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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230821T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230821T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230818T181955Z
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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:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230809T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230809T183000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230807T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230807T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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:20260428T081706
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:20260428T081706
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:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230710T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230710T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230703T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230703T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230626T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230626T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230619T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230619T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230612T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230612T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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:20260428T081706
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/TurtleYasutaniCALENDAR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230529T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230529T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/RuthOzekiCloseupCALENDAR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230522T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230522T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230515T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230515T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
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
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:20230508T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230508T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230313T201355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230421T175202Z
UID:10001212-1683568800-1683574200@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-21/
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:20230501T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230501T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230313T201242Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230421T175303Z
UID:10001211-1682964000-1682969400@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.\nRegister to participate. All are welcome. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-20/
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:20230424T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230424T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230116T194943Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230421T163307Z
UID:10001079-1682359200-1682364600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: The Five Invitations - Jon Joseph in Conversation with Author & Hospice Pioneer Frank Ostaseski
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nWhat Dying Can Teach Us About Living \nOn Monday night\, Frank Ostaseski will share with us stories and insights from his half century of groundbreaking work in end-of-life care. \nEmpty-handed I entered the world\nBarefoot I leave it.\nMy coming\, my going—\nTwo simple happenings\nThat got entangled. \n—Kozan Ichiyo\, death poem dated 1360 \nSome writings from his book\, The Five Invitations: \n—Suppose we stopped compartmentalizing death\, cutting it off from life. Imagine if we regarded dying as a final stage of growth that held an unprecedented opportunity for transformation. Could we turn toward death like a master teacher and ask\, “How\, then\, shall I live?” \nWalking in\, I followed my natural inclination: I went over to (seven-year old) Jamie’s bed\, leaned down\, and kissed him on the forehead to say hello. The parents broke into tears because\, while they had cared for him with great love and attention\, nobody had touched the boy since he had died. \nI am not romantic about dying. It is hard work. Maybe the hardest work we will ever do in this life. It doesn’t always turn out well. It can be sad\, cruel\, messy\, beautiful\, and mysterious. Most of all it is normal. We all go through it.\nNone of us get out of here alive. \nI learned that the activities of caregiving are themselves quite ordinary. You make soup\, give a back rub\, change soiled sheets\, help with medications\, listen to a lifetime of stories lived and now ending\, show up as a calm and loving presence. Nothing special. Just simple human kindness\, really. Yet I soon discovered that these everyday activities\, when taken as a practice of awareness\, can help awaken us from our fixed views and habits of avoidance. \nWhen I sit at the bedsides of people who are dying\, my primary goal is to keep my heart open. I feel that I have a responsibility to support them wherever they are in their journey. \nThe attachment to the role of helper goes deep for most of us. If we’re not careful\, if we become wedded to this role\, it will imprison us and those we serve. Because let’s face it: if I am going to be a helper\, then somebody has to be helpless. \nGrief is like a stream running through our lives\, and it is important to understand that loss doesn’t go away. It lasts a lifetime. It is our relationship to a particular loss that changes. It won’t always hold the same intensity for us\, or take the same expression. But the grief as a natural human response to loss will remain\, and our resistance to it will only intensify the pain. \nI prefer the word intimacy because it is an invitation to come closer\, to fully embrace and lovingly engage with your life right where you are\, rather than trying to move beyond it. It is a recognition that we already belong. \n—Frank Ostaseski \n\nShort Bio \nAn internationally respected Buddhist teacher\, Frank Ostaseski is the visionary cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco\, and Metta Institute. He has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. He has trained countless clinicians and caregivers in the art of mindful and compassionate care. \nIn The Five Invitations\, he distills lessons gleaned from death and his life of service. This book is an evocative and relevant guide that points to a radical path for transforming the way we live. \nsource:  https://www.mettainstitute.org/about.html \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Frank Ostaseski. All are welcome. Register to participate. \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-author-hospice-pioneer-frank-ostaseski/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/FrankOstaseski_CALENDAR_500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230417T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230417T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230313T201058Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230417T205545Z
UID:10001210-1681754400-1681759800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: This Is the Lotus Land - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nOn Monday night\, as a prelude to Frank Ostaseski’s Zen Luminaries visit next week\, we’ll explore this koan about life after life: \nWhen you’re free from birth and death\, you know where to go. \nWhen your four elements separate\, where do you go? \n—Gateless Gate\, Case 47: Doshuai’s Three Barriers \nFundamentally\, death is perhaps the greatest unknown. \nAnd our relationship to that unknown is worthy of our attention. \n—Frank Ostaseski\, from his book\, The Five Invitations \nIn recent weeks\, I’ve been engrossed in the many stories of loss and grief in Frank Ostaseski’s book\, The Five Invitations. Frank\, co-founder of the Zen Hospice Project\, sat by the bed of thousands of dying people and their caregivers. Rather than talking about after what happens after death\, he mostly talks about life and love. He writes\, “As people come closer to death\, I have found that only two questions really matter to them: ‘Am I loved?’ and ‘Did I love well?’” Reading his book made me ask those questions of myself\, stirring up memories of various experiences with death in my life. \nWhen we die\, where do we go? \nFather McLaughlin\, our pastor at St. Mary’s parish\, seemed to know. Famous for his fire and brimstone\, in a heavy brogue he frightened us kids and chided the adults about heaven and hell every Sunday at Mass. Most of the Buddhists—Theravada\, Mahayana\, and particularly the Vajrayana—are among the world’s greatest mapmakers of life after this life. \nBut Zen folk do not spend a lot of time on the subject of rising to heaven or falling into hell. Of the hundreds of hours of teisho I have heard over the years\, I can recall only one\, given by Koun Yamada\, briefly mentioning that subject. Why is that? \nHakuin Ekaku’s Song in Praise of Meditation says\, \nThis very place is the Lotus Land (Heaven)\,\nThis very body the Buddha. \nIt was Yamada who often said\, “We have never been born\, so we never die.” In Zen\, there is no time apart from this time\, no place apart from this place. \nThe son of a friend who was running a podcast on death called me up for an interview about what it was like to die\, from a Zen point of view. Trying to get some measure of his podcast\, I listened to several of his guests\, who were from various spiritual backgrounds. One guest\, a follower of Indian Vedic teachings\, used a metaphor of waves: At the time of death\, our own small wave returns to the great ocean of large waves. From a Zen standpoint\, the small wave never left the large wave. They never were\, and never will be separate. Where do you go when you die? \nThis weekend\, Pacific Zen held a leadership retreat and the subject of death entered the room. The next day\, the program included a Slavic folk tale of the maiden Vasilisa and arch-witch Baba Yaga. Each participant found and embodied the part of the story that spoke most to them. \nWhat left the greatest impression on me in this fairytale-koan was the point\, early in the story\, when the mother had just died and Vasilisa went to bed and cried over her loss. I recalled being about five years old\, perhaps Vasilisa’s age\, when I realized for the first time that my parents would die. That night I cried myself to sleep. \nFifty years later\, it was in my own house that my mother would stumble and fall down our stairs\, which in six months would contribute to her demise. I still feel pain and sorrow\, and to some degree\, guilt over her death. \nThe ambulance took her to Stanford Hospital she lay unconscious in the Emergency Room. Later\, my mother told me\, that at the time\, she was seeing a long\, broad path\, with a bright and beautiful light at the end. There were a bunch of white bunnies sitting by the side of the path\, urging her to turn away from the light. She took their advice\, turned around and came back to us. A few months later\, she fell again\, and rapidly declined. Thank you\, bunnies\, for those last six months of her life. \nFour and fifty years\nI’ve hung the sky with stars.\nNow I leap through—\nWhat shattering! \n—Eihei Dogen’s Death Poem \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-19/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lotuslandCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230410T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230410T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230313T200925Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230410T213318Z
UID:10001209-1681149600-1681155000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: How Are You Feeling? with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\nOn Monday night\, in anticipation of Frank Ostaseski’s visit in a few weeks\, we explore this koan from the caregiver’s perspective: \nMaster Ma was unwell. The superintendent of the monastery asked him\, “How have you been feeling lately?”\nThe Master replied\, “Sun-Faced Buddha\, Moon-Faced Buddha.” \n—Blue Cliff Record\, Case 3 \nIn the coming weeks\, we investigate issues of illness and death as a prelude to a visit by Frank Ostaseski\, founder of the Zen Hospice Project and Metta Institute\, to our Zen Luminaries series on Monday\, April 24. The above koan\, which was beautifully read last Sunday\, is one of the great cases of perhaps the greatest of the koan collections\, The Blue Cliff Record. \nMost often we examine this koan from the position of Mazu\, who is nearing the end of his life. But in the past week\, my place in the koan shifted to that of the superintendent\, the well-wisher\, the caregiver. I am the one who asks the question\, “How have you been feeling lately\, Master Ma?” \nA week ago\, a dear friend and teacher was admitted to the hospital with a severe gastro-intestinal ailment while under Covid watch. I was not able to stay with him\, help feed him\, get him to the toilet or read to him. Like the superintendent\, my only act of service was to ask the question\, “How have you been feeling lately?” Somehow\, that seemed to be enough. \nIn his book\, The Four Invitations\, Frank Ostaseski relates a story of begin with his very first herons in hospice\, in what became the Zen Hospice Project. Blaze\, an at times displaced person\, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer\, was given an empty room in the San Francisco Zen Center. Before she died\, her wish was to see her brother—they had been abandoned as kids\, growing up in orphanages and foster homes\, and had been estranged for twenty-five years. He had become a rodeo-circuit rider\, she a street person. Travis showed up at Zen Center in his cowboy hat and silver belt buckle to visit his dying sister. \nAs youngsters\, he had been physically abusive toward her\, and for days he wished to apologize but could not find the words. After pouring his heart out to Frank\, he went to her room. Realizing what was coming\, Blaze stopped him\, saying\, “In this place\, Travis\, I have someone who feeds me. I have someone who bathes me. I am surrounded by love. There is no blame.” \nFrank sees the story as one of forgiveness\, but I see it also as a touching example of just being present with the one who is not well\, with Master Ma. And that\, in and of itself\, is a full and complete gift\, healing to both the one who is ill and to the one who is concerned. \nIn his book\, Frank quotes Rachel Naomi Remen\, M.D.\, who examines the various attitudes and attachments of the caregiver. “Helping\, fixing\, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life\,” she writes\,  \n”When you help\, you see life as weak. When you fix\, you see life as broken. When you serve\, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be work of the ego\, and service is the work of the soul.” \nHow have you been feeling lately\, Master Ma? \nI can’t leave without copying Xuedou’s appreciatory verse to the koan “Master Ma is Unwell.” It is my favorite verse in all the collection of the hundred cases: \nSun-Faced Buddha\, Moon-faced Buddha\nWhat kind of people were the ancient Emperors?\nFor twenty years I have suffered bitterly.\nHow many times have I gone down into the Blue Dragon’s cave for you?\nThis distress is worth recounting.\nClear-eyed patch-robed monks should not take it lightly. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\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-18/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/sunfacemoonfaceCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230403T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230403T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230313T200807Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230403T232016Z
UID:10001208-1680544800-1680550200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Feeling Your Way in the Dark - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nJoin us on Monday night to sit together and talk together about feeling our way in the dark. \nDon’t light a lamp—there’s no oil in the house.\nIt’s a shame to want a light.\nI have a way to bless poverty:\nJust feel your way along the wall. \n—Yinyuan Longqi\, PZI Miscellaneous Koans\, Case 71 \nIn taking up koans\, sometimes we find one that perfectly expresses our current condition\, yet may\, on the face of it\, appear unrelated. In some strange way\, these “dog koans for cat problems” are often more intimate and meaningful than they seem. \nDon’t light a lamp—there’s no oil in the house.  \nI recently caught up with a friend who had been away for some weeks. For the past decade or so\, he has suffered from an illness which afflicts the inner ear\, called Meniere’s disease. At times his vertigo was so bad that if he moved even the least bit in bed\, he vomited. His tinnitus sounded like a train running through his head. And his migraines were utterly debilitating\, sending him to bed for days on end. But about two years ago\, Messrs. Meniere\, as he calls the visitors\, largely went away. A couple of weeks ago\, the Messrs. returned. \nLying in bed for hours\, various koans would come to him. It was the above koan\, “Don’t light a lamp—there’s no oil in the house\,” that mysteriously seemed to resonate with his condition. \nIt’s a shame to want a light.  \nMy friend\, a long-time Vipassana teacher\, said\, “I often taught that meditation is about feeling our way in some sense; we feel our way in the dark\, and discover and learn things through that process.” \nI have a way to bless poverty.  \nHe would often use a teaching metaphor: As meditators\, we wake up in a dark hotel room and stumble over the furniture searching for the light switch. “Teaching that\,” he says\, “I thought I needed some kind of control\,” and standing in the way was the furniture and lost light switch—both being obstacles that required a workaround. He no longer sees these kinds of obstacles in his life and practice—like Meniere’s—as barriers. “I now know that avoidance isn’t the way to practice\, it isn’t the way to live.” \nJust feel your way along the wall.  \n“Even when I’m lying in bed with Meniere’s\, not doing well\, I don’t feel separate from everybody else.” He feels a natural sense of support from ancestors\, relatives\, friends and all other things. “It’s the support of the koan No\, the support of ‘What was my face before my parents were born?’ It’s hard to explain\, but I’m feeling my way in the dark with my hands\, and there are no obstacles\, and I’m not doing it alone.” \nI suggested to my friend that ours is a collaborative universe. When a friend or family member becomes ill\, in a way\, we too become sick. And when they become well again\, we too heal.  \n“Yes\,” he agreed\, “We move in the dark\, hand-in-hand.” \nMy Body Effervesces\nby Anna Swir\n(English version by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan\nOriginal Language Polish) \nI am born for the second time.\nI am light\nas the eyelash of the wind.\nI froth\, I am froth. \nI walk dancing\,\nif I wish\, I will soar.\nThe condensed lightness\nof my body\ncondenses most forcibly\nin the lightness of my foot\nand its five toes.\nThe foot skims the earth\nwhich gives way like compressed air.\nAn elastic duo\nof the earth and of the foot. A dance\nof liberation. \nI am born for the second time\,\nhappiness of the world\ncame to me again.\nMy body effervesces\,\nI think with my body which effervesces. \nIf I wish\,\nI will soar. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\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-17/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/intheDarkCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230327T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230327T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20221228T184410Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230324T170615Z
UID:10001071-1679940000-1679945400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Shamanic Bones\, Dark Gates - Jon Joseph in Conversation with Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nZenju Earthlyn Manuel visits the Pacific Zen Luminaries series to talk about her practice of invoking the shamanic roots of Zen and walking through the dark gates that call to us. \nFrom Zenju Earthly Manuels’ writing: \n“By participating in Zen rituals and ceremonies\, I have a strong sense in me that something had been suppressed in it’s transmission…This sense brought me closer to the practice\,” she writes\, asking if “the shamanic bones or indigenous roots of Buddhism were unearthed\, would the practice make more sense to practitioners\, especially to black\, indigenous\, and people of color?” \n“When we are turning away from rituals and ceremonies in Zen or Buddhism\, are we turning away from what little is left of what the indigenous people contributed to the practice or used to sustain themselves in the practice?” \nOne evening\, after about seven years of intensive Nichiren practice\, Zenju suffered a headache so severe\, she begged out loud: “Please relieve me of this pain and I will serve in the way that I was born to do. Even if I lose everything\, I will remain a humble servant.” She believes something heard her because that night she had a lucid dream of a Black Angel as an oracle. \nThe next morning\, her headache gone\, Zenju’s mind was filled with messages and images. She drew the images “without knowing how to paint” and transcribed “messages I did not understand\,” eventually making a set of oracle cards\, which were later published. “Whether or not that experience was kensho\, I had a glimpse of the source of all things manifested in the world.” \n“The real magic is not in honoring the historical Buddha as a shamanic ancestor…It is the practice of experiencing Buddha as a reflection of our own magical or enlightened nature. In making offerings to the Buddha\, one is making offerings to one’s own buddha nature\, to one’s own capacity to awaken.” \n“Zazen is a prolonged ritual of seeing and listening. It is a shamanic process and a way of life…How can we go through the portal of zazen and not ever hear the cries of the earth? Do we not dream as Buddha did? Do not the spirits of nature affect our lives? These exploratory questions deepened my curiosity about seeing Zen meditation as shamanic journeying.” \n“Dharma transmission is a private process between teacher and student. I found it to be the most shamanistic of all Zen rituals and ceremonies…” She included in her transmission ceremony altars to black women writers who had transformed her life\, spirits of Vodou that were to her were like Zen\, and the shawls received during six years as a head drummer and singer of a Native American Sun Dance ceremony. “That was my way of becoming a dharma heir as my whole self\,” she writes\,” How do we as communities recognize as Zen practice family of mixed race and heritage?” \n“After engaging in the dharma transmission ritual\, I wanted to disrobe for many reasons. A prominent one was a feeling of having joined a family in which I was comfortable in ritual but uncomfortable in relationship.” Zenju describes how endured an “onslaught of attention” as a teacher of color. She added\, “I wanted to be of no-rank\, as they say in Zen\, and go on about my business\, leaving behind the projects of a Zen teacher.” \n“In the San Francisco area\, there is a place called Goat Rock Beach\, where the Russian River meets the Pacific Ocean. On their way to each other\, it appears as though it is a river meeting the ocean. But it is simply water meeting water. We bring our fire\, earth and breath; we bring our human selves…I am grateful for the journey. We are only passing through to learn\, to grow\, to love\, and then to return home.” \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI have gone through many gateways. But I am neither monk\, nor nun\, nor priest. I am neither Zen or Buddhist. I am neither teacher nor guide\, nor author. I am a dark seed of a lineage that has resisted annihilation for thousands of years. I am a voice from the great darkness of transformation\, grace\, and constant birth and death. I am a collective voice that weeps and protests. I am the ever-abundant blackness and darkness that has given birth to everything. I am life from the first source of life. I am because we are. \n—Osho Zenju Earthly Manuel \n\nOfficial Short Bio \nOsho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel\, poet\, author\, ordained Zen priest\, and medicine woman of the drum\, was born in Los Angeles\, California.  She is a dharma heir of Zenkei Blanche Hartman of the Shunryu Suzuki lineage at San Francisco Zen Center. \nRaised in the Church of Christ\, Zenju’s practice was later influenced by Native American and African indigenous traditions. She holds a Ph.D.\, and for decades worked as a social science researcher and development director for non-profit and other organizations serving women and girls\, cultural arts\, and mental health. \nOsho Zenju has written multiple books on Buddhism\, including The Shamanic Bones of Zen\, and her most recent book\, Opening to Darkness: Eight Ways for Being with the Absence of Light in Unsettling Times.  \nRead more about Zenju on her website here. \n\n\n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Osho Zenju Earthyln  Manuel. All are welcome. Register to participate. \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-osho-zenju-earthlyn-manuel/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ZenjuEarthlynManuel-JJ_CALENDAR_500X281-1.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230320T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230320T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230116T184059Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230323T030859Z
UID:10001189-1679335200-1679340600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Double Radiance! Divining Radiance Above & Below - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nJoin us as we examine “Illumination\,” Hexagram 30 in the Book of Changes (Yi Jing)\, to understand the shamanic Chan-Zen roots in this Chinese classic. \nFire is beneficial if correct; then there is success.\nRaising a cow brings good fortune.\nFire has no nature of its own;\nit only appears cleaving to fuel—therefore it is called clinging… \nIn Buddhism\, when demons cause a disturbance\, it is necessary to cleave to correct observation to dissolve obscurity. Therefore\, in each case the benefit is in being correct; therein lies success. A cow is gentle and docile\, yet very strong; it can also give birth to calves. This symbolizes correct concentration being able to produce subtle insight. \n—Book of Changes (Yi Jing)\, Hexagram #30 (Illumination) \nFire below\, fire above. As we investigate the broad shamanic influences on Chan-Zen\, this week we read the Book of Changes (Yi Jing)\, a book of divination. It is the oldest of the ancient Chinese wisdom texts\, predating Confucius and Laozi by a millennium\, and Chan Buddhists by even longer\, and has garnered commentary from all. The Yi Jing hexagrams describe the “inner dynamics of both spiritual life and social life” and is a “basic guide for conscious living\,” writes translator Thomas Cleary. \nSynchronicity. In his forward to the Wilhelm translation of the Book of Changes (1949)\, C.G. Jung suggests that generating a hexagram is a form of synchronicity which “takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance\, namely\, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers.” \nIn other words\, the diviner believes that a hexagram reflects a certain state of mind or natural condition existing both inside a person and in the outside world at any point in time. \nThe major philosophical schools of China embraced the Yi Jing\, adding their own commentary. But the Chan school always identified most closely with the Daoists\, and from early days embraced the elements of the Yi Jing that expressed Chan’s fundamental message of awakening. \nYi Jing of the Five Ranks. Followers of Dongshan have closely linked the Illumination (30th) hexagram to his famous Five Ranks\, a text commonly used even today by Caodong (Soto) and Linji (Rinzai) Zen teachers. The trigrams of the Illumination double-fire hexagram can be reconfigured into a grouping of five linked hexagrams: Gentle\, Penetrating\, Joyous\, Preponderance of the Great\, Inner Truth\, and Illumination. \nThese five are thought to align closely with corresponding lines in Dongshan’s Five Ranks. Lines from these five hexagrams may have inspired elements of the Five Ranks\, according to Leighton (2015)\, including: \nRank One: In the darkest night\, it is perfectly\, truly clear.\nRank Two: You are not it\, but the truth is in you.\nRank Three: In the end it says nothing\, for the words are not yet right\, or true.\nRank Four: Inclined and upright (form and emptiness) interact.\nRank Five: Wondrously embraced within the real\, drumming and singing begin together. \nThe Buddhist Yi Jing. Though some key phrases and symbols were adopted by various Buddhist schools\, it was not until Chan Pure Land monk Zhixu Ouyi (Chih-hsu Ou-i) composed commentaries on the Yi Jing in the 17th century that a comprehensive Buddhist commentary was found. \nInterpretations of this oldest shamanic text shift and change with people\, time and place. Even so\, we may read the hexagrams as showing a progression from the first (bottom) to the sixth (top): from self-discipline\, to tolerance\, energy\, meditation\, and finally wisdom\, writes Cleary. This is the “inexhaustible classic of ancient China.” \nHow are we to read the Yi Jing? \n—Jon Joseph \n\nBelow are lines from the Yi Jing with commentary by the Buddhist monk Zhixu Ouyi in italics. \nHexagram 30: Illumination\, Clinging (Like Fire) \nThe Overall Judgement: Fire is clinging—the sun and moon cling to the sky\, plants cling to the earth. Clinging to what is correct with two-fold illumination transforms and perfects the world. \nThe Image: Illumination doubled makes fire. Great people illuminate the four quarters with continuing light. \nBottom line (yang): The steps are awry; be heedful and their will be no fault. \n—Ouyi: Even with insight\, the practice is not yet purified. \nSecond line (yin): Yellow fires is very auspicious\, attaining the middle way. \n—Ouyi: Subtle concentration in harmony with essence is used to illumine all things. \nThird Line (yang): In the fire of the afternoon sun\, you either drum on a jug and sing\, or lament as in old age. \nFourth Line (yang): Coming forth abruptly\, there is no accommodation. \n—Ouyi: Here\, even though it seems that one has insight and concentration\, in reality one is not balanced and not correct\, unable to harmonize the elements of the path of enlightenment. \nFifth Line (yin): Weeping and lamenting\, there is good fortune. \n—Ouyi: This represents concentration in balance\, which can bring forth genuine insight; therefore progress is certain. \n—Top Line (yang): The king goes on an expedition\, has good luck\, and overcomes the leader\, taking captives\, but not because they are repugnant. No fault. \nOuyi: Strong without excess\, at the peak of illumination\, self-help has already been completed\, so there is a way to transform others. \n\nSources: \nThe I Ching\, or Book of Changes\, Wilhelm (1950)\nClassics of Buddhism and Zen\, The Buddhist I Ching\, Cleary (1983)\nThe Record of Tung-shan\, Powell (1986)\nJust This Is It\, Leighton\, (2015) \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\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-16/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/doubleRadianceCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230313T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230313T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230116T183848Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230310T185545Z
UID:10001192-1678730400-1678735800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Beauty after the Burn - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nBeauty after the Burn \nAfter the wildland fire burns through our lives\, is our forest still a forest if it has no greenery? On Monday night we will talk about choosing joy over despair. \nOne day\, Manjushri asked Sudhana to pick medicinal herbs\, telling him to bring back anything that wasn’t medicine. Sudhana searched all over but couldn’t find anything\, so he came back and said\, “There is nothing that isn’t medicine.” Manjushri said\, “Then bring me something that is medicine.” Sudhana picked a blade of grass and handed it to Manjushri\, who held it up and said\, “This medicine can kill people and it can also bring people to life.” \n—The Blue Cliff Record\, Commentary on Case 87 \nLast week\, my daughter and friends held a reception at an art gallery in the Haight-Ashbury to celebrate the release of Cambium\, their 40-page self-published “zine” that combines art\, poetry\, and essays on wildland fire and the earth. The first issue\, called Unearthed\, implies change\, curiosity\, action\, and discovery. Disruption. It asks questions. What have we taken from the ground? What has the ground taken from us?” \nBring back something that isn’t medicine\, asked Manjushri. \nOne of the articles\, Beauty After the Burn\, written by Maureen Downing-Kunz\, begins\, “As a child\, I spent afternoons playing in a three-cedar grove next to a drainage ditch in suburban Louisville\, Kentucky.” Now\, as an outdoors person and long-time resident of California\, she has been trying to come to terms with the intense wildland fires. Hiking through blackened landscapes left by the Dixie\, Mosquito\, and Caldor fires\, she has begun to ask\, “Is a forest still a forest without greenery?” \nThere is nothing that isn’t medicine\, said Sudhana. \n“Despite the intense and unprecedented wildfires\, life continues in the aftermath. Whether in the form of charred tree remnants with tender basal shoots\, or technicolor displays of wildflowers amidst bleached shrub skeletons—a heart-stirring beauty persists.” \nShe quotes Robin Wall Kimmerer\, a Native American scientist\, “Even a wounded world holds us\, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand\, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” \nThis medicine can kill people and it can also bring people to life\, finished Manjushri. \nWildfire News \nFor millions\, for hundreds of millions of years\nthere were fires.\nFire after fire.\nFire raging forest or jungle\,\ngiant lizards dashing away\nbig necks from the sea looking out at the land in surprise—\nfire after fire.\nLightning strikes by the thousands\, just like today.\nVolcanoes erupting\, fire flowing over the land.\nHuge Sequoia two foot thick fireproof bark\nfire pines\,\ntheir cones love the heat\nhow long to say\,\nthat’s how they covered the continents\nten lakhs of millennia or more.\nI have to slow down my mind.\nslow down my mind\nRome was built in a day. \n—Gary Snyder\, Wildness: Relations of People and Place (2017) \nArt: “Musical Offering\,” Mayumi Oda www.mayumioda.net. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\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-15/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/beautyBurnCALENDAR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230306T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230306T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20230116T183454Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230306T183058Z
UID:10001190-1678125600-1678131000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: The Old Ways - with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\nThe Old Ways \nJoin us on Monday as we begin to explore the deep-ecology roots of Chan-Zen. \nIn our bones is the rock itself;\nin our blood is the river;\nour skin contains the shadow of every living thing we ever came across.\nThis is what we brought with us long ago. \n—Ute tribal song \nI have clearly realized;\nMind is nothing but the mountains\, the rivers\, and the great earth\,\nNothing but the sun\, the moon\, and the stars. \n—Eihei Dogen \nDeepest ecology\, shamanic sources\, mystic roots: Chan-Zen has all of these\, and we will explore a few of them in the coming weeks ahead of a visit by Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel (author of The Shamanic Bones of Zen) at the end of the month. \nCalling on Gaia. When the demon Mara attacked Shakyamuni\, as he sat beneath the Bodhi tree\, it was the earth goddess the Buddha called upon to aid him by touching his hand to the ground. Bodhidharma\, a Brahman prince\, is traditionally credited with bringing Chan meditation to China in the late fifth century. His message\, however\, is largely Daoist\, translator David Hinton believes\, developed by nativist Daoist poets and artists in the centuries before the Indian prince’s arrival. And the foundation for those Daoist sages was a vibrant paleolithic wisdom\, reaching thousands\, if not millions\, of years back in time. \nThe Old Ways. That is what poet Gary Snyder calls them. \nWhat does Gaia\, in this great space\, think she’s doing? What she does is not really our concern. Our day-to-day concern is the shimmering network of the gift-exchange\, the ceremonies of life\, energy\, transformation. Our concern is the kids sleeping in the back room\, snow in the far hills\, a coyote howling in the sagebrush moonlight. (Poem: The Old Ways\, 1974.) \n“Sacred” is but a name. Grasping the deepest ecology in Zen is to understand the nature of Gaia\, which was in motion long before our parents were born\, and is our nature. It is not in the world of good or evil\, profane or sacred. It much much more alive that that. Linji says\, “If you love the sacred and hate the secular\, you’ll float and sink in the birth-and-death sea… sacred is no more than the name ‘sacred’…” Gaia has n name; Gaia is our name. \nWe find something deeply satisfying and comforting in knowing that we need not travel back to paleo time or space to simply realize the “shimmering network of the gift-exchange.” Awakening is the mud sticking to our shoes. It is the kids sleeping in the back room. The racoon snooping around the back door. The Old Ways are our ways. And they are not two with all other things. “The roots of all living things are tied together. When a mighty tree is felled\, a star falls from the sky…”\, says Chan K’in Viejo\, a shaman from the Lacandon rainforest in southern Mexico. \nAfter Work\nby Gary Snyder \nThe shack and a few trees\nfloat in the blowing fog \nI pull out your blouse\,\nwarm my cold hands\non your breasts.\nyou laugh and shudder\npeeling garlic by the\nhot iron stove.\nbring in the axe\, the rake\,\nthe wood \nwe’ll lean on the wall\nagainst each other\nstew simmering on the fire\nas it grows dark\ndrinking wine. \nThe Ute tribal song and Chan K’in Viejo’s words are quoted in The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom\, by Joan Halifax (2004) \nPicture credit: Southern Ute Indian Tribe (southernute-nsn.gov) \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\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-14/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/buddha-gaiaCALENDAR.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230227T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230227T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20221205T234022Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230225T004002Z
UID:10001057-1677520800-1677526200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Inside Monkey\, Outside Monkey with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nJoin us as we visit monkey stories about beginning a journey\, getting lost\, and finding our way. \nYangshan said\, “How do you understand Buddha nature?” \nZhongyi said\, “Well\, let’s say there’s a room with six windows. Inside the room is a monkey. From the east side another monkey screeches through the window\, ‘eeeh\, eeeh!’ The monkey inside then responds\, ‘eeeh\, eeeh!’ The monkey outside screeches into each of the six windows and the monkey inside responds each time.”\n\nYangshan bowed and then said\, “I understand everything in the metaphor you’ve presented\, but there’s one more thing. What if the monkey inside is asleep and the monkey outside wants it to look at him? Then what?”\n\nZhongyi got off the platform\, grabbed Yangshan’s hands\, and did a dance\, exclaiming\, “Monkey! Monkey! Hello monkey!” \n—The Book of Serenity\, Case 72 \nWhen I first heard this koan\, it immediately reminded me of a trip I took long ago with my family to Monkey Park Iwatayama\, in Kyoto\, Japan. On the mountainside across the Oi (Cormorant) River from Tenryu-ji\, one of Kyoto’s most famous Zen temples\, lives a colony of about 120 snow monkeys\, also called Japanese macaques. \nThe monkeys\, the same species that sits in Hokkaido hot springs with snow on their heads\, mostly live off apple slices which tourists buy in shops at the foot of the slope. The monkeys are free-range and aggressive\, and signs warn human visitors not to look them in the eye. \nAt the top of a hill is a concrete hut with wire mesh windows. The shelter is not for the monkeys. It is for the humans\, who must duck in for protection if they wish to feed the animals. People stand inside the hut\, passing apple bits through the wire mesh windows\, while the monkeys swarm and screech around the outside\, jostling each other for treats. \nThe “monkey of the mind” is an ancient Buddhist image of the way the mind moves restlessly. Lewis Hyde\, in his book\, Trickster Makes This World\, uses as one of his many trickster examples the Chinese folk tale of the Monkey King\, who as he ages becomes depressed about his own mortality and starts to make trouble for himself. He becomes an aimless wanderer. “Today he toured the east\, and tomorrow he wandered west… he had no definite itinerary.” \nHearing of the monkey’s troubles\, the Daoist Jade Emperor brings him up to heaven and puts him in charge of guarding the orchard of Peaches of Immortality. The monkey eats all the peaches\, gets drunk on Laozi’s elixir\, and the Buddha is forced to imprison him under a mountain. After half a millennium\, the Monkey King is freed to travel to India and bring back the sacred Buddhist texts. The Monkey King’s dharma name is Wukong (悟空)\, Awakened to Emptiness. \nThe story of the Monkey King\, first told 500 years ago in the Chinese classic\, Journey to the West\, is of course\, our story. Obscured by clouds\, whereabouts unknown\, we set off on a journey to taste immortality—or if not\, to at least better understand our own lives. The Zongyi-Yangshan koan above is also the story of our lives. Monkeys outside screeching\, monkeys inside screeching. Monkey\, monkey\, hello monkey! How close\, how close. \nMonkeys clasping their young\nreturn beyond the purple peaks.\nBirds with flowers in their beaks\nalight in front of the blue cliff.\n\n—Jiashan Shanwui (d. 881) \n(It is said that for a time Yuanwu Keqin lived in Jiashan’s temple\, about 250 years after the master had died. Yuanwu took the last line from one of Jiashan’s poems as the title to his collection of koan commentaries.) \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-11/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/monkeyCALENDAR.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230220T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230220T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20220929T202354Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230221T005228Z
UID:10001136-1676916000-1676921400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES - A Primer for Forgetting: Jon Joseph in Conversation with Essayist Lewis Hyde
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\nA Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past\n\nJoin us for a conversation with Lewis Hyde as we investigate “forgetting” as a creative and social force. \nTo study the buddha way is to study the self.\nTo study the self is to forget the self.\nTo forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.\nWhen actualized by myriad things\, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.\nNo trace of realization remains\, and this no-trace continues endlessly.\n\n—Eihei Dogen\, Genjo Koan \nLewis Hyde\, in his A Primer for Forgetting; Getting Past the Past\, sees the above passage by Dogen as a key point of departure for his book: “Where is your practice? Is it just sitting on the cushion\, or is it your whole life?” Forgetting\, Hyde believes\, is fundamental to healing—of the self\, the culture\, and the nation. \nWhat the soul already knows. Born into this life\, those who seek to recover their lost wisdom need to find a teacher whose task is not to directly teach ideals but rather to remind the student of what the soul already knows. “What we call learning is really just recollection\,” says Socrates to Phaedo. It’s anamnesis\, or unforgetting\, the discovering of things hidden in the mind. \nThe empty studio. Said John Cage to Philip Guston\, “When you start working\, everyone is in your studio—the past\, your friends\, enemies\, the art world\, and above all\, your own ideas—are all there. But as you continue painting\, they start leaving one by one\, and you are left completely alone. Then\, if you are lucky\, even you leave.” \nNot memorizing chess. Emmanuel Lasker was one of the greatest chess players of all time\, holding the world championship for a full twenty-eight years beginning in 1894. His classic Manual of Chess\, published in 1927\, ends with some “final reflections on the education of chess” that include the remark: “Chess must not be memorized…Memory is too valuable to be stocked with trifles. Of my fifty-seven years\, I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I had learned or read\, and since I succeeded in this\, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without.” \nThe Lotus Eaters. My comrades…mingled with the lotus eaters…and whoever of them ate the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus no longer wished to return home\, but there they wish to remain…feeding on the lotus and forgetting their homecoming. —Odyssey \n“Apologists for the Lotus Eaters always insist that the lotus made them forget about their journey home. It does that\, but we prefer to say that the lotus helped them come into the present moment. They stopped having flashbacks to the war\, they stopped daydreaming about a town they hadn’t seen for years\, and they noticed what was going on right then\, right there.” \nHow does a nation forget? The 1964 murders of the black youths Charles Moore and Henry Dee in Mississippi. The Sand Creek Massacre of 150 mostly Cheyenne and Arapaho women and children by the U.S. Army in 1864. “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting\,” writes Milan Kundera. \nHyde: I say the struggle against power is the struggle against the memory of difference. \nWriting a poem. Myself\, when writing poems\, I practice revision by forgetting. I write a draft of the poem\, and then another and another\, allowing the versions to pile up in a jumble—it all sits there\, in a shapeless pile\, clammy with fatigue. Then I set it aside for at least one day. Then I write the poem from memory. Great chunks will have fallen into oblivion\, while others will have returned clarified from the pool. The double goddess [of remembering and forgetting] attends…dropping the discord to reveal the harmony. \nI am the Handyman. All thoughts and feelings are the seeds of possible actions; when we let them blossom into actual action (physical or mental)\, they bear the fruit of individual self. I scratch an itch and now I am a Person-Who-Scratches. I daydream about fixing a leaky facet or building a walnut bookcase and I am the Handyman. I fret about some stupid remark and I am the Dummy. Following a train of thought or action on an impulse is the elemental form of self-making. Not acting but instead returning to the breath is the elemental form of self-forgetting. \nFor Comfort \nFor comfort when I milk the goat\nI lean my forehead on her side.\nFrom there by the barn I can see down\nThrough the sinking evening air\nTo the pond\nWhere the sunset has brought\nTrails of haze up from the water.\nThat’s a form of love: drops of water floating\nIn breath\, the goat’s or mine\,\nor the steam from her hot milk in the dish.\n\n—Lewis Hyde\, This Error Is the Sign of Love \nA gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation. \n—Lewis Hyde \n\nOfficial Short Bio \nLewis Hyde is a poet\, essayist\, translator\, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. His 1983 book\, The Gift\, illuminates and defends the non-commercial portion of artistic practice. Trickster Makes This World (1998) uses a group of ancient myths to argue for the disruptive intelligence that all cultures need if they are to remain lively and open to change. Common as Air (2010) is a spirited defense of our “cultural commons\,” that vast store of ideas\, inventions\, and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to enrich in the present. \nHyde’s most recent book\, A Primer for Forgetting\, explores the many situations in which forgetfulness is more useful than memory—in myth\, personal psychology\, politics\, art & spiritual life. A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University\, Hyde taught writing and American literature for many years at Kenyon College. Now retired\, he lives in Cambridge\, Massachusetts with his wife\, the writer Patricia Vigderman. \nSource: https://lewishyde.com \nLewis Hyde is a national treasure\, one of the true superstars of nonfiction. \n—David Foster Wallace \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nJoin us on Monday for a lively conversation with special guest Lewis Hyde. All are welcome. Register to participate. \n—Jon Joseph
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-a-primer-for-forgetting-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-essayist-lewis-hyde/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LewisHydeJJ-ZenLuminaries.png
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230213T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230213T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20221205T233548Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230213T171521Z
UID:10001056-1676311200-1676316600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: Trickster Stirs Us Up with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA Visit with Two of Lewis Hyde’s Classics \nJoin us as we review Lewis Hyde’s work in preparation for his February 20th appearance at PZI’s Zen Luminaries evening with Jon Joseph. \nKOAN:\n \nThe storehouse of treasures opens of itself.\nYou may take them and use them any way you wish.\n\n—PZI Miscellaneous Koans (Eihei Dogen’s Fukanzazengi) \nIn his classic work\, The Gift; How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World\, Lewis Hyde asks us to recognize the true value of creative labor—the work of artists\, poets\, and teachers—which is essentially given in a gift exchange. A gift exchange establishes connections and cohesion in society; a modern commodity exchange supports a society of divided strangers. But what is the mysterious source of the “gifted state?” \nHyde: \n“An essential portion of any artist’s labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made\, it must be received; and we cannot have this gift except perhaps by supplication\, by courting\, by creating within ourselves that ‘begging bowl’ to which the gift is drawn … \n“A gift exchange is an erotic commerce\, joining self and other\, so the gifted state is an erotic state: in it we are sensible of\, and participate in\, the underlying unity of things. \n“Readers are usually struck by [Walt] Whitman’s bolder\, more abstract assertions of unity—’I am not the poet of goodness only/I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also’—but the real substance of the state Whitman has entered lies in the range of his attention and affections.” \nI…do not call the tortoise unworthy because she\nis not something else\,\nAnd the jay in the woods never studied the gamut\, yet\nTrills pretty well to me\,\nAnd the look of the bay mare shames stillness out of me. \n—Walt Whitman \nIn Trickster Makes This World; Mischief\, Myth and Art\, it is the trickster—Hermes\, Coyote\, Raven—who is the change master. \nHyde: \n“The point of the trickster is to get trade going\, to get liveliness and flow going…the coyote loves to steal things\, likes bright things\, but there is a playfulness about it. It is about play…This figure comes out of polytheistic traditions and has sacred functions\, about keeping the cosmos alive and lively … \n“The trickster is a boundary-crosser. Every group has its edge\, its sense of in and out\, and trickster is always there\, at the gates of the city and the gates of life\, making sure there is commerce. He also attends the internal boundaries by which groups articulate their social life. We constantly distinguish—right and wrong\, sacred and profane\, clean and dirty\, male and female\, young and old\, living and dead—and in every case trickster will cross the line and confuse the distinction.” \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-10/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/trickstersGiftCALENDAR.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230206T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230206T193000
DTSTAMP:20260428T081706
CREATED:20221205T233356Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230207T014747Z
UID:10001055-1675706400-1675711800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN: What Is This Light? with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nPlease join us as we share experiences from our recent winter retreat. Our way out of darkness is through opening the heart-mind. \nYunmen taught\, “Everybody has a light inside. When you’re looking for it\, you can’t see; it’s dark\, dark\, hidden. What is this light that everybody has?”\nHe himself answered\, “The kitchen pantry\, the temple gate.”\nThen he said\, “It’s better to have nothing than something good.”\n\n—The Blue Cliff Record\, Case 86 \nThis morning we completed our winter sesshin\, and it is said that while in retreat\, every possible emotion will show itself in the course of those six or seven days. That the heart-mind naturally comes forth in all its variations is the very basis of our inquiry work. Last night\, before bed\, I took my dog out and was nearly in tears at the beauty of the world illuminated by a full moon after a few days of much-needed rain. I composed a poem as I walked: \nBlue leash and black dog\,\nFeet splash puddles of full snow moon.\nBroken clouds\, adrift.\n\nYunmen’s koan also allows us to dip into the dark\, the shadow. In giving a talk to the retreat group\, I spoke of my first Zen teacher\, Robert “Senor” King\, who spent his early childhood in Manila\, the Philippines\, during the Japanese occupation in World War II. During this cruel occupation\, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos perished. As a child\, he contracted poliomyelitis\, which disabled his legs for life. Senor King lived most of his life alone. But in an unpublished collection of poems that he left me when he died\, he had written a long poem about a brief affair with a young woman twenty years his junior. It reads\, in part: \nOur loving\nflowing\, freely gentle\,\nmelting\, delighting\nour hearts\, bodies\nremembering! …\n\nIt was such a joy for me to read the poem. It may be difficult to always see the light that is inside us. But it is always there\, and it never fails us. It is the light that shines in the most common of places: in the kitchen pantry and at the entrance gate. And it is something very good. \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-9/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/light-sunsetCALENDAR-1.jpg
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