PZI Teacher Archives

unexpected gifts

Video October 7, 2024

Surprise Unmakes the World

John Tarrant

Surprise unmakes the world. Perhaps it’s better to say it unmakes us. How large the world gets when we are surprised. When we pay attention, every single moment is a surprise. The world steps forward, shimmering.

35' 59"
Audio October 4, 2024

Surprise Unmakes the World

John Tarrant

When we are not expecting something, people to be nice to each other at Xmas, for example, what actually happens can be wonderful. When we are not looking, that’s when our lives change.

36' 0"
Video May 3, 2023

Watching the Tracks of the Flying Birds

John Tarrant

John remarks on being freed from the hospital after a brush with Covid and more, and feeling our ties to the birds, symbolizing freedom through their ability to take off at will. Also: The legend of the painter who disappeared on the back of a painted crane, and the Zhuangzi’s fish named Kuhn who becomes a bird. Recorded April 23, 2023

73' 5"
Audio April 28, 2023

Watching the Tracks of the Flying Birds

John Tarrant

John remarks on being freed from the hospital after a brush with Covid and more, and feeling our ties to the birds, symbolizing freedom through their ability to take off at will. Also: The legend of the painter who disappeared on the back of a painted crane, and the Zhuangzi’s fish named Kuhn who becomes a bird. Recorded April 23, 2023

73' 6"
Video February 17, 2023

In Front of the Dead Tree Cliff, Flowers Are Always Blooming

John Tarrant

Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange. What is it to receive one? What comes with that? Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming. Includes the story of an olive tree delivery, Denise Levertov’s poem The Gift, and music from PZI musicians. Complete Sunday Zen session.

61' 40"
Audio February 17, 2023

In Front of the Dead Tree Cliff, Flowers Are Always Blooming

John Tarrant

Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange. What is it to receive one? What comes with that? Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming. Includes the story of an olive tree delivery, Denise Levertov’s poem The Gift, and music from PZI musicians. Complete Sunday Zen session.

61' 42"
Audio February 15, 2023

Something Is Always Blooming

John Tarrant

Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming—the joys and pains of life, of forgetting and remembering. Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange, and life is a gift. Just accept it, like the flowers at the foot of the cliff. Complete Sunday Zen session.

61' 42"
Video February 15, 2023

Something Is Always Blooming

John Tarrant

Something is always vast and still, something is always blooming—the joys and pains of life, of forgetting and remembering. Gifts are outside of usual commerce and exchange, and life is a gift. Just accept it, like the flowers at the foot of the cliff. 17-minute excerpt from Sunday Zen on February 12, 2023.

17' 22"
Video July 13, 2022

Dreaming & Meeting What Appears

Tess Beasley

Tess talks about the unexpected coming to your aid. From a talk in Summer Sesshin on June 15, 2022. 1 minute.

1' 15"
Text October 12, 2021

Unexpected Gifts: 10,000 Feet Down, The Stone

John Tarrant

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.

7566 Words