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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 in a dharma talk in Summer Sesshin.

I’m a buffalo. Why won’t my beautiful tail pass through the window? Part One of John Tarrant’s dharma talk recorded in 2023 Summer Sesshin on June 16th.

It’s all medicine, really. Everything has Buddha nature, beauty and value. Healing is the big point of view. John Tarrant reads his poem, Healing Is Like Kissing, written for the dedication of an integrative medicine center. From Sunday Zen on March 5, 2023.

When even your own being can feel like the wrong container, Tess Beasley talks about the other side of finding home, where nowhere is home: the great silence that is before all divisions and differentiation. 15-minute excerpt from January Sunday Zen, Part 4.

The body of form changes, but what is everlasting? Q: “What endures?” A: “Mountain flowers bloom like brocade. The valley streams run deepest indigo.” We are on a journey with no fixed destination, and the moment we’ve been looking for is here. What carries us, if not the world around us? With solo flute improv from Micheal Wilding.

Jordan McConnell on guitar, as recorded during Sunday Zen with John Tarrant on December 18th, 2022. 5 Minutes.

Entering into great silence. What is appearing, in this new year? A guided meditation with Tess Beasley from the first Sunday Zen session of the new year. Recorded January 8, 2023. 5 minutes.

What are the properties of great silence? It cannot be tarnished or eroded, it can’t be given or taken away, but it can of course be obscured. The whole universe is holding it for you; we hold it for each other and for ourselves. Zen cliches are showing up, with the truth! January Sunday Zen on January 15, 2023. 6 minutes.

If awakening could come from anywhere, how would that change things for you? Wherever you are, even in the places you are certain the silence is NOT, it is there, enfolding you. Even at Walmart with a toddler, in a flood, or at the doctor’s office—it is there, blooming. From a January Sunday Zen session on January 15, 2023. 10 minutes.

Poet, teacher and essayist Naomi Shihab Nye, recorded in conversation with Jon Joseph Roshi in June of 2022.

After a relative dies, the ancestral wrongs and difficulty can disappear as we change towards a more expansive view. Dreams tell us not to ignore the great forces of life, even in our turbulent times. Our koan school relates to the shadowy dark materials—including instead of excluding, without being taken over by them. October 30, 2022

Amanda Boughton sings a Croatian song of connection to the land and flocks of sheep tended there. Recorded during the Ancestral Stories Retreat, October 30, 2022. 4 minutes.

We can accumulate things in life that become symbolic after we die. The real inheritance is in our hands and hearts, and is reliable no matter what the surface relationship may have been. When we are challenged, the ancestors show up. Meeting the Lord of Death is one of those challenges, and is part of meeting life. Excerpt from the Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022.

Ancient and indigenous cultures have different models for healing and dreaming, with different points of view often galactic or mythic. Including and opening to vastness when facing any problem allows for a wider range of solutions, and access to the hidden treasures that we have no idea are there for us. Excerpt from the Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022.

John Tarrant reads his new autumn poem about meeting the vastness of autumn, and meeting his father, the Lord of Death. From the Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022. 3 minutes.

What is my piece in this patchwork inheritance? We are complicated—we don’t always know what qualities and histories inhabit us. We come into these lineages in mystery…maybe the lineages find us. Our koan lineage is one of moments of awakening, passed down. Excerpt from Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022. 19 minutes.

After people die, our point of view about them can shift—it often becomes more vast. Problems with those who’ve gone before can dissolve. In our PZI School, this is why the shadowy dark material is important: when included, it helps it to dissipate so the taste of old wrongs can actually disappear. Excerpted from Ancestral Stories Retreat on October 30, 2022. 7 minutes.

Excerpt from the 3rd of John Tarrant’s Sunday series on predicament koans. John talks about the Great Kalpa Fire. (Kalpa is a great age, eon, or universe.) Recording from the beginning of Sunday Zen on September 18, 2022. 10 minutes.

A guided koan meditation from John Tarrant. Allowing the koans to have you when you work with them is the same as opening to your life. There are no steps to the Way. You are already free, and there will be unexpected help on difficult paths. August 7, 2022. 10 minutes.

Shitou says the dark and bright are both part of the deep work. When times are tough, trusting your koan and the deep current carrying us all, is the way forward. Mazu tells us we came here to make a way out of no way—koans help. Trust in this valuable process. From a talk given at Summer Sesshin in June 2022. 5 minutes.

From a talk given by Tess Beasley in Summer Sesshin on June 15, 2022. 3 minutes.

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.

Have confidence in the light that’s always working inside you: don’t pretend it’s not there. And when you don’t feel good, that’s the back foot walking. It’s not heartless—it’s the great matter. From an evening talk given in Summer Sesshin on June 17, 2022. 4 minutes.

John answers a question at Summer Sesshin about the Sutra, and the Bodhisattva Guanyin’s importance in Zen. 3 minutes.

From a talk in Summer Sesshin on refuge and vows, given by Tess Beasley. Recorded June 15, 2022.

It is mysterious how we can avoid the Way, even when we most want to enter it. It’s good to know we have a vessel that carries us. We can listen to everything that arises. From Not Picking & Choosing Part 1, a PZI Sunday Talk from June 26, 2022. 7 minutes.

John Tarrant reads Chan poet Su Dongpo (Tung-po) and comments on his journey through bright and dark. From a talk given in Summer Sesshin on June 17, 2022. 4 minutes.

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.

David tells the story of Jiashan’s awakening after being sent by Daowu to find the Boat Monk. From a talk given in Summer Sesshin, June 16, 2022.