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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231120T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231120T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20231113T201611Z
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SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Crazy Joy with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nBest-selling science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson has his whole adult life trekked the Sierra Nevada in California. He has taken well over one hundred trips into those mountains and he writes in The High Sierra\, A Love Story: \nAt the start of a trip\, I sometimes laugh out loud. That feeling is one of the things I want to write about … crazy love. Some kind of joy. \nWhat is it to feel the gift of joy? Where does it come from? Dare we share in another’s joy? \nThe great master Yuanwu\, who provided commentary for a collection of koans called The Blue Cliff Record\, was living at Wuzu’s temple when he had a sudden understanding of the light that shines in all things. Full of gratitude to his teacher\, Yuanwu took a stick of incense to Wuzu and gave him the following poem: \nThe golden duck vanishes into the golden brocade\,\nWith a country song the drunk comes home from the woods\,\nOnly the young beauty knows about her love affair. \nWuzu responded\, “I share your joy.” \nI think we feel the deepest joy when we cross over unknown and unknowable frontiers\, when we meet the inconceivable. \nFor some years\, I saw sesshin retreats as a kind of struggle. It was a grim battle to beat down my ego and realize my Buddha nature. I remember one time\, as I was headed off to a retreat\, my young daughter said to me gayly\, “Daddy\, have a good time!” I snorted to myself\, “Honey\, you don’t understand\, I am headed into war.” But things have since changed. \nOne time during sesshin I was in the dokusan line\, watching the wavering light of a candle on the altar. The dokusan schedule was running late\, and folks in the zendo set off for dinner. I could hear people standing in line\, taking up plates and beginning to serve themselves. I realized that it was me—my most intimate self—that they were eating. Tears welled up in my eyes. It was a joyful sharing. \nThis week in our PZI Open Temple\, we heard this verse by Polish poet Anna Swir: \nPriceless Gifts \n(translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan) \nAn empty day without events.\nAnd that is why\nit grew immense\nas space. And suddenly\nhappiness of being\nentered me.\nI heard\nin my heartbeat\nthe birth of time\nand each instant of life\none after the other\ncame rushing in\nlike priceless gifts. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-28-4/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/crazyJoyCALENDAR.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231115T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231115T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230810T223153Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231130T221559Z
UID:10001464-1700071200-1700076600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Jon Joseph in Conversation with Author Kim Stanley Robinson
DESCRIPTION:A PZI Zen Online Event hosted by Jon Joseph Roshi\nNovember 15th\, 2023\nWednesday Evening\, 6–7:30 pm PST\nOur mind is nothing other than mountains\, rivers\, and the great earth\, the sun\, the moon and the stars. \n—Eihei Dogen\, Shobogenzo \nWith the release of The Ministry for the Future\, best-selling author Kim Stanley Robinson has become the most closely followed voice in science and climate fiction today. Called by The New York Times\, “the last great utopian\,” Stan’s vision of the future is fearsome yet ultimately optimistic in its belief that the human race will learn to cooperatively address its growing existential challenges. \nThough not formally religious\, Stan’s spiritual guiding light for decades has been Zen Buddhism\, and Buddhist themes of consciousness\, non-duality and attention illuminate his writing and life. The work of deep-ecology poet Gary Snyder inspired him to become a writer\, and he was later heavily influenced by mystical leanings of Ursula K. LeGuin and Philip K. Dick. \n“What has persisted out of my interest in Zen\,” Stan says\, “is its devotion to treating the world as sacred in daily life.” He adds\, “Chop wood\, carry water” could just as easily be “run five miles\, write five pages.” Gardening\, washing dishes\, looking after little children\, “this puts a spark into things\, a glow around them.” \n—Jon Joseph \n\nAnd because we are alive\, the universe must be said to be alive. We are its consciousness as well as our own. We rise out of the cosmos and we see its mesh of patterns\, and it strikes us as beautiful. And that feeling is the most important thing in all the universe—its culmination\, like the color of the flower at first bloom on a wet morning. \n―Kim Stanley Robinson\, from his book\, Green Mars \n\nOfficial Short Bio \nKim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of more than twenty books\, including the international bestselling Mars trilogy\, and more recently\, New York 2140\, Aurora\, Shaman\, Green Earth\, and 2312\, a NYT bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards. \nRobinson works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute\, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop\, and UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. His writing has been translated into twenty-five languages and has won a dozen awards\, including the Hugo\, Nebula\, Locus\, and World Fantasy awards. In 2008\, he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine. \nHis novel\, The Ministry for the Future\, was selected as one of Barack Obama’s “Favorite Books of 2020” and one of Bill Gates’ “Five Great Books for the Summer” in 2022. His most recent book\, The High Sierra: A Love Story\, is a non-fiction exploration of Robinson’s years spent hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains\, one of the most compelling places on Earth. \n\nJon Joseph (rt)\, Kim Stanley Robinson\n  \nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Kim Stanley Robinson. All are welcome. Register to participate. \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-author-kim-stanley-robinson/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/highSierra-CALENDAR.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231113T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231113T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20231108T164447Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231108T181350Z
UID:10001587-1699898400-1699903800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: Monday Zen with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:NO MONDAY ZEN TODAY \nJon Joseph is hosting a Zen Luminaries event on Wednesday\, November 15th\, with Special Guest Kim Stanley Robinson.\n \nYou may register here for Zen Luminaries. \nHope to see you soon! \n(Jon will be back November 20th for his regular Monday Zen meeting.) \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \n  \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-28-3/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231106T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231106T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20231031T230156Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231111T001811Z
UID:10001586-1699293600-1699299000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Living by Starlight with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Join us this Monday as we discuss Stan’s work in advance of his visit in our Pacific Zen Luminaries Series on Wednesday\, November 15\, 2023. \n(You may register here for his Luminaries visit on November 15th.) \nWith the release of The Ministry for the Future (2020)\, best-selling author Kim Stanley Robinson has become the most closely followed voice in science and climate fiction today. Called by The New York Times “the last great utopian\,” Stan’s vision of the future is fearsome yet ultimately optimistic in its belief that the human race will learn how to come together to address our growing existential challenges. \nThough not formally religious\, for decades Stan’s spiritual guiding light has been Zen Buddhism. “What has persisted out of my interest in Zen\,” Stan says\, “is it’s devotion to treating the world as sacred in daily life. ‘Chop wood\, carry water’ could just as easily be ‘run five miles\, write five pages.’ This puts a spark into things\, a glow around them.” \nThe work of deep-ecology poet Gary Snyder inspired him to become a writer\, and he was later heavily influenced by mystical leanings of Ursula LeGuin and Philip K. Dick. The themes of consciousness\, non-duality\, and attention illuminate his writing and life. Stan’s devotion to Gaia\, Mother Earth\, has allowed his mind and imagination to explore the far reaches of space and time. \n—Jon Joseph \nPublished in The High Sierra; A Love Story (2022): \nNight Poem\, Kim Stanley Robinson (1988) \nWriting by starlight\nCan’t see the words\nFill a page\nNothing there\nWaterfall distant sound\nTree against stars Milky Way\nJuniper Jupiter white rock\nWind dying my heart\nAt peace a Friday night\nBig Dipper sits on the mountain\nFriends lie in their tents\nI sit against rock\nStar bowl spinning overhead\nFeel the movement\nAnd soar away \nWho knows how many stars there are\nAll those dim ones filling the black\nUntil it seems no black is there\nAnd then you see the Milky Way\nThe sky should be pure white with stars\nThat’s black dust up there\nBlocking the view\nCarbon and hydrogen\nAll of us flung together\nIn just this way\nA blank white page\nI write and then\nA blank white page\nStory of my life! \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. All are welcome. Register to participate. \nJon Joseph Roshi\,\nDirector of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-28-2/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/livingByStarlight-CALENDAR.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231030T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231030T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230131T181216Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240916T181604Z
UID:10001080-1698688800-1698694200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: The Half-Known Life – Jon Joseph in Conversation with Essayist & Novelist Pico Iyer
DESCRIPTION:Pico joins us on for a wide-ranging discussion of creativity\, meditation\, Leonard Cohen and the Dalai Lama.   \nWe lead our lives in the outer world\, we understand them through the inner. So here are a set of journeys through inner and outer and the places in between . . . \nFrom his writing: \n“Creativity comes from a place I can’t name\, let alone control or anticipate. It is unanswerable; a vast darkness you can’t penetrate. I was talking to a friend in Santa Barbara a couple of years ago and said\, ‘My writing comes from out of the blue.’ He asked\, ‘What is the blue?’ \n“What I’ve learned in transitioning from journalistic writing is to never to use my notes at all. When my house burned down in 1990\, I lost everything in the world because I write everything by hand. I lost my next three books; eight years of writing. My editor commiserated\, and then said\, ‘You know Pico\, losing your notes was probably the best thing that could happen to you as a writer because now you’re going to have to write from memory\, imagination and heart.’ \n“I’ve never formally meditated in my life … but for me\, that’s what writing is. And what comes out of my writing is really immaterial. The process of sitting eight hours a day in absolute quiet without anything there is the best way for me to find clarity and freedom from clutter in my life. It’s baby steps toward mindfulness. \n“My most important entry point into Zen\, as a neutral observer\, was through spending 20 years in close friendship with Leonard Cohen. It was very moving to see the effects of Zen practice on somebody who\, metaphorically\, had all the riches in the world\, yet was prepared to give them up because he felt Zen practice a richer\, deeper adventure than anything he’d ever done. Leonard was without\, doubt\, the kindest\, deepest\, wisest person I’ve ever met. Except for the Dalai Lama\, who is a special case. \n“I have been with His Holiness for nearly a half century\, and accompanied him on ten trips through Japan\, the only Mahayana country to welcome him. He comes here to Japan\, and has deep faith in the Japanese to help carry on the Vajrayana tradition\, yet it is such a radically different tradition. \n“Spending time in the Benedictine monastery in Santa Barbara—over a hundred retreats in the last thirty-two years—has been a center of my life for a very long time\, even though I will never be a Catholic. That is my next book.” \n—Pico Iyer \n\n\nPico Iyer was born in Oxford\, England in 1957. In 1980\, he became a Teaching Fellow at Harvard\, where he received a second Master’s degree\, and in subsequent years received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters. Since 1982\, he has been a full-time writer\, publishing fifteen books translated into twenty-three languages\, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism\, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. \nHis books include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu\, The Lady and the Monk\, The Global Soul\, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. He has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time\, The New York Times\, Harper’s Magazine\, the Los Angeles Times\, and more than 250 periodicals worldwide. His four recent talks for TED have received more than eleven million views. \nSince 1992\, Iyer has spent much of his time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur\, California\, and most of the rest in suburban Japan. \n\nSource: www.picoiyerjourneys.com \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Pico Iyer. All are welcome. Register to participate. \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-essayist-novelist-pico-iyer/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/picoJonJ_500x375-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231023T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231023T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20231005T214934Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231005T220148Z
UID:10001580-1698084000-1698089400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: Monday Zen with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:NO MONDAY ZEN TODAY \nJon Joseph is in sesshin this week. He returns to Monday Zen on November 6th. \nALSO\, join Jon Joseph on Monday\, October 30th for a Luminaries Series event with special guest Pico Iyer. \nHope to see you then! \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/on-break-monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-5/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231016T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231016T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20231011T164357Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231013T214610Z
UID:10001542-1697479200-1697484600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Best Sauce: Mayo or Shoyu? with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nMazu’s former teacher dispatched a monk to Mazu’s place\, instructing him\, “Wait until he enters the hall to speak\, and then ask him\, ‘What’s going on?’ Take note of his answer and then bring it back and tell it to me.” The monk carried out the teacher’s instructions\, returned and said\, “Master Ma said\, ‘In the thirty years since the barbarian uprising\, I’ve never lacked for salt or mayonnaise.’” The teacher approved the answer. \n—adapted from Andy Ferguson\, Zen’s Chinese Heritage (Compendium of the Five Lamps) \nWe have been sitting with this koan all week in the morning Open Temple\, and I must admit\, it is too delicious to pass up without comment. \nWhen most people read Mazu’s response of “I’ve never lacked for salt or sauce\,” they reasonably think he was speaking of soy sauce\, or something like it. They would be right: the character used in the Chinese text 醤 (sho in Japanese) is the root for shoyu\, soy sauce. But for me\, another beloved condiment was the first that came to mind\, the best sauce of all: mayonnaise. \nOutside of Mazu\, the spread of mayonnaise into Chan-Zen literature seems\, well\, kind of thin. There is a Zen Mayo Facebook page\, but it only has a couple of strange manga illustrations and a single friend. I recalled reading a reference that Richard Baker Roshi\, a founding teacher at San Francisco Zen Center\, once made mayo as a Zen practice in a teisho\, and upon searching\, found a 1976 talk by him on the Sixth Ancestor Huineng’s poetry contest. The head monk at the temple wrote that we need to constantly polish the mirror-mind\, while Huineng answered there was no need to polish because there is no mirror for dust alight upon. Baker compared mayonnaise separating into its elements to what happens in our lives if we stop polishing our personal mirror with meditation practice. \nIt is obvious that if you do not polish your mirror\, if you stop washing your face and picking up after yourself\, things get very bad quickly. Our state of mind and life can deteriorate rapidly. The mayonnaise-like suspension of our life and culture can degenerate rapidly back into yolk and oil when personal or cultural credibility is gone. We feel the power of the outside world\, the power of the illusion-of the mayonnaise-and the necessity and need to take care of and maintain things at least minimally. But the concept of a mirror is not adequate for these subtleties. The mirror still poses an “outside” and a “who” that wipes it. \nFair enough\, keep sitting and polishing. Chan-Zen itself means “meditation\,”and the practice helps us create a solid vessel in which to place our lives. That is why I find sitting in the Open Temple every morning so valuable. But Mazu was famous for taking the practice off the cushion and into ordinary life. When asked “What is Buddha?” Mazu responded\, “This very heart-mind is the Buddha.” Awakening is not an experience outside of our lives; it is deeply our own. I think that is what Baker was alluding to in his last sentence. \nThere is something wonderful and intimate about feeling in our lives that we are not lacking. Not lacking salt\, soy sauce\, mayonnaise\, grocery stores\, Studebaker station wagons\, mothers\, brothers and sisters. A couple of days ago\, I sliced up the last large Brandywine tomato of the season\, toasted a piece of whole wheat bread\, spread Mazu’s best sauce on it\, and then dusted the sliced tomato with gomasio. As I tucked into the tomato half-sandwich\, not one thing was lacking. It had been thus for thirty\, and more\, years. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. All are welcome. Register to participate. \nJon Joseph Roshi\,\nDirector of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-27-4/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/mayo-shoyuCALENDAR.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231009T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231009T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20231003T041304Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231007T022436Z
UID:10001541-1696874400-1696879800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: This Elk Is for You – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nOne day\, when Dongshan and a monk were washing their bowls\, they saw two crows fighting over a frog.\nThe monk asked\, “Why does it always have to be like that?”\nDongshan replied\, “It’s only for your benefit\, honored one.” \n—Record of Dongshan \nJordan and I were talking the other day\, and he asked\, “Did I ever tell you the story of my friend in British Columbia?” \nJordan’s Story \nScotty is an elk-hunting guide who built a cabin on the shore of Kootenay Lake below the eight-thousand-foot Kootenay Mountain in the northern Rockies. “He’s living as part of the mountain\,” said Jordan of his hunter friend. \nOne day\, an elk came off the mountain into his yard. It suffered from “winter sickness\,” a condition brought on by near-starvation during the long and harsh Canadian winter. Scotty left out food and water\, but the elk soon died. When he went over to look at it\, the dead elk was covered in a thick blanket of ticks. Scotty had never seen anything like it. \nHis deep sorrow for the elk opened Scotty’s heart. “It was like a gate opening wide\,” said Jordan. “I was working on the crows-and-frog koan at the time\, and thought I’d tell him about it but then realized he’d already gotten it.” Somehow\, Scotty knew the elk had come for him and he buried it by himself. \nThat night\, Scotty’s brother called from jail and they started to argue and fall into their old ways. But something had changed for Scotty after he’d buried the elk\, and he turned the conversation around. When they finished talking\, for the first time in his life\, Scotty’s brother said that he loved him. That very night\, the brother died in his sleep of a brain aneurism. \nJordan went on\, “Earlier this year\, my own brother\, Steve\, was diagnosed with a serious cancer. In his late thirties\, Steve had built a good business as a master tattoo artist\, and just last fall celebrated the birth of a baby girl. Right after his diagnosis\, he began twelve weeks of punishing chemotherapy. He lost all the hedge-like hair on his head and his big thick beard. He could no longer work and was going in and out of a deep depression.” \n“Steve and I are close\,” Jordan said\, “but we weren’t great communicators growing up. The language of emotion was just not part of our vocabulary.” A couple of months ago\, they were in a texting exchange over something. “I thought the exchange was over. And then Steve tacked something on the end: ‘I love you.’ It was the first time he had ever told me that.” \n“When I think about my brother’s cancer\, I say to myself\, ‘Why does it have to be like this?’ I can feel it with my whole body. And then I step into it; my brother tells me he loves me\, and I tell him I love him. That is the storehouse of treasures —maybe there is just a frog inside\, but it’s already wide open.” \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-27-3/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ElkInYardCALENDAR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231002T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231002T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230926T155502Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231002T181358Z
UID:10001540-1696269600-1696275000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Treasures of Sesshin – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nThe storehouse of treasures opens of itself.\nYou may take them and use them any way you wish. \n—Dogen’s Extensive Record\, Fukanzazengi \nIn our recent three-day PZI sesshin\, we rapidly entered deep waters; koans speaking with other koans.  \nSixteen bodhisattvas enter the bath. \nWe are searching\, searching for the coin lost in the river. \nWe come and go by daylight\, but suddenly it’s midnight and there’s no sun\, no moon\, no lamp. \nHow will we get hold of something?  \nSome notes follow: \n—We are fortunate. Fortunate. Fortunate to breathe this air. Fortunate for this day. This is your day. \n—Just as you enter the bath\, the bath enters you. Where I live\, we have had plenty of rain lately\, and the frogs are out\, singing. The  clouds cleared for a time\, the full moon rose\, and the coyotes yipped. The frogs are drinking in the coyotes\, who are drinking in the moon\, and the moon is drinking in the sun. \n—One description of awakening is water poured onto water. What was your way of entering the bath with the sixteen bodhisattvas? \n—The coin lost in the river—what are we seeking in the coin? Practice is about making ourselves findable. If we stay around in the river long enough\, we may be surprised. We may find something we had that was never lost. \nAnd did you find what you wanted from this life\,\neven so?\nI did.\nAnd what did you find?\nThat I could call myself beloved\,\nand find myself beloved on this earth. \n—Raymond Carter\, Late Fragment (amended) \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-27-2/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/belovedBuddhaTouchesEarhtCALENDAR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230925T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230925T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230912T175557Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230927T183816Z
UID:10001530-1695664800-1695670200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: The Greatest Wa – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Zhaozhou taught\, “The greatest way is not difficult if you don’t pick and choose. As soon as I speak\, you’ll think\, ‘That’s picking and choosing\,’ or ‘That’s clear.’ But I don’t identify with clarity. Can you live this way?”\nA student asked\, “If you don’t identify with clarity\, what do you live by?”\n“Again\, I don’t know.”\n“If you don’t know\, why do you say that you don’t identify with clarity?”\n“When you ask the question you already have it. Make your bow and step back.” \n—The Blue Cliff Record Case 2 \nLast week we investigated the Daoist notion of Ma 間: sunlight streaming through a gate\, “the space between.” Lately\, I have been thinking about Wa 和\, or “harmony.” In the practice of Zen\, realizing Ma—“space”—brings a measure of Wa: “harmony.” So how do we get from Ma to Wa? \nWa has a broad cultural meaning in Japanese society. The left element on the ideogram\, ine: 禾\,  means rice plant. The character on the right is kuchi: 口—mouth. As a verb\, the ideogram is read  和む\, nagomu\, meaning “to soften.” So\, it is not hard to see why rice + mouth represents a softening into harmony\, peace\, and unity. \nThe Wa character also stands for Japan. The story goes that in the 8th century\, as trade picked up with China\, the Japanese got tired of the Chinese calling them a certain Wa  倭\, which means “submissive\, distant\, dwarf.” So they changed the character to another Wa 和: harmony. “Great Harmony\,” daiwa or yamato\, is one of the ancient words that Japan calls itself. \nThe Japanese see promoting social harmony\, Wa\, as fundamental to the nation’s stability: crime is low\, lifetimes long\, and the gap between rich and poor is relatively narrow. But there is a dark side to seeking that Wa: severe bullying in schools\, high youth suicide rates\, difficulties with integrating outsiders. The greatest harmony\, in society and in our lives\, comes from not excluding the shadow. \nMany years ago\, when I was getting my start as a freelance reporter in Japan\, I was invited to be an extra in a Tora-san (“Mr. Tiger”) movie\, in a series called Otoko wa Tsurai Yo (It is Hard Being a Man)\, directed by Yoji Yamada. For two decades it was the most popular movie series in Japan; Yamada shot fifty episodes. I was in episode thirty\, and my (uncredited) claim to fame was bumping into the child star in a restaurant and saying “Excuse me\,” in English. So yes\, IMDb\, if you’re checking\, I spoke lines. \nOn the face of it\, Tora-san was anything but Wa: he is a bumbling traveling salesman who meets the female star of the day\, and just as they are to consummate their relationship\, he packs his one small suitcase and skips town. Tora-san was a ne’er do well in a society striving for perfection. By embracing Tora-san\, ordinary Japanese were finding a greater harmony by laughing\, for a moment\, at the darker side of social Wa.  \nIn our own lives\, inclusion of all the bits is the greatest way\, the greatest Wa. For me\, that’s what Zhaozhou is pointing at. The greatest Wa is not difficult at all\, if we just don’t pick and choose. We need not dwell in some notion of clarity\, purity\, or even harmony. Perhaps just asking the question is enough. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-25-3/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/greatestWA-CALENDAR500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230918T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230918T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230912T183815Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230922T184340Z
UID:10001529-1695060000-1695065400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: The Space Between – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Someone asked Hongzhi\, “What about the ones who’ve gone?”\nHongzhi said\, “White clouds rise to the top of the valleys\, blue peaks lean into the empty sky.” \n—Hongzhi Zhenjue\, PZI Miscellaneous Koans \nSometimes\, when speaking about Chan-Zen\, I feel that talking in double negatives is more expressive than a declarative statement: “Not two” rather than “one”; “not wrong” rather than “right”; “not one thing” instead of “all things.” Maybe a double negative has a softer edge against the universe. Yet even a softer double-negative does not quite touch the space that is between. \nThere is a word for “space between” in Japanese—Ma 間. This kanji character suggests sunlight 日 shining through a gateway 門. But Ma is different from ideograms most often associated with shunyata\, or emptiness\, like Ku 空: the vast openness of the sky\, and one of its common usages is\, indeed\, “sky.” The less commonly used character Ko 虚 connotes a void\, or lack of anything at all.  \nMa\, improperly labeled “negative space” by some writers\, is defined by what comes before and what comes after. It is not negative at all—it creates the before and after.  The violinist Isaac Stern once said\,  \nMusic is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note and another; how you get from one to the other—that’s where the music is. \nThat is Ma. \nDavid Hinton\, in his book Existence: A Story\, investigates that space between\, in both Chinese landscape painting and poetry. He calls it “Absence.” \nMountains are where Presence burgeons from Absence in its most majestic forms\, a cosmology rendered in countless landscape paintings\, where Absence appears as vast empty spaces from which Presence emerges in the form of landscape. \nI have a friend whose younger brother is going through a series of tough chemotherapy treatments\, and they both are searching for that space between. “I really want to get a solid grip on things to make them better\,” my friend said\, squeezing his hands together. “But somehow that’s like trying to steal my brother’s life from him.” Struggling to express his feeling in words\, he says\, “I can’t make things better\, and trying to do it anyway is not helpful.” What he finds helpful is to “not make his illness wrong\,” he says. “That’s where the freedom is.” \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\nJoin us for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nAll are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph \n  \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-25-4/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/spaceBetweenCALENDAR.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230911T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230911T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230328T174245Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230908T193400Z
UID:10001225-1694455200-1694460600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Jon Joseph in Conversation with Poet & Author Ocean Vuong
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA PZI Zen Online Event hosted by Jon Joseph Roshi\nSeptember 11th\, 2023\nMonday Evening\, 6–7:30 pm PDT\nThis Monday\, we visit with Ocean Vuong on his poetry\, prose and life.\n\nFrom his writing: \nAs an artist\, there has to be an allegiance to wonder and awe and mystery\, and a willingness to quest beyond truth … What is the meaning of rain? Rain doesn’t have a secret. It just exists. It’s the same with music. You experience music. Why do we cry listening to Bach? There’s no meaning inherent in the notes. \nWith [grandma] Lan\, one of my tasks was to take a pair of tweezers\, and pluck\, one by one\, the grey hairs from her head …  \nFor this work\, I was paid in stories: ”Help me\, Little Dog.” She pressed my hands to her chest. “Help me stay young\, get this snow off of my life—get it all off of my life.” I came to know\, in those afternoons\, that madness can sometimes lead to discovery\, that the mind\, fractured and short-wired\, is not entirely wrong. \nThey say if you want something bad enough you’ll end up making a god out of it. But what if all I ever wanted was my life\, Ma? \nI am thinking of beauty again\, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If an individual life is so short\, then to be gorgeous\, even from the day you’re born to the day you die\, is to be gorgeous only briefly …  \nI think of the time Trevor and I sat on the toolshed roof\, watching the sun sink. I wasn’t so much surprised by its effect\, but that it was ever mine to see. Because the sunset\, like survival\, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. To be gorgeous\, you must first be seen\, but to be seen allows you to be hunted. \n—Ocean Vuong \n\n\n\n \n\n\nOfficial Short Bio \nOcean Vuong is author of the poetry collection\, Time is a Mother\, and best-selling novel\, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous\, which has been translated into thirty-seven languages. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Genius Grant\, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection\, Night Sky with Exit Wounds\, and has received numerous accolades and awards. \nVuong’s writings have been featured in The Atlantic\, Granta\, Harpers\, The Nation\, New Republic\, The New Yorker\, The New York Times\, The Paris Review\, The Village Voice\, and American Poetry Review\, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. \nBorn in Saigon\, Vietnam\, and raised in Hartford\, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers\, he was educated at nearby Manchester Community College before transferring to Pace University to study International Marketing. He soon left business school to enroll in Brooklyn College\, where he graduated with a BA in nineteenth-century American literature. He subsequently received his MFA in poetry from NYU. \nVuong currently lives in Northampton\, Massachusetts and serves as a tenured professor in the Creative Writing MFA program at NYU. \nsource: https://www.oceanvuong.com/about \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nAll proceeds for each event\, including teacher dana\, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able\, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests. \nOur suggested donation range is $10 for PZI Members and $12 for Non-Members\, but the scale is sliding depending on one’s ability to contribute. We also greatly appreciate Patrons\, who help support the program with larger gifts of $50—500. \n\nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Ocean Vuong. All are welcome to join in for meditation and conversation. Register to participate. \nREGISTER
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-poet-author-ocean-vuong/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/oceanvuongCALENDAR_500X375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230904T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230904T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230829T171213Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230904T020411Z
UID:10001527-1693850400-1693855800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Preview of Ocean Vuong - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\nThis Monday night we will share Ocean Vuong’s poetry and prose\, reading from his three primary works. \nFrom Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous: \nNight Sky With Exit Wounds (excerpt) \nLet me begin again. \nDear Ma\, \nI am writing to reach you—even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are. I am writing to go back to the time\, at the rest stop in Virginia\, when you stared\, horror-struck\, at the taxidermy buck hung over the soda machine by the restrooms\, its antlers shadowing your face. In the car\, you kept shaking your head. “I don’t understand why they would do that. Can’t they see it’s a corpse? A corpse should go away\, not get stuck forever like that.” \nI think now of that buck\, how you stared into its black glass eyes and saw your reflection\, your whole body\, warped in that lifeless mirror. How it was not the grotesque mounting of a decapitated animal that shook you—but that the taxidermy embodied a death that won’t finish\, a death that keeps dying as we walk past it to relieve ourselves. \nSo begins the first novel by Zen Buddhist Ocean Vuong\, one of the leading young voices in American letters today. The New Yorker calls his Night Sky With Exit Wound\, a “soaring\, sober consideration of his family’s absorption into the American fold;” On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous “a beautifully meditative novel borrowed from his life growing up queer and surrounded by despair and addiction” in post-industrial New England; and Time Is A Mother “full of concentrated\, kaleidoscopic riffs on the feelings and sounds\, the delirious highs and darkest lows\, that make up contemporary life.” \nTell me it was for hunger\n& nothing more. For hunger is to give\nthe body what it knows\nit cannot keep. That this amber light\nwhittled down to another war\nis all that pins my hand to your chest. \nYou drowning between my arms—\nstay.\nyou pushing your body\ninto the river\nonly to be left\nwith yourself—\n \nstay… \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\nJoin us for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nAll are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph \n  \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-25-2/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/OceanVuong_500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230828T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230828T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230825T182158Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230827T025328Z
UID:10001341-1693245600-1693251000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Unreliable Witness – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nSitting on an airplane\, apparently going on vacation\, Marge Simpson says to Homer\, who sits next to her\, Come on Homer. Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon.” Says Homer\, “That’s not how I remember it.”  \nMy daughter recently texted me the above joke\, and I had a great laugh. But it also got me thinking about how unreliable a witness I can sometimes be in my own life. In my own movie\, called “Crafting My Self\,” are a few lines like this: “That was wrong for him to criticize me.” “I deserved to be treated better.” “Boy\, what was her motive behind that?” It is a big project\, Self\, and takes a lot of ongoing work. \nRashomon\, released in 1950\, launched both Akira Kurosawa as a leading director and Toshiro Mifune as Japan’s most famous actor. In the film\, there are four witnesses to an assault and murder\, and each testify to a different story. \nOn the same day I got the text\, I was talking with a friend about the first of the Three Pure Vows\, “I vow to do no harm.” We got to chatting about the Rashomon-quality of Dongshan’s koan about two crows fighting over a frog: \nOne day when Dongshan and a monk were washing their bowls\, they saw two crows fighting over a frog. The monk asked\, “Why does it always have to be like that?” Dongshan replied\, “It’s only for your benefit\, honored one.” \nWere the crows doing harm\, trying to feed their young? Perhaps the monk was doing harm\, caught in his own delusive melancholy. Maybe the frog had died\, having laid four thousand eggs\, before the crows even arrived. Or maybe none of these stories are true. \nI sometimes seem to have trouble seeing myself as others see me. In our kitchen is a counter often buried in bags\, purses\, mail\, dog leashes\, and other stuff. A couple of weeks ago\, frustrated\, I asked my partner in what I thought was a measured\, neutral tone\, “Could we please not put all this stuff on the counter?” My wife shot back\, “Don’t you yell at me!” A bit shocked\, I turned to my daughter\, who was standing nearby\, and asked\, “Was I yelling?” She replied\, “Dad\, you were being an asshole.” \nMaybe Dongshan is not suggesting we figure out who done it\, and attach blame. I think it is something deeper than that. Perhaps he is just suggesting that we deeply appreciate the picture show. It is\, after all\, our movie\, and a wonderful one at that. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\nJoin us for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nAll are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph \n  \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-26-3-5/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/samauraiCrowCALENDAR.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230821T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230821T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230818T181955Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230818T192247Z
UID:10001340-1692640800-1692646200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Barbie Seeks True Nature – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nPeople poke through the weeds and explore the dark\, all in an attempt to see their true nature.\nRight now\, honored one\, where is your true nature?\n \n—Doushuai’s Three Barriers \n\nBefore going to see Greta Gerwig’s latest film\, I asked my wife and daughter about it. “It’s about feminism. There’s no Zen in it\,” they agreed. Jokingly\, I asked\, “Well\, how was the popcorn?” And they both laughed. \nWhat attracted me about the subject—the life of an iconic children’s doll—was its common-ness\, its culture of the colloquial. Early Chan masters often used popular songs or poems to illustrate their teaching. In one koan\, Wuzu asks an official if he had heard the song\, “She calls to her maid\, ‘Little Jade!’ not because she wants something\, but just so her lover will hear her voice.” He adds\, “That is very close to Zen.” \nThough Barbie was getting good reviews\, I expected it to be kitschy in the extreme. I braced for disappointment. Instead\, I was surprised how touched I was by the storyline and acting. By the time the final credits rolled\, I had tears in my eyes\, for criminy’s sake! \nYes\, the movie has a feminist message. Sometimes that message felt uncomfortably familiar as my “patriarchal” genes vibrated a bit. But the full message\, for me\, was greater than a discussion of male and female roles in society: it was about a person seeking freedom to realize their own being. Barbie was searching through her weeds and darkness for her own true nature. And\, in his own blockhead way\, Ken was doing that\, too. \nIn Zen\, of course\, we need not wait around for others to get out of the way so we can find our true nature. We find our true self in the midst of our current lives\, even if self or other seem encumbered. But Barbie’s impulse for seeking true nature is similar to our own—her search is very close to Zen. \nAfter the movie\, I bought a small bag of popcorn (no extra butter) and a Sprite\, and went outside\, finding a park bench in the shade. The first time Barbie went out into the real world\, she sat on a similar bench outside\, taking in the ordinary beauty of an old woman next to her\, the light in the trees\, the children playing. I sat on my bench\, enjoying the summer sunlight and warm afternoon\, the people moving about—a Barbie moment in the real world. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-26-3-4/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/barbieCALENDAR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230814T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230814T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230810T182226Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230814T144441Z
UID:10001339-1692036000-1692041400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Learning Dark Enigma – with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nLearning Dark Enigma \nLast week\, author David Hinton talked with us about The Way of Ch’an. Let’s revisit this topic together on Monday.    \nFrom David Hinton’s book\, The Way of Ch’an: \nDARK-ENIGMA 玄 is perhaps the most foundational concept in this Daoist/Chan cosmology/ontology. Dark-enigma is Way before it is named\, before Absence and Presence give birth to one another—that region beyond name and ideation where consciousness and the empirical Cosmos share their source. \nDark-enigma came to have a particular historic significance\, for it became the name of a neo-Daoist school of philosophy in the third and fourth centuries C.E.: Dark-Enigma Learning is the school that gave Chinese thought a decidedly ontological turn and became central to the synthesis of Daoism and Dhyana Buddhism into Chan Buddhism. \nIndeed\, it is the concept is at the very heart of Chan practice and enlightenment. It is there at the very beginning\, concluding the first chapter of the Daodejing: “Dark-enigma deep within dark-enigma / gateway of all mystery.” \nAnd it recurs often at key moments throughout the Chan tradition. Among the countless examples is Fathom Mountain (Dongshan\, 807–869; founder of Soto Zen) saying that the most profound dimension of Chan’s wordless teaching is dark-enigma within dark-enigma\, which he evocatively describes as the “tongue of a corpse.” \nAnd the very influential Stone-Head (Shitou\, 700–790) ends his still influential poem  Amalgam-Alike Compact declaring dark-enigma to be the essential object of Chan inquiry: \nPlease\, you who try to fathom dark-enigma clear through\,\ndon’t pass your days and nights in vain. \n—David Hinton \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\nJoin us for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nAll are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-26-3-3/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WayofChanCALENDAR500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230809T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230809T183000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230707T005059Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230713T185313Z
UID:10001395-1691600400-1691605800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:SPECIAL WEDNESDAY: Zen Luminaries with Jon Joseph and Guest David Hinton: The Way of Chan
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA Wednesday Zen Luminaries conversation\nhosted by Point Reyes Books and Pacific Zen Institute\nJon Joseph Roshi\, PZI teacher and director of San Mateo Zen\, is joined by author\, poet\, and translator David Hinton for a conversation about his recent book of translations\, The Way of Ch’an: Essential Texts of the Original Tradition. \n\nAbout David Hinton’s The Way of Chan \nThis sweeping collection of new translations paints a brilliant picture of the development of Chan (Zen) Buddhism\, China’s most radical philosophical and meditative tradition. \nIn this landmark anthology of some two dozen translations\, celebrated translator David Hinton shows how Chan—too long considered a perplexing school of Chinese Buddhism—was in truth a Buddhist-inflected form of Daoism\, China’s native system of spiritual philosophy. The texts in The Way of Ch’an build from seminal Daoism through the “Dark-Enigma Learning” literature and on to the most important pieces from all stages of the classical Chan tradition. \nThrough this steadily deepening and transformative reading experience\, readers will see the profound and intricate connections between native Chinese philosophy\, Daoism\, and Chan. Contemporary Zen students and practitioners will never see their tradition in the same way again. \n“A national treasure . . . Hinton cracks open the cosmos and takes you into the depths of the mind.” \n—Lion’s Roar \n(summary from Point Reyes Books event page) \n\nAbout David Hinton \nDavid Hinton has published numerous books of poetry and essays\, and many translations of ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy—all informed by an abiding interest in deep ecological thinking. \nThis widely acclaimed work has earned Hinton a Guggenheim Fellowship\, numerous fellowships from NEA and NEH\, and both of the major awards given for poetry translation in the United States: the Landon Translation Award (Academy of American Poets) and the PEN American Translation Award. Most recently\, Hinton received a lifetime achievement award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. \nAbout Jon Joseph \nJon Joseph Roshi is practice leader of San Mateo Zen\, and holding teacher for Desert Lotus Zen in Phoenix. He began sitting Zen forty years ago with a group of high school friends\, led by their Spanish teacher. Jon then took his practice to the logging and fishing camps of Alaska and to the redwoods of California. After college\, Jon traveled to Kamakura\, Japan\, where he studied for eight years with Yamada Koun Roshi at the SanUn Zendo. He is fluent in Japanese. \nJon returned to the US and took up koan practice with John Tarrant Roshi\, founder of the Pacific Zen Institute\, known for its innovative use of ancient koans to transform lives in the present world. In 2012\, Tarrant Roshi gave Jon permission to teach\, with full transmission given in 2016. \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nJoin us for a conversation about the great texts and insights from the original Chan tradition. Register to participate. All are welcome.
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/special-wednesday-zen-luminaries-with-jon-joseph-and-guest-david-hinton-the-way-of-chan/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DavidHinton_CALENDAR_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230807T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230807T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230707T004403Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230711T011044Z
UID:10001394-1691431200-1691436600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:NO MONDAY ZEN: This Week\, Jon Joseph Hosts a Zen Luminaries Event on Wednesday
DESCRIPTION:NO MONDAY ZEN TODAY \nINSTEAD\, JOIN JON JOSEPH THIS WEDNESDAY\, AUGUST 9th \nThis week\, join Jon Joseph on Wednesday for a special Zen Luminaries conversation with guest historian David Hinton (in coordination with Point Reyes Books) about his new book\, The Way of Chan: Essential Texts of the Original Tradition. \nClick here to register for Zen Luminaries on Wednesday. \n\nJoin us for a conversation about the fundamental texts of original Chan.\nAll are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph \n\n  \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/this-week-only-zen-luminaries-event-with-jon-joseph-meets-on-wednesday/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cavedoor500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230731T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230731T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230725T161759Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230729T041445Z
UID:10001316-1690826400-1690831800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: A Teacher's Stick with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nThe priest Shoushan held up his teacher’s stick before the assembly and said\,\n“You monks\, if you call this a staff\, you’re entangled.\nIf you don’t call this a staff\, you ignore the fact.\nTell me\, what do you call it?” \n—Gateless Gate Case 43 \nJoin us Monday night as we bring a stick to bang and practice freeing up our universe.  \nWhenever I read this koan\, I think fondly of Koun Yamada. Yamada\, who ran SanUn Zendo in Kamakura\, Japan\, had several favorite devices he used in his teisho over the years. One was holding up his hand and comparing the back to gensho no sakai\, “the world of form\,” and the palm to hombun no sakai\, “the world of emptiness\,” while rotating his wrist back and forth. He would also sometimes hold up a single index finger. \nBut his favorite gesture seemed to be grabbing his small teacher’s stick\, called a kotsu\, and striking it loudly on the wooden dais that held the koan book and his notes before him (I sometimes wondered how many dents were in that stick from forty years of whacking). He would say\, “Just this!” or perhaps nothing at all. \n“Speak\, speak!” implores Shoushan. How might we answer? How might a teacher’s stick answer? \nRecently\, I took up this koan with a friend and we chatted about how words and explanations somehow entangle us and rob us of directly experiencing life. Our ideas separate ourselves from ourselves and others. In koan work\, we call that attachment to words “telling” rather than “showing.” There is no freedom in telling; it makes our lives smaller\, less than. Buddhists have a name for “telling”—dukkha\, suffering\, and attachment; “showing” is bodhi\, awakening. \nThe novelist Ruth Ozeki suffered from an episode of mental illness as a teenager and spent some time in a psychiatric ward. The experience brought verity to the character Benny Oh in The Book of Form and Emptiness. Ruth’s condition was never fully diagnosed\, never given a name. “I have been forever grateful for that\,” she recently said. The label-less nature of her illness somehow made it easier for her to “learn to make a friend of my mind.” \nThere is a bit more in the above koan\, a bit more “showing”: \nThen\, the monk Guishan snatched the stick from Shoushan\, threw it on the floor and cried out\, “What is this?”\nShoushan shouted\, “Blind!”\nWith this\, Guishan was enlightened. \nWhat breathtaking play! It’s alive! The universe\, at the same time both blind and filled with light. \nTwo months ago\, a long-time member of my friend’s men’s group died of lung cancer. Last week\, a second member was found to have a metastatic lesion in his lung. As we spoke\, my friend did not put a label on it\, he was just deeply saddened. But somehow\, within a few minutes\, we went from near weeping to laughing loudly at our own infirmities and the greater tragi-comedy of human existence. Were our tears ones of sadness or of laughter? It did not matter. We did not call it anything at all. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-26-3-2/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/TeachersStick500X375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230724T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230724T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230718T232844Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230724T165346Z
UID:10001315-1690221600-1690227000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Three Inches Shy Is Just Enough - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nThe Boat Monk Decheng said to Jiashan\, “You’ve let down a thousand-foot line. \nYou’re fishing very deep\, but your hook is still shy by three inches. \nWhy don’t you say something?” \n—from Zen’s Chinese Heritage by Andy Ferguson \nRevisiting this koan\, my heart identified with the crushing despair Jiashan must have felt from falling just short of his goal of awakening. For years\, he had played out a thousand feet of fish line\, but still needed three more inches. What frustration\, disappointment\, and shame he must have felt\, that I have felt\, and perhaps you\, too. “For twenty years I have suffered bitterly\,” writes Xuedou in The Blue Cliff Record\, ”How many times have I gone into the cave of the Blue Dragon for you?” \nSome years ago\, in sesshin\, I was close to passing the koan “Zhaozhou’s Dog\,” but somehow just could not get there. I was three inches short. A few months later at the next sesshin\, I felt dull and filled with tears. In dokusan\, the roshi looked at me and said\, “If I told you\, even now—just 80%.” I realized the Mu dog had run off. \nBut there was a happy outcome in Jiashan’s encounter with the Boat Monk. As Jiashan was about to speak\, Decheng knocked him into the water with his oar. When he clambered back into the boat\, Decheng yelled at him\, “Speak! Speak!” Jiashan tried to speak\, but before he could\, Decheng struck him again. Suddenly Jiashan attained great enlightenment. He then nodded his head three times. \nWhat did Jiashan realize? It was that he did not need to lay out any more fishing line. That 1\,000 feet was the perfect length; three more inches were unnecessary. For Jiashan to realize that\, however\, he had to allow the universe to come three inches closer. He had to let the ocean floor\, the school of fish\, the seaweed and urchins come up to him\, just a bit. \nThis being mid-summer\, it is one of the few chances I get to unpack my fly-fishing gear and wade into the Truckee River\, casting hand-tied flies on the water\, trying to convince the sparse trout that my bugs are real. If you need to catch fish for dinner\, forget the flies—use worms\, salmon eggs\, and spinners\, in that order. Usually\, in several mornings of fishing\, I will get four or five strikes and maybe only one fish on the line. \nThere are some examples of Zen adepts trying their hand at fishing\, but they\, too\, were not very good at it. Xuedou again writes\, “Accustomed to scouring the oceans fishing for whales\, I regret to find instead a frog crawling in the muddy sand.”  \nAnd then there was the exiled government official\, Ziya\, who evidently never took a fishing lesson. King Wen came upon him near the Bowl River\, sitting three feet away from the water\, dangling a straight hook from his pole. The king thought this strange and asked\, “How can you catch a fish with a straight hook?” Ziya said\, “I only seek fish who turn away from life.” \nJust wading and casting in the Truckee was sufficient for me—feeling the cool\, clear water flow around my legs\, hearing the twittering ouzel call as it flitted from rock to rock\, feeling the warmth of first sun thread through the cliffs of granite and Douglas fir. How could anything be out of place\, or short\, by even an inch? \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-three-inches-shy-with-jon-joseph/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/flyFishingCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230717T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230717T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230712T184441Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230714T220838Z
UID:10001314-1689616800-1689622200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Coral Branches\, Chili Fries\, Music & Mushrooms\, Oh My! with Guest Host Jordan McConnell
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nCoral Branches\, Chili Fries\, Music & Mushrooms\, Oh My!\nA student asked Baling\, “What is the blown-hair sword?”\nBaling said\, “Each branch of coral holds up the light of the moon.” \n—Blue Cliff Record Case 100\, transl. by John Tarrant & Joan Sutherland \nThis is such a beautiful koan. I can picture that edge of a hair-blown sword; that’s how sharp I want my wood chisel (used in making guitars). “Each branch of coral” is a kind of soft image of moonlight streaming down into the water. The moon way up in the sky\, the coral deep in the water—the highest and lowest thing. \nWhen I play music\, whenever I make a mistake—if it’s not musically perfect or “not how I would play it!”—it’s actually how I am playing it right now. Each one of those little things is a branch of coral holding up the moon. \nBut what is so special about the coral? Each sparrow holds up the moon. Each chili-cheese fry holds up the moon (I just had lunch\, and may change my mind in a half hour). Coming home from sesshin\, down in the train station\, I met a pack of teenage kids trying to sell me some mushrooms. The girl with Goth makeup said\,  “You gotta take these mushrooms and go to a park. The trees are your best friend.” I couldn’t argue with that\, though I declined the shrooms. Each runaway child holds up the moon. \nLast week\, I went out to a beer store that is a couple of blocks from my house. I cut across a parking lot and on the far end\, saw a mini-version of the “Freedom Convoy” of trucks of the kind that were protesting at the U.S. border last year. There were several cars and one big\, white truck\, all honking their horns like crazy at passing traffic. \nIt was the most obnoxious thing you could imagine. I realized\, “Holy ****; the Freedom Convoy is setting up shop only two blocks from my house!” I was already grumpy and I thought\, “They’re so obnoxious\, I can’t deal with this anymore.” So\, I went storming across the parking lot. \nOut of the window of that giant white truck\, I see this skinny little arm hanging and I think\, “I can probably take that guy. Hell\, let’s do this!” \nI came around the side of the truck\, stormed up to the window\, looked in\, and the person sitting in the truck turned\, looked at me\, waved\, and smiled. It was a 65-year-old gray-haired lady. Before I could help myself\, I smiled and waved back.  \nAnd then the whole thing flipped on its head. She was just one more branch of coral\, holding up the moon. I don’t know\, I felt this funny compassion for her because she was just doing what she thought was the right thing\, with her two eight-year-old women friends in the cars.  \nIt was like they were holding up the whole world for everybody\, in the same way that I was with my anger storming over there. It just wiped away everything. Just this life. We’re just “life-ing.” And it’s just like\, throw a smile and a wave. \n—Jordan McConnell \n\n \n  \nJoin us for koan meditation\, music\, and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph Roshi & Jordan McConnell
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-coral-branches-chili-fries-music-mushrooms-oh-my-with-guest-host-jordan-mcconnell/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/sheetMusic-frieslCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230710T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230710T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230626T222847Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230707T195801Z
UID:10001313-1689012000-1689017400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Where Will We Meet? with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\nI’ll die and you’ll die and we’ll end up as two heaps of ashes.\nAt that time\, where will we meet?—Entangling Vines Case 18 \nWhat does it mean to “meet?” I have been encountering the word so often lately\, it has become a kind of koan for me. The Oxford Dictionary shows it’s Old English root is mētan\, meaning “to come upon.” The Chinese characters for “meet” in the above koan are 相見 (J. shōken)\, which means “seeing each other\,” and in Zen is the formal first meeting between a teacher and student. Where will we see each other? \nThe above lines about two people meeting after their passing comes from a lovely story about a poet visiting several Zen teacher friends: \nThe first teacher asks the poet\, “Do you know the line from Confucius\, ‘My friends\, you think I’m hiding something from you. In fact\, I am hiding nothing from you.’ That is very much like the great matter of our school.”\nThe poet did not understand.\nLater\, while strolling together in the mountains where the air was filled with the scent of blossoms\, the teacher asked\, “Do you smell the fragrance of the sweet-olive blossoms?”\n“I do\,” replied the poet.\n“You see\, I’m hiding nothing from you\,” said the teacher\, and the poet instantly awakened. \nHe later visited another teacher\, who asked him about meeting after they die. Again\, the poet could not respond. Later\, while traveling\, he awoke from a nap and grasped the second teacher’s meaning\, attaining great freedom. \nI was speaking with a friend recently about his teenage granddaughter\, who had made two attempts on her life by taking pills. Each time she ingested the pills\, in relatively weak dosages\, she alerted her parents and was taken to the emergency room. It was a cry to be seen. \nThe parents got her counseling\, forbade her from spending time in her room alone\, and put locks on cabinets that contained potentially harmful substances\, like medications and cleaning fluids. The daughter was asking to meet her parents. Were they ready to meet her in return? \nMy friend and his wife recently stayed with their granddaughter while the parents were away on business. They did little else but spend time with her: attending her soccer match\, watching movies together\, having dinner. Toward the end of the visit\, while sitting on the couch together\, she rested her head on her grandpa’s lap and he gently stroked her hair. They were meeting her; she\, in turn\, was meeting them. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-where-will-we-meet-with-jon-joseph/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/meeting-mayumiCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230703T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230703T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230623T234916Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230701T181214Z
UID:10001312-1688407200-1688412600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN POTATOES: A Note from Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:NO MONDAY ZEN TODAY \nJon Joseph is away today. He returns on July 10th. Hope to see you then! \n\nA HOLIDAY NOTE FROM JON JOSEPH \nMonday Zen Potatoes\nIt was Yunmen who got it all started\, When asked to say something that transcended the buddhas and ancestors\, he merely replied\, “Italian Potato Salad—five stars.” \nWhen we were kids\, once a year on the Fourth of July\, my mom would buy for us store-made potato salad from Louie LaRossa’s\, our neighborhood market. Mrs. LaRossa made it with a simple dressing of olive oil and red-wine vinegar (no mayo)\, lemon zest\, and parsley\, That treat remains one of my favorite childhood memories of summer; I made this recipe this morning using purple potatoes harvested from our garden. \nPlease enjoy a meal with your family and friends this holiday weekend; perhaps one with potato salad. \nWe will see you again on Monday\, July 10th. \nItalian Potato Salad  \nIngredients \n24 oz baby red new potatoes\, quartered\n1 tbsp kosher salt\, plus more to taste\n¼ c extra virgin olive oil\n1.5 tbsp red wine vinegar\n1 lemon\, zested and juiced\n2 cloves garlic\, minced\n½ tsp ground pepper\n2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley\n1 tbsp chopped fresh chives \nInstructions \nDice potatoes into “fat” quarters. Slice each potato in half lengthwise\, then each half widthwise. \nPlace potatoes into a large 6-quart pot (they need room to move). Add enough cold water to cover the potatoes by about two inches. \nPlace the pot over high heat and bring the water to a boil. Add the kosher salt\, then reduce the heat to medium-high. Boil until the potatoes are tender and can be easily pierced with the tip of a knife\, 8-10 minutes. \nWhile the potatoes are cooking\, make the vinaigrette. Combine the extra virgin olive oil\, red wine vinegar\, lemon juice\, lemon zest\, garlic\, parsley\, and chives in a small bowl or 1-cup measuring cup. Whisk until the dressing is emulsified. \nDrain the potatoes\, shake to release as much water as possible\, then place the potatoes back into the hot pot. The heat from the pot will help any residual water dissolve. \nPour the vinaigrette over the potatoes\, then toss to coat. Taste for seasoning and add additional salt or pepper as needed. \nMarinate at room temperature for at least 1 hour\, and up to 4. Serve at room temperature\, and enjoy! \nThank you Our Salty Kitchen! \nhttps://oursaltykitchen.com/classic-italian-potato-salad/ \n\nWe’ll meet next on July 10th. Hope to see you then. \n—Jon Joseph \n\n  \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-potatoes-a-note-from-jon-joseph/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/potatoesCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230626T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230626T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230621T180359Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230626T173047Z
UID:10001230-1687802400-1687807800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Bodhidharma on Wall Street - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\n“Who are you\, standing before me?” asked Emperor Wu on meeting Bodhidharma. \n“I don’t know\,” replied the Indian sage. \nAfter Bodhidharma left\, the Emperor’s advisor\, \nDuke Zi\, asked\, “Your Majesty\, do you know who that was?” \n“I don’t know\,” replied the Emperor. \nYuanwu comments\, ”So tell me\, is the Emperor’s ‘I don’t know’ the same as Bodhidharma’s\, or different?” \n—Blue Cliff Record Case 1 \nJoin us this Monday as we sit with and chat about not knowing in our work\, lives and practice. \nYesterday\, I was going through my office shelves looking to toss out old books\, and came across economist Burton Malkiel’s 1973 classic\, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. His was a radical proposal in its time\, and was also required reading for financial analysts-in-training\, of which I was one. Malkiel proposes\, in his theory of investing\, that markets are largely unpredictable\, price movements wholly unknowable\, market analysis undependable\, and that investment advisors provide little or no value. Of course\, that is completely contrary to Wall Street’s sales pitch that it offers a professional class of people who “know\,” when they really don’t. \nSome years ago\, I took my family to Machu Picchu. We left the mountain-top\, taking an old school bus down a switch-back road to a railway station in Aqua Caliente\, filled with tourists on summer vacation. By chance\, I found myself sitting next to the CFO of Capital Group\, one of the largest mutual fund companies in the world\, with about $2.2 trillion in assets under management. Either you or someone you know has their 401K invested with Capital Group. Chatting\, somehow we got on the subject of investors correctly “calling the market.” Can professional managers reliably predict whether\, at any point in time\, stocks will go up or down? \nI was surprised at his answer: “I have eleven portfolio managers working for me\, and to a person\, they all believe they can predict the action of the stock market\,” he said\, smiling. ”I have analyzed their results\, and I can tell you with great certainty that none of them can call the market.” \nPeter Lynch\, the legendary Fidelity fund manager\, who for many years ran the flagship Magellan Fund\, was fond of saying\, “If you took every economist and laid them end to end\, it wouldn’t be a bad thing.” \nWall Street\, of course\, sells certainty to us in an uncertain world: your college fund\, your retirement\, your savings are safe. But are they? The least efficient of all funds are ones run by the “smartest people in the room”—hedge funds\, a trillion dollar market. Hedge fund managers claim they can make money whether the market goes up or down. Mostly\, they don’t. Consistently over any ten-year period\, passive index funds outperform hedge funds by twice to three times\, an extraordinarily wide margin. \nIf you own a hedge fund\, which you probably don’t\, sell it. \nYuanwu asks if the “not knowing” of Emperor Wu (that is Wall Street’s) is the same\, or different\, from the “not knowing” of Bodhidharma (Zen’s). Not knowing on Wall Street is something academics talk about\, but professionally it is “a bad.” On Wall Street\, people get shit-canned for not knowing. Yet the fascinating and largely unexamined dynamic is this: to be successful\, Wall Streeters must accept and incorporate the pervasive uncertainty of their world if they are to succeed. They understand “not knowing\,” they just don’t talk about it. \nNot knowing in Zen\, of course\, is “a good.” It feels good to not-know\, to walk through the vast field of beginner’s mind\, uncluttered with assumptions\, predilections\, and biases. But we are always randomly moving in and out of states of mind: clarity soon becomes doubt\, and back again. Is Emperor Wu’s not knowing the same as Bodhidharma’s\, or is it different? Excellent question. We should ask Professor Malkiel. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-26-2/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/bodhidarmaWallst-CALENDAR-1.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230619T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230619T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230516T181744Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230616T212133Z
UID:10001229-1687197600-1687203000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Trickster Coyote Calls from Sesshin - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nWuzu said\, “It’s like a coyote that passes through a latticed window.\nIt’s head\, body and four legs all pass through.\nWhy can’t its bushy tail pass through as well?” \n—Gateless Gate Case 38 \nNow\, deep in sesshin\, we hear the rising and falling howl of coyote. \nThe original subject of Wuzu’s question\, of course\, is a water buffalo. But coyotes have meandering through my life in recent months. Coyote as trickster\, a thief who stands at the gate of change. A change master. A thief of self. A koan. Why can’t it get its tail through the lattice window? \nTwo weeks ago\, my partner and I were out walking our dog on a gravel road not far from our house in rural Sonoma County. To the east of the road are vineyards and beyond them\, the Mayacama mountains. To the west is a tall fence hung with horse-wire\, and more vineyards. \nThe sun had set and a half-moon was rising\, gently illuminating our way. We took our dog\, Mocha\, a small German Shepard\, off leash as we walked the gravel road. Suddenly\, she ducked under the horse-wire fence and sprinted into the vineyard. Within seconds\, out of sight from about twenty-five yards away\, a large pack of coyotes lit up\, howling\, yipping\, and yapping. She had been lured into a hunting pack. \nI ran back down the road\, through a gate\, and into the vineyard\, and could hear the coyotes\, still unseen. I felt I was running full speed into the unknown. \nAs I entered the vines\, my wife yelled that Mocha had returned. I stopped\, turned around\, and walked through the gate and back up the road to meet them. A lone coyote trailed me\, just out of sight\, perhaps thirty feet away\, howling and yapping. The trickster taunting me\, haunting me. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-trickster-coyote-calls-from-sesshin-with-jon-joseph/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/coyoteHowlCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230612T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230612T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230516T182256Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230516T182256Z
UID:10001231-1686592800-1686598200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: Monday Zen with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:NO MONDAY ZEN TODAY \nJon Joseph is in sesshin this week. He returns to Monday Zen on June 19. \nHope to see you then! \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/on-break-monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-4/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230605T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230605T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230516T181547Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230602T220615Z
UID:10001228-1685988000-1685993400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Swimming with Yasutani - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\nSome weeks ago while snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef\, I came upon one of the many green turtles we would encounter throughout our days of diving. Only a fortnight before\, the last of the turtle eggs had hatched on a sand island\, and there were many adult females swimming around. \nFollowing one as it glided effortlessly through the crystalline water\, I had the strongest sense that the turtle before me was none other than Yasutani Hakuun Roshi\, my ancestral Zen teacher who died fifty years ago. \nIt was a bizarre\, non-sequitur impression\, and I am completely without explanation of how I came to it. Was it because I had recently heard from a friend that Yoda\, the grand-master Jedi from Star Wars\, was based on Yasutani—language\, ears and all? \nNo! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try … to be Jedi is to face the truth and choose.\nGive off light or darkness\, Padawan. Be a candle or the night. \nOr perhaps the name “Yasutani” was embedded in my psyche because author Ruth Ozeki used this same family name for her protagonist in her book\, A Tale for the Time Being: \nHi! My name is Nao (Yasutani)\, and I’m a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well\, if you give me a moment\, I will tell you. \nTurtles All the Way Down \nI do know that turtles are a big deal in ancient Buddhist lore. Samantabhadra—“Universal Good”—who with Shakyamuni and Manjusri form the Mahayana triad\, traditionally rides a white elephant. And that elephant is sometimes shown standing on the back of a turtle. What is the turtle standing on\, you may ask? Well\, we all know it is turtles all the way down. \nThe World Turtle\, which holds up the whole universe\, is a surprisingly common “mytheme” across many cultures. It is found in the Vedic hymns\, in Chinese origin stories\, and the belief in some Native American tribes that  all life on earth rests on the back of a turtle. The earth is Turtle Island. \nI described this note to my daughter this morning\, and she responded\, “Hmm\, it sounds complicated…” which made me laugh. I can’t explain why Yasutani Roshi was swimming through the Coral Sea one recent bright afternoon. But I like to think it had something to do with holding up the world. That makes me feel hopeful for this island. \nManzanita\, by Gary Snyder \nBefore dawn the coyotes\nweave medicine songs\ndream nets – spirit baskets –\nmilky way music\nthey cook young girls with\nto be woman;\nor the whirling dance of\nstriped boys –\n \nAt moon-set the pines are gold-purple\nJust before sunrise.\n \nThe dog hastens into the undergrowth\nComes back panting\nHuge\, on the small dry flowers.\n \nA woodpecker\nDrums and echoes\nAcross the still meadow\n \nOne man draws\, and releases     an arrow\nHumming\, flat\,\nMisses a gray stump\, and splitting\nA smooth red twisty manzanita bough.\n \nManzanita     the tips in fruit\,\nClusters of hard green berries\nThe longer you look\nThe bigger they seem\,\n \n     `little apples’ \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-24/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230529T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230529T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20221216T180621Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230525T224931Z
UID:10001182-1685383200-1685388600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: On Books & Tales – Jon Joseph in Conversation with Author & Filmmaker Ruth Ozeki
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\n“Hi! My name is Nao\, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well\, if you give me a moment\, I will tell you…” \nSo opens A Tale For The Time Being\, “at once tender and refined\, comic and grave\, hopeful and desperate\,” writes the Chair of Judges for the Man Booker Prize. A Tale is one of the most intriguing and heartfelt novels I have read in recent years. \nNaoko Yasutani\, sixteen\, grew up in Sunnyvale\, CA\, but is taken back to Japan by her parents after her father is laid off from his high-tech job. Severely bullied at her Japanese school—stabbed with scissors\, constantly pinched\, and even given a mock funeral—Nao has written in her journal that she plans to take her own life.  \nKept in a Hello Kitty lunchbox\, the diary is swept away in the 2011 Fukushima tsunami\, and washes up on a beach on Vancouver Island\, to be found and read by Ruth. The one person Nao has to live for is her 104-year-old great grandmother\, a Buddhist nun and activist. For her part\, Ruth feels compelled to find Nao and save the girl’s life. \nRuth Ozeki\, a Soto Zen priest\, filmmaker\, and writer of five novels and a memoir\, has won numerous awards for her work\, most recently the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her latest\, The Book of Form and Emptiness. Brilliant in storytelling and deeply spiritual\, Ruth also has a wicked sense of humor. \nPlease join us in conversation. \n—Jon Joseph \n\n\n\n\nA time being is someone who lives in time\, and that means you\, and me\, \nand every one of us who is\, or was\, or ever will be. —Ruth Ozeki\n\n\n\n\n\nOfficial Short Bio \n\n\nRuth Ozeki is a novelist\, filmmaker\, and Zen Buddhist priest\, whose books have garnered international acclaim for their ability to integrate issues of science\, technology\, religion\, environmental politics\, and global pop culture into unique\, hybrid\, narrative forms. \nHer novel\, The Book of Form and Emptiness\, tells the story of a young boy who\, after the death of his father\, starts to hear voices and finds solace in the companionship of his very own book. \nA longtime Buddhist practitioner\, Ruth was ordained in 2010 and is affiliated with the Brooklyn Zen Center and the Everyday Zen Foundation. She currently teaches creative writing at Smith College\, where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature. \nSource: https://www.ruthozeki.com/about-ruth \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Ruth Ozeki. All are welcome. Register to participate. \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-author-filmmaker-ruth-ozeki/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230522T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230522T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230313T202512Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230519T195358Z
UID:10001214-1684778400-1684783800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Infinity Unbound - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nJoin us this Monday night\, a week before Ruth Ozeki joins us in our Luminaries Series\, for a review of and conversation about her work. \nIn Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness\, narrated by an omniscient being called “the Book\,” Benny is a troubled 15-year-old boy who begins hearing voices following the tragic death of his father and emotional struggles of his mother. After an act of violence in school\, he is sent for a time to a psychiatric hospital. There he meets another teenager\, Alice\, aka “the Aleph\,” who seditiously writes messages on slips of paper and hands them out to the residents of the ward: \nPut your shoe on the table; ask it what it wants from you.\nFace a blank wall; pretend the wall is a mirror.\nPretend you are very old; move at half speed.\nWalk like you’re happy; change directions.\nBe a pussy\, purr; lick your beautiful fur.\nDo everything backward.\nLie on your back on the floor and listen; feel free to sing along. \nFor passing around these koan-like instructions\, the Aleph is kicked out of the children’s wing and sent up to the high-security adult’s ward. \nBenny fakes a note to skip school for some weeks\, and is befriended by the Aleph’s associate\, the Bottleman\, an aged\, drunken and homeless wanderer\, who rolls around in his wheelchair serving as kind of poet Zen master. The B-man takes Benny to the Book Bindery\, a deserted part of the basement in the public library.  \n“The Bindery contains everything\,” the Bottleman said. “Anything is possible\,” and now Benny understood. The Bindery was primordial\, a place of vast\, boundless silence that contained all sound\, and emptiness that contained all form. Benny had never heard such silence before. Never felt such imminence. He shivered. \nAfter a contentious election and violent demonstration that Benny gets swept up in\, late one night he seeks shelter in the library’s Bindery. Somehow\, that night\, Benny experiences a kind of spiritual awakening\, guided by The Book: \nThe Bindery was our access [the Book narrates]\, the point in space that contains all other points\, and that night you were a boy unbound\, a tiny astronaut\, taking your first leap into an infinite and unknowable universe. For the first time you could hear the voices of the things you’ve been hearing for so long\, all the clamorous matter vying for your attention… \nHow impossible it is to put into words this infinitude of the Unbound! In a single instant\, we witnessed constellations on the brink of constellating\, assemblages in flux… We perceived the dynamic flow of vibrant matter\, materializing as a marble or a baseball bat\, a sneaker of a story\, a jazz riff or a viral contagion\, an ovum or an antique spoon… \nAll these things you saw and felt at once. How is that possible? Because in the Bindery\, where phenomena are still Unbound\, stories have not yet learned to behave in a linear fashion…\n\nThis Monday night\, let’s share the non-linear story of our lives.  \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-23/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/bookbinderyCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230515T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230515T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081727
CREATED:20230313T202357Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230421T174839Z
UID:10001213-1684173600-1684179000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: Monday Zen with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:NO MONDAY ZEN TODAY \nJon Joseph is away this week. He returns to Monday Zen on May 22. \nHope to see you then! \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us for a koan\, meditation\, dharma talk and conversation.\nAll are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-22/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
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