meditation practice
Friendship: A Thing of Special Wonder
On encouraging friendship with the world—koans, trees, people. How we interact with friends, from the heart. We listen to each other. We don’t have to make them anything other than what they are. Poems, stories, comments. Complete session as recorded Jan 24, 2021, PZI Zen Online.
Hanging Lanterns: Everyone Has Their Own Light
As old agreements fall apart, practice is a kindness. What is the image of our time? A lamp that lights another, without losing any radiance. It carries the changes, in the warmth of fire. What is meditation? Any moment of sanity! Michael Wilding on flute, Amaryllis Fletcher on violin, and Jordan McConnell on guitar for the 4 Vows. As recorded on Sunday, September 6, 2020.
Audio Excerpt: The Elephant in the Room – Dream of the Totality of Being
PZI Zen Online: Audio excerpt. John Tarrant Roshi recounts a Sesshin dream—insight on meditation practice. As recorded June 27 2020.
Walking the Mysterious Path Together – Koans, Transformation & PZI
John Tarrant, Roshi, Director of PZI and author, talks about the mystery of meditation as he first experienced it in the ancient forests of Queensland; about transformation on the ancient koan path we follow, and the evolution of Pacific Zen Institute as a community, and koan school with a new online resource center, the KALPA (Koans and Liberation Project Archive) Library. Your support helps produce PZI’s ongoing retreats and dharma talks, John’s writing projects, and spreads the teachings. 8 minutes. January 2019
The Nature of Practice
..a practice is different from a plan. You know what a plan is; you’ve probably made a few of them. A practice has more love in it, because a practice is something you’re doing without being sure of the outcome..
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.
The Curiosity Shop
Rachel Boughton discusses techniques of meditation during sesshin; darkness, light, curiosity, and learning how to sit attentively with a koan. 2014.
The Teachers Speak
On Friday evening, the last night of the October 2015 sesshin, all the teachers weigh in.
The Sport of Meditation
Steven Grant gives a talk on “the sport of meditation” at 2016 Winter Sesshin.