PZI Teacher Archives

Yunmen

Video November 3, 2023

Fall Sesshin: The Golden Wind – Autumnal Eternity

John Tarrant

The mind is an artist ceaselessly creating narrative with a need to skip out of experience into story. The Daoists encourage us to remain in the dance—not to make a plan is the Way: Remove the barriers to your life and exclude nothing! Your very heart mind is Buddha.

43' 53"
Audio November 2, 2023

Fall Sesshin: The Golden Wind – Autumnal Eternity

John Tarrant

The mind is an artist ceaselessly creating narrative with a need to skip out of experience into story. The Daoists encourage us to remain in the dance—not to make a plan is the Way: Remove the barriers to your life and exclude nothing! Your very heart mind is Buddha.

43' 53"

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Dharma Theme October 30, 2023

Dharma Theme: Stop Suffering!

PZI Teachers

We’re always looking for a recipe or data points to get a handle on happiness. The most profoundly simple but difficult challenge is to let ourselves transform into ourselves. We imagine a different, better self “after awakening.” Every stroke, even the most difficult or painful, is part of the piece. Our journey through suffering transforms everything, including the destination.

36 Words
Video October 25, 2023

Fall Retreat: Closing Night – Lost in the Bath Together

John Tarrant, PZI Cantor & Musicians, PZI HOPs, PZI Teachers

The first phase of practice is being lost—allowing that. You are out of the known territory. It is key to know we don’t control the process. When you are ‘in it,’ don’t try to go beyond it. Enjoy and embrace the lostness. Transformation happens in the vessel. This is why we have a retreat.

40' 51"
Audio October 12, 2023

Zen Arts: Pickles, Poems & Direct Encounter

John Tarrant

Takuan Soho, creator of the renowned golden yellow daikon pickle, was a poet, artist, calligrapher, master of the tea ceremony and Zen priest of Tokai temple—a master of the creative response. The arts of Zen are responses to our meeting whatever circumstances arise—death, war, love, loneliness, natural changes.

40' 0"

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Dharma Theme August 2, 2023

Dharma Theme: Sickness and Medicine

PZI Teachers

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.

55 Words
Video August 1, 2023

Carried by Kindness & Joy

Tess Beasley

The urgency of some questions and facing hidden truths help us discover our own true nature. We reveal ourselves at every turn. When we try to see our own light, we can’t—”it’s dark, dark,” says Yunmen. During sesshin, we sit and trust our own heart-mind to open, inquiring, “Who am I?” and, “How is this so?”

40' 32"
Text July 26, 2023

Carried in the Dark – On Lostness & the Spiral Path of Practice

John Tarrant

I’ve been thinking that everybody needs to start by being lost. And that the Dharma is a spiral path. It will happen again, and then again, and then again. So, when you are lost, instead of thinking, “This is an abnormal, wrong situation,” that’s what koans give us—they say, “Oh, well, I’m lost, fortunately. I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

4196 Words
Audio July 24, 2023

Refuge Changes You

John Tarrant, Tess Beasley

Refuge is a path that opens a way toward life and awakening. Life is paradoxical, and with refuge a new responsiveness emerges, which introduces more freedom into any given situation—it prompts a response that accords with all things. John and Tess discuss the nature of refuge, origin of rakusus, Zen names and more.

48' 12"
Text June 28, 2023

Falling Into the Well of Sesshin

John Tarrant

The nice thing about falling is it’s already happened, you know? It started already; there’s not much you can do about it. So you’re kind of free, in a way. It’s sort of like being condemned: Knowing you’ll die tomorrow—well, you can do anything you want tonight.

4081 Words
Video April 1, 2023
22' 33"
Video April 1, 2023

Sickness & Medicine – Deep Listening

John Tarrant

It’s all medicine, really. Everything has Buddha nature, beauty and value. Healing is the big point of view. So the point is not to panic when the big moments come. If you can move out of your own point of view it becomes clearer. Complete Sunday Zen session from March 5, 2023.

71' 45"
Text March 26, 2023

Falling with the Koan NO

John Tarrant

John Tarrant gives a talk on Zhaozhou’s NO: This koan is often offered as a first “gate,” but I think you need to already be in trouble and falling before it’s useful. Life is always offering us that cliff—that door of falling. When you’re falling, you can’t screw it up because actually there’s not a lot you can do. But what you do will be very free and won’t be constrained by the usual. From a recording made in Fall Sesshin 2022.

5207 Words
Video March 23, 2023

Sickness & Medicine: Healing Is Like Kissing – A Poem

John Tarrant

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.

3' 0"
Audio March 23, 2023

Sickness & Medicine – Deep Listening

John Tarrant

It’s all medicine, really. Everything has Buddha nature, beauty and value. Healing is the big point of view. So the point is not to panic when the big moments come. If you can move out of your own point of view it becomes clearer. Complete Sunday Zen session with John Tarrant & Friends, recorded March 5, 2023. Includes comments from PZI teachers and music from Michael Wilding.

71' 45"
Audio February 27, 2023
44' 17"
Audio February 24, 2023

What Is This? An Ancient Question

John Tarrant

What is this? is an ancient question—it holds our whole lives. That wondering is the essence of what it is to be human. If you allow wonder into a hard time, it will change it. The attempt to discover something is where the question or problem will change.

69' 3"
Audio February 22, 2023
50' 7"
Audio February 22, 2023

Carried by What Is True

John Tarrant

When we meet, as in sesshin, we create and participate in a field of knowledge. There is a necessity of being lost on the path. Yunmen wants your descent—the better to allow the whole of life in. He asks, What is your light? He trusts the field to help people find their own way. Complete talk from Winter Sesshin 2023.

43' 46"
Audio February 21, 2023

We Are Carried in the Dark – On Lostness & the Spiral Path of Practice

John Tarrant

The Dharma is a spiral path of lostness. What will happen next? It’s dark. We’re here no matter what. When you think okay, I’m lost, what’s next? Trusting in the dark is the Way—it is not our business how we awaken.

36' 15"
Video February 14, 2023

The Project of Suffering vs The Reaching

Allison Atwill

What if, suddenly, it’s midnight? The usual navigational tools are not available. The reaching is the important component of this moment. Understanding the suffering we fabricate, which separates us, versus a fitting suffering which opens our hearts in connection. Complete talk from Winter Sesshin 2023.

55' 0"
Audio February 14, 2023

The Project of Suffering vs The Reaching

Allison Atwill

What if, suddenly, it’s midnight? The usual navigational tools are not available. The reaching is the important component of this moment. Understanding the suffering we fabricate, which separates us, versus a fitting suffering which opens our hearts in connection. Complete talk from Winter Sesshin 2023.

55' 0"
Video January 25, 2023

A Koan Story – East Mountain Walks on Water

John Tarrant

John Tarrant tells a long koan story of awakening: The East Mountain Walks on Water. Recorded during Sunday Zen on December 18, 2022: The Transformations in Things. 36 minutes.

36' 2"
Video January 25, 2023
79' 0"
Audio December 19, 2022

The Transformations in Things

John Tarrant

In the darkest days of the year, we tend toward year’s end assessments as a kind of emptying of heart and mind before the new year. John Tarrant tells a shaggy-dog transformation tale beginning with the koan, “Where do all the Buddhas come from? East Mountain walks on water.” There is a strange journey, a fox, carp, tiger, dragon’s cave, and a meeting with the Buddha. When we are free in the current matter, it is easier to love others, and our hearts flow out and touch each other.

36' 4"
Audio October 24, 2022

Fall Sesshin 2022: Falling Into the Well of Sesshin

John Tarrant

Falling into the well of sesshin involves dissolving the you that had the problem. In Zen we are solving things one level down. We all have this ability, though it can be hard to see. John retells Jiashan’s strange journey toward awakening: He was falling and found purchase with an unexpected teacher, the mysterious Boat Monk. Comments and “teach us!” responses from teachers and sangha are included. Complete session from October 5, 2022.

41' 20"
Text September 20, 2022

The Lion with the Golden Hair

John Tarrant

The tip of each hair on the golden-haired lion is itself a whole world, an image of all the galaxies, all piled together. This lion is warm-hearted, delighted with everything, having a generally good time no matter what kind of time we’re having.

5876 Words
Text September 8, 2022

The Great Collaborators of the Blue Cliff Record

John Tarrant

Deep in Summer Sesshin, we are in the middle of the Blue Cliff Record. We, ourselves, are under the Blue Cliff, with Yunmen and Yunmen’s friends. We are all those people. The Blue Cliff is still being written, and we’re helping out with that project.

4662 Words
Video July 12, 2022

Talking to a Rock

Tess Beasley

Rocks come to everyone’s aid at a gathering, bringing enchantment and connection. From a talk in Summer Sesshin, June 15, 2022. 5 minutes.

5' 6"
Video July 11, 2022

Enter Here! Just Turn to the Koan

John Tarrant

Just enter here—there’s no guilty or innocent. Turn to the koan, there is your refuge and simplicity, the deepest teaching. Recorded at Summer Sesshin on June 14th, 2022. 4 minutes.

4' 33"

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