PZI Zen Online

We travel in the dark and find treasure—the hidden jewels of practice. The difficulty we would like to avoid is the gate. Sappho said, “Enter the way, enter here.” Meditation is the container, the alembic of change. Poems and music during meditation from Michael Wilding. Ryan McCoy sings the vows. PZI Zen Online, as recorded March 7, 2021.

Deshan is determined to prove his scholarly certainty. He encounters two teachers who help him see the light. John talks about refuge; What is it? Why take refuge? What is the rakusu? PZI’s approach—working with refuge vows as koans. Zen ultimately rests in mystery and uncertainty. Linji says, “Have confidence in the light always working inside you.” Music with Jordan McConnell. Sunday talk as recorded Feb. 28th, 2021.

An 18-minute guided koan meditation with Jesse Cardin Roshi of PZI & Awakened Insight in San Antonio, Texas.

Guided meditation with John Tarrant. Who is sitting? Who hears the bell? Always a good start for a meditation. John shares Master Ma’s comment on “the current matter”— this very moment of your life as a most important gate. Audio excerpt recorded Feb. 7 2021, PZI Zen Online. 25 minutes.

John Tarrant guides a 9-minute meditation with Master Ma’s koan, “The whole purpose of your life is contained in the current matter.” Audio excerpt as recorded at a Sunday Meditation & Talk on February 9, 2021.

Winter Sesshin: Through Winter Silence into the New Light. Allison Atwill takes us on a solo sailing journey—a metaphor for sesshin and our lives. Dharma talk recorded on January 17, 2021.

PZI Zen Online: On friendship with the world—koans, trees, people. How we interact with friends, from the heart. They listen and we don’t have to make them anything other than what they are. Stories of Mr. Woods and other friends, making a friend of your koan in practice. As recorded Sunday Jan 24 2021. 7 minutes.

Handing Things On in the Dark. The dark silent time of this year has lasted for 9 months, in COVID. “The whole meaning of your life is in the current matter happening now.” No explaining it. “To be deeply in Zen is to be deeply in how to express it.” The first vaccines are here. The mysterious freedoms of this time, welcoming the new year, and a tour of the deep thick dark of midnight. John reads poems by Gerard Manly Hopkins, Anna Swir, Czeslaw Milosz, and more. Music from Jordan McConnell & Amaryllis Fletcher. PZI Zen Online, as recorded Jan 3, 2021.

PZI Zen Online: Excerpt from Handing Things On in the Dark. The freshness of the new year, the dark silent time of the year. To be deeply in zen is to be deeply in how to express it. The mysterious freedoms of the dark. As recorded Jan. 3, 2021. 2 minutes.

PZI Zen Online: At PZI we say that every bit of awakening is all of awakening. In fact, the barrier for awakening is so low that our sutra dedication says that “ants, sticks, and grizzly bears can easily jump over.” The bar is low, the gate wide open, the invitation given and never rescinded!

Hanging Lanterns at the Gates of the Autumn Temple with John Tarrant. Immensity is pecking; breaking through with a koan—Jingqing asks for help with his awakening. We are part of a great transformative process which can be precious and subtle. Music from Michael Wilding, Jordan McConnell & Amaryllis Fletcher, vows Michelle Riddle. PZI Zen Online, as recorded Oct. 18, 2020.

Allison Atwill Roshi’s Zen Tuesday dharma talk. The immensity of sound as it permeates all barriers. Cracks showing in our traditions and conventions, trying to get back to the old imperfect life. Jim Morrison and The Doors offer up “Light My Fire” as rendered on the Ed Sullivan show. As recorded Oct 12 2020.

Tess Beasley leads off the Zen Tuesdays Series with thoughts about encountering immensity, examining creative process, and koan practice as inclusionary. As recorded October 6, 2020.

PZI Zen Online with David Weinstein: He asks, together with Yunmen, what about the days after the full moon? As recorded August 26, 2020.

Guided meditation with John Tarrant Roshi reciting Yunmen’s formative Zen koan, which asks the question: “What is your light?” Excerpted from a Sunday Meditation & Talk recorded on September 6, 2020.

Audio excerpt from Guanyin in the Pavilion Under the August Moon. Tess Beasley Sensei and the winged pavilion of summer. The various ways compassion can manifest. Water offers compassion at unfathomable depths and in reflections. As recorded Aug 16 2020.

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.

Summer Sesshin: Into the Blue Dragon’s Cave – Sunday morning talk. Small things, small moments of rest, peace, & awakening, like “thank you.” Appreciating discarded treasures. The very things that imprison us hold the freedom, if we can host them—being at home with them. The storehouse ONLY opens by itself—no prying or forcing. “Returning” in meditation. Leonard Cohen sings How the Light Gets In. As recorded on July 28, 2020.

Summer Sesshin: Into the Blue Dragon’s Cave – audio excerpt from David’s sesshin talk on the Storehouse of Treasures, flipside of the Blue Dragon’s Cave. It can’t be forced open, and the very things I fear most, that imprison me, are actually the treasure. How many times have I missed the door opening on its own? As recorded on June 28, 2020.

Summer Sesshin: Into the Cave of the Blue Dragon – audio excerpt from the Saturday morning session with Allison Atwill Roshi. As recorded June 27th, 2020.

Summer Sesshin: Into the Blue Dragons Cave – audio excerpt. Koans are much more than “tools”—they do YOU! Your very heart-mind is it, so have the intimacy of your life even into death. From the Friday evening talk by John Tarrant. As recorded June 26th, 2020.

Summer Sesshin: Into the Blue Dragon’s Cave Sesshin—the complete Friday afternoon into evening session with John Tarrant Roshi. Music by Ryan McCoy. Cantor Amaryllis Fletcher. As recorded on June 26, 2020.

Audio excerpt: John Tarrant guides a journey into the Blue Dragon’s Cave, a koan meditation as recorded on Sunday July 5th Meditation & Talk. 25 minutes.

Three threads: Anna Swir’ s poem, “There’s a Light in Me.” The light in us is wholly unharmed even in extremes of suffering, a place for the Muses to meet us. ‘Terma’—a Tibetan term— are hidden in physical objects or even concealed in your mind or memory, written in indecipherable Dakini script, to be found by you. Even in written texts or email are little reminders that we are already awake. When we hold light and silence everyone can feel it it changes the field. As recorded June 16th, 2020.

In times of chaos, disturbance, and disintegration—your own experience and distress is the fundamental key to Zen. “What is most urgent for me?” Yunmen throws the questioner back into their own field: “The very you that’s afraid they do not have the answer.” We are born into particular radiance of ‘not two’ and gradually take on separation. If we rest in who we are, we let the universe see us. PZI Zen Online talk as recorded June 2, 2020.

Solitude as resting in vastness: taking the role of host everywhere and abiding nowhere. Loneliness—you may even be in the company of others, but something is missing. Allison revisits childhood’s solitude and the solitude of mountain trails. Abiding “somewhere” keeps us out of vastness.

John takes us further into our lockdown descent with a predicament koan that interrupts our usual ways of navigating, into the Sea of Ise, 10,000 feet down, to a single stone. Session includes John’s talk and koan, meditation segments, closing music, and participating teachers’ comments. As recorded April 5, 2020.

Layman Pang and his daughter Lingzhao fall down for different reasons in this koan. Tess leads the group through a meditation and talk on how the koan entered her life; followed by comments from other meditators on the nature of intimacy. Some silent meditation segments are included. As recorded March 30, 2020.