of might take away your life. On the other hand, what you cannot conceive of will give you your life.
Dharma Theme: Past Midnight – Discoveries in the Dark
These dharma talks and texts, like Dongshan’s First Rank, wander in the hours before moonrise when anything can appear. Being lost, or in the dark, is a necessary condition on the Way.
Forms of Awakening
Kensho is a real thing—and you can’t pin it down. Awakening takes many and varied forms. Long to really understand reality, and have the joy of that. From a talk given during Summer Sesshin on June 17, 2022. 12 minutes.
Noticing What Is Sharp & What Is Round
We are more interwoven when noticing and appreciating the particular qualities of things. When you see yourself in all things, you are seeing with your ears and hearing with your eyes. From a talk in PZI’s Summer Sesshin, June 16, 2022. 11 minutes.
Magical Meetings: Encountering Your Own True Self
John Tarrant on a meeting past midnight with an old familiar face that you may or may not recognize right off. When there is no moon and you can’t find your way in the usual way, you are bound to have some unusual encounters. Stories, readings, comments, and music for meditation from Michael Wilding and Jordan McConnell. Complete Sunday Session recorded on June 12, 2022.
Magical Meetings: Past Midnight – Koun Yamada’s Awakening
Awakening comes when you least expect it. Zen ancestor Koun Yamada returned from a retreat feeling deeply uncertain. Then dream life confirmed his awakening. Recorded June 12, 2022. 2-minute video.
Points of Practice: Getting Stuck, Getting Free
In our Zen practice, there comes a time when you can feel stuck. John Tarrant talks about how to navigate this. Recorded June 12, 2022. 3-minute video.
Magical Meetings
John Tarrant on a meeting past midnight, with an old familiar face you may or may not recognize right off. When there is no moon and you can’t find your way in the usual way, you are bound to have some unusual encounters. Stories, readings, comments, and music for meditation from Michael Wilding and Jordan McConnell. Complete Sunday Session audio. Recorded June 12, 2022.
Unexpected Gifts: 10,000 Feet Down, The Stone
John Tarrant talks about living in an underworld time, in a descent as a culture and as a world, and as a planet. Accepting the descent, and accepting the quality of being lost when it appears, is profoundly important. And there’s a great, strange, and interesting mystery in that.
One Who Is Not Sick
David Parks Roshi of Blue Grass Zen in Kentucky continues with the koans of Dongshan. Dharma talk: The One Who Is Not Sick, PZI Zen Online. As recorded April 22, 2021.
Before There Is Moonlight – First Rank of Dongshan’s Five Ranks
We are in a time ‘before moonlight’ with Covid and the resulting massive unemployment, with great unknowns ahead. Dreams in Zen are not so different from waking life. We make up stories about what will happen. But we are passing through a gate of meeting and not recognizing. How do you make your way? Step by step. As recorded May 25, 2020.
The Open Hand Way
Audio PZI Zen Online – David Parks with the 3rd of his zoom sessions on The Bird Path. Returns to the question: Where are you coming from? What we come out of in this time. Where we change our focus. As recorded May 14 2020.
Dongshan’s Five Ranks: Poem 5
So we’ve been talking about old poems that are also a map of the path, but they’re a map of the kind where you have to see what rises in your meditation to meet them to find out how useful they are to you. Today we’re on the fifth of the ranks, the fifth poem. Five ranks by an old Zen teacher, and this is the final one, so you now know conclusively that there are only five stages to the path. And it goes:
The Bird Path
John says birds open the sky for us when we watch them fly—everything just appears, and then is gone, with no trace. If we trust whatever appears, that’s a taste of the bird path. Might it be true that no matter what, you’re not having the wrong moment, that you don’t have to disapprove? When it’s difficult, it’s good to know that it’s for us, it’s ours. Life is blessing us all the time. Our thinking and feeling “This isn’t it,” is what we call loneliness. John talks about how our practice asks us, “What’s it like to be alive, to be me? What’s it like to be a tree? A bird? What if I’m a fire? What if I’m river?” My mind and the universe—not much difference.
Only For Your Benefit, Honored One
John Tarrant continues his teaching on Dongshan’s great koan, “Only for Your Benefit, Honored One.” April 18, 2011.
Beginning with the End
Starting in the moment of “now”, David discusses the ancient zen master Dongshan, who wrote the koans taught during this sesshin.
Settling into Retreat
Rachel Boughton gives a talk at the Summer 2017 sesshin. Morning of July 18, 2017.
Every Action Is a Dharmic Action
David Weinstein gives a morning talk in Summer Sesshin. Recorded July 17, 2017.
Dongshan’s Each Stitch Spews Flames
Speaking about Dongshan’s Each Stitch koan, Allison tells a story of recognizing awakening can come from anywhere when we can truly inhabit life as our own.