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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260119T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260119T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251229T115901Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260109T132107Z
UID:10002269-1768845600-1768851000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph & Friends: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return next week. We hope you join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-friends-6/
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:20260119T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260119T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251216T151835Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260120T200853Z
UID:10002235-1768845600-1768851000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:PACIFIC ZEN LUMINARIES: Wherever You Go – Jon Joseph & Friends in Conversation with Jon Kabat-Zinn
DESCRIPTION:Jon Kabat-Zinn\, Ph.D. joins host Jon Joseph & Friends to discuss his 60 years of meditation practice\, prolific writing\, and outstanding work as a pioneer in the insight and mindfulness meditation movement. \nJon is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School\, where he founded its world-renown Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic in 1979\, and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine\, Health Care\, and Society (CFM)\, in 1995. Both the MBSR Clinic and the CFM are now part of UMassMemorial Health. \nHis work and that of his colleagues has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness practice now used in numerous mainstream institutions throughout the world including medicine\, psychology\, education\, social and criminal justice\, sports\, and technology. Over 700 hospitals and medical centers around the world now offer MBSR. \nPlease join us in welcoming Jon\, one of the great contributors to globalization of meditation practice today. \nSource: https://jonkabat-zinn.com \n“deally\, meditation is not something we do\, but something we live. Jon Kabat-Zinn points the way to this living spirit with clarity\, ease\, and poetry. \n—Sharon Salzberg\, author of Lovingkindness and Faith \n[Wherever You Go\, There You Are] shines with an exquisite simplicity and straightforwardness. Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of the best teachers of mindfulness you will ever meet. \n—Jack Kornfield\, author of A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy\, the Laundry \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nAll proceeds for each event\, including teacher dana\, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able\, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests.
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/luminaries-jon-kabat-zinn-01-19-26/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Jon-Kabat-Zinn_square.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260112T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251229T114546Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260109T183635Z
UID:10002267-1768240800-1768246200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph & Friends: Attention\, Attention
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nThe purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times\, to be of the present\, nothing-but-the-present\, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life.\n\n —Peter Matthiessen\, The Snow Leopard\n\nIn 1979 Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Stress Reduction Clinic and MBSR program (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Wouster. His program and world-renowned book\, Full Catastrophe Living\, originally intended to improve patient health outcomes\, is not only found in over 700 hospitals worldwide\, but has also been applied in psychology\, sports\, business\, and criminal justice\, impacting thousands\, if not millions\, of lives. \nThe wellspring of mindfulness meditation is Buddhist\, but Kabat-Zinn’s approach is decidedly secular. In one of his popular books\, Wherever You Go\, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life\, he writes\, \n“Mindfulness has been called the heart of Buddhist meditation. Its power lies in its practice and its applications. In my vocabulary\, ‘mindfulness’ is synonymous with pure awareness. It is a profound inborn human capacity. You already have it. We all do. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say we are it\, as it is such a fundamental element of our nature as human beings. So there is nothing to get here\, except perhaps out of our own way\, so that easy access to the spaciousness of awareness emerges on its own.” \nSome further excerpts from the book: \n“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel and knowing it in awareness in that moment. It’s not about making the mind empty or still\, although stillness does deepen in meditation and can be cultivated systematically. Above all\, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. \n“It is more rightly thought of as a “Way” than as a technique. It is a Way of being\, a Way of living\, a Way of listening\, a Way of walking the path of life and being in harmony\, in wise relationship\, with things as they are rather than as we might idealistically want them to be. This means in part acknowledging that sometimes\, often at very crucial times in life\, you really have no idea where you are going or even where the path lies. \n“The truly interesting question here is “What is my Way?’ with a capital W…We don’t have to come up with answers or think there has to be one particular answer. Better not to think at all. Instead\, only persist in asking the question\, letting any answers that formulate just come of themselves and go of themselves…“What is my Way?” “What is my path?” “Who am I?” \nIn such a day\, in September or October\, Walden is a perfect forest mirror\, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair\, so pure\, and at the same time so large\, as a lake\, perchance\, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack\, whose quicksilver will never wear off\, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms\, no dust\, can dim its surface everfresh…which retains no breath that is breathed on it…\n\n—Henry David Thoreau\, Walden; or Life in the Woods \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-81/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Birch_still-pond_500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260105T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260105T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251229T114653Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251229T114653Z
UID:10002268-1767636000-1767641400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on January 12th. Join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-on-break-13/
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:20251229T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251229T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T172944Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251229T114730Z
UID:10002203-1767029400-1767034800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on January 12th. Join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-on-break-12/
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:20251222T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251222T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173109Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251220T131434Z
UID:10002211-1766424600-1766430000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph & Friends: Happy Buddha\, Fat Buddha
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nThe large\, rotund physique\, a sack full of gifts\, and love of children characterize the archetype of Santa Claus and China’s jolly Budai (Japanese: Hotei)\, a comparison that has invited comment for decades. Well known stories feature each of these two demi-gods\, stories full of magical thinking and wonder-filled spirit. \nThe Laughing Buddha\, the Happy Buddha\, the Fat Buddha: All are names for the pot-bellied Budai (which means “Cloth Bag” 布袋)\, who was an actual Tang-era monk\, a beloved figure of artists and storytellers for a millennium. The Chan poet Kuoan Shiyuan featured Budai’s visage in his depiction of the final stage of awakening in this famous verse from his Ten Oxherding Pictures: \nBehind a brushwood gate\, alone in his hut\, even a thousand sages don’t know.\nBurying his own natural beauty\, he avoids the wagon tracks of past wisemen.\nDangling a gourd\, he enters the town; pounding his staff\, he returns home.\nVisiting wine bars and fish stalls\, these become for him the Buddha.\n\nWith chest bare and bare footed\, he enters the marketplace.\nCovered in the grit of the earth\, painted with ash\, he breaks into a great laugh.\nWithout using the mountain wizard’s secrets\,\nHe teaches the old tree and withered flowers how to bloom.\n\nI was in the third grade when my classmate Rodney came up to a couple of us kids standing around the playground. We were talking about what we wanted from Santa for Christmas and he came right out with it: “Santa Claus is stupid. There is no such thing. Your parents made it up.” Though in the same grade\, he was a little older and tougher than the rest of us. Somebody said he had a brother in jail; one morning in the fifth grade he rode his motorcycle to school. \nI was stunned and angry about his claim – my whole understanding of the holiday world was at risk. Thinking about it now\, I wasn’t afraid of losing “stuff\,” older kids\, who presumably were aware of the ruse\, still got presents. I was afraid of losing the magic and warmth of giving and receiving. \nWhen I got home\, I asked my dad about what Rodney had said\, and he had an idea: “Well\, let’s call the operator and ask her!” He picked up the beige rotary phone hanging on our kitchen wall (our number was Yellowstone 5-4545)\, got the operator on\, and said\, “My young son here heard that there is no Santa Claus. Can you please talk with him?” My father handed me the phone and the kind voice of a young lady assured me there was a Santa and he would be coming soon. I was hugely relieved that the world as I knew it was still intact. \n“Yes\, Virginia\, there is a Santa Claus\,” wrote Francis Pharcellus Church in the fall of 1897\, responding to a letter sent to The New York Sun by eight-year old Virginia O’Hanlon. “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist\, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.” \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-73/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Budai-Hotei_500w.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251215T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251215T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251212T201236Z
UID:10002210-1765819800-1765825200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: In Disaster Relief\, Every Day Is a Good Day with Special Guests Ewen Arnold & Claudia Gassner with a field report from Sri Lanka
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nTwo weeks ago\, cyclone Ditwah formed in the northern Indian Ocean and rolled up the east coast of Sri Lanka\, slamming that country with its most destructive storm in a century. The storm brought 29.5 inches of rain in just a few days\, in some areas. The result was widespread flooding and mudslides that killed or sent missing over 800 people\, and caused an estimated $6 billion in damage. \nYunmen said\, “I’m not asking you about before the storm.\nCome and say a word or  two about after the storm.”  \nAnd he himself replied\, “Every day is a good day.” \n\nHardest hit was the district of Kandy\, where Pacific Zen members Ewen Arnold and his partner Claudia Gassner live and work for the Training\, Empowerment\,  Awareness (TEA) Project\, which brings aid to children of tea plantation workers\, the poorest of the poor in Sri Lanka. Ewen and Claudia also practice and teach at the nearby Nalambe Buddhist Meditation Center. \nEwen recently sent a field note to PZI Talk\, which I’m sharing here: \nEvery day is a good day. Absolutely shattered. Overwhelmed. Empty. \nFive days of collecting funds\, buying food stuffs\, receiving clothes\, receiving blankets\, sorting\, packing\, arranging transport\, traveling through places where the roads are totally broken and there are landslides every 200 meters. \nEvery day is a good day. Every day is a good day. \nReceiving deliveries in the middle of the night. Sleeping three hours and then getting up and starting again the next day. I’m 73 years old for God’s sake. \nIn the area near where I live\, there are eleven schools which are full of people sheltering who have lost their homes\, lost everything. And the sun is shining. And the birds are singing. And still this countryside is immensely beautiful\, although scarred in places. \nEvery day is a good day. \nPeople are so grateful\, so incredibly grateful\, it makes me cry. And crying is part of the good day. So much suffering alongside so much beauty. Still the kids play amongst the ruins of their house\, and smile and laugh. They ask us our name\, they ask us where we’re from. They’re amazed that I’m 73 years old. Their smiles go right through me and out the other side into the day. \nYesterday afternoon at home someone came to my door\, holding the hand of a small boy\, about five I’d guess. He started telling me a story in the Sinhala language about losing everything. I was so tired and empty I just wanted him to go away. But I did manage to put together a bag of food for him. \nI dream at night of green hills and landslides\, faces smiling and sad\, hands giving and receiving\, and the beautiful heartful people I’m working with. I have met and gotten to better know so many wonderful people in the last week. And it’s beautiful\, doing it with my partner\, even if we get frustrated with each other at times. \nThis too. This too. This too is a good day. \n—Ewen Arnold \n****************** \nFurther notes from Ewen about the TEA Project: \nWe are working through a charity called the TEA Project\, which Claudia\, my partner\, works for.  It is based not far from Kandy\, Sri Lanka\, on the other side of the hill from Nilambe\, the place where I teach meditation. I have been involved with The TEA Project as a sponsor for years too. \nNormally they are concerned with training and educating the children of the workers from the nearby tea estates.  These communities are very poor and are critically in need as a result of the cyclone. These families rely on daily wages\, plucking tea barefoot on steep mountains\, in both rain and scorching sun. Their living conditions were already harsh; now\, many of their line houses and surrounding areas have been severely damaged or completely destroyed. Claudia and I and others on behalf of The TEA Project are currently distributing dry rations and will assess further needs. \nLink to the TEA Project website: https://theteaproject.org/ \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-74/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Tea-project_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251208T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173227Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251204T230346Z
UID:10002209-1765215000-1765220400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Kathmandu
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nHelen Tworkov\, in her recent book\, Lotus Girl\, recounts how she spent some months in Kathmandu and Pokhara\, Nepal in the mid-1960s. She found herself among Tibetan refugees who had made a perilous journey across the Himalayas to escape the Chinese invasion of their homeland. Less than half had survived the journey. What impressed Helen most about the refugees was their ability to experience joy even in the midst of their suffering. They were able to see the light inside the dark. \nYunmen taught\, “Everybody has a light inside. Sometimes it’s dark\, dark\, hidden and hard to see. What is this light?” \n“What is that light?”\, asked Yunmen.\nHe answered himself\, “Kitchen pantry and temple gate.”\n\nTwenty years after Helen’s travels I found myself in Kathmandu\, also experiencing that light\, as a blessing from the Hindu goddess of fortune. \nIn the mid 80s I was hired by a large publisher of books and magazines to return to Japan\, where I had lived for four years as a correspondent covering business news for magazines like International Plastics and BusinessWeek. Expected in Tokyo on the first of November\, I decided to take three weeks beforehand to trek in Nepal. \nKathmandu was a densely packed\, low-rise city built of brick and mud an painted in earth tones. It was also exceedingly poor. I was a little ashamed of my revulsion at the poverty: streets lined with garbage\, town squares littered with human waste and the occasional dead animal. It was a relief for me to escape the misery of the city for a climb into the grand purity of the Himalayas. \nIn the trekking permit office\, I was lucky to join up with a small group from Seattle to hike the backside of the Annapurna range\, a range of imposing peaks five miles high. In the first ten days we made good time\, but after crossing the 5\,000-meter Thorong-La Pass\, I realized that if I were to make my October 28 airplane departure to Tokyo via Bangkok—the beginning of my new career and life—I would have to go ahead alone. \nFearful of losing my job if I were late\, I hiked for the three days from pre-dawn dark to sunset\, covering much of the hundred miles from Muktinath to Pokhara in flip flops to allow my boot-shod feet to heal. \nOn the morning of the fourth day\, I entered the dusty bus station at Pokhara\, ready to jump on a bus for the six-hour ride to Kathmandu. Nothing. No buses. No attendants. Someone said the bus station was closed for an extended holiday. \nExhausted\, discouraged\, and now sure I would be late for my job\, I threw my pack on the front steps of the station and sat down. A few minutes later a young man with a cheap Indian-made camera approached and asked if I would fix it for him. Its shutter was stuck\, which I easily unjammed. Handing it back to him I asked\, “Now\, can you find me a ride to Kathmandu?” A half hour later\, I was favored to be bumping eastward along the Prithvi Highway in a beat-up Toyota Celica\, with three Brahmins squished in the back and me sharing the front with a young driver pining for his girlfriend in Kathmandu. We were mostly silent during the long drive and arrived on the outskirts of Kathmandu in the dark. \nEntering the city\, all electric street and house lights were extinguished\, but every window was glowing with the warm light of oil lamps. It was the first night of the Hindu Festival of Light\, Diwali\, which honors Lakshmi\, the mother of the universe and goddess of good fortune. This festival celebrates the victory of light over dark. The flickering oil lamps helped me find my way back from the third to the first world of schedules\, jobs\, and industry. Yet it’s still important for me to ask: “What is that light?” \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-75/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Diwali-oil-lamps_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251201T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251201T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173253Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251129T005424Z
UID:10002208-1764610200-1764615600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on December 8th. We hope you join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-76/
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:20251124T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251124T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173504Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251117T163049Z
UID:10002207-1764005400-1764010800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Monday Zen is ON BREAK for Pacific Zen Luminaries\, but will return on December 1st. Join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-77/
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:20251124T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251124T183000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251030T171532Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251030T181832Z
UID:10002229-1764003600-1764009000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:PACIFIC ZEN LUMINARIES: Lotus Girl — Jon Joseph in Conversation with Helen Tworkov\, founding editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nHelen Tworkov joins host Jon Joseph to discuss her editorial work and writing including her most recent book\, Lotus Girl: My Life at the Crossroads of Buddhism and America. \nTworkov is the founding editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review\, the first independent Buddhist magazine; and the author of Zen in America: Profiles of Five Teachers; and co-author\, with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche\, of In Love with the World: A Monks’s Journey through the Bardos of Living and Dying. \nShe first encountered Buddhism in Japan and Nepal during the 1960s\, and has studied in both the Zen and Tibetan traditions. She began studying with Mingyur Rinpoche in 2006 and currently divides most of her time between New York and Nova Scotia. Her new book\, published in April 2024\, is Lotus Girl: My Life at the Crossroads of Buddhism and America. \nAn excerpt of her new book is available online at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. \nSource: helentworkov.com \n“My favorite parts of this very American and far-ranging story chart Helen Tworkov’s deeply personal discovery of the vast\, boundless dimensions of mind. As she recognizes mind itself as the source of suffering and the key to liberation\, we are treated to a forthright account of an absorbing journey filled with honesty\, humor\, and wisdom.” \n—Pema Chödrön  \n“With Tricycle magazine\, Helen Tworkov had the vision to create a forum for dialogue about Buddhism in the West. Lotus Girl provides an inside look at how her art world background and the political issues of those days prompted her personal search for wisdom and spiritual development. This rich and unique memoir has value for any reader interested in the possibilities of positive change.” \n—Philip Glass \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nAll proceeds for each event\, including teacher dana\, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able\, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests. \nOur suggested donation is $10 for PZI Members and $12 for Non-Members\, but the scale slides from zero depending on one’s ability to contribute. We also greatly appreciate Patrons\, who help support the program with larger gifts of $25—$250.
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/luminaries-helen-tworkov-nov25/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Helen-Tworkov_500.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251117T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251117T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173533Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251114T214506Z
UID:10002206-1763400600-1763406000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: “You Can’t Call It a Shoe” and Other Spectacular Fails
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nEarly last week\, in the predawn darkness\, I awoke from deep sleep repeating the fragment of a koan. I don’t know if it was part of a dream or just a memory that fell off the sleep train. But the fragment was so vivid that it made me laugh as I got up. \nYou can’t call it a shoe. \nThat was how the head monk responded. It is considered one of the great bonehead responses to a teacher’s mondo\, or dharma question\, in all of koan literature. \nYou know the story well: \nMaster Baizhang was looking for someone to establish a temple\, so he set up a contest to find his most worthy student. He placed a bottle in front of the assembly and said\, “Don’t call this a water bottle. What will you call it?” The head monk\, who was a bit inflated with self-importance\, answered\, ”You can’t call it a shoe.” \nA truly cringe-worthy response. Yet even that answer had a bit of dull light in it. No\, a bottle is not a shoe. It is just a bottle. \nThen the cook\, Guishan\, came forward and showed the bottle’s bottle-ness by kicking it over and walking out. He won the contest and went on to found\, together with his protégé Yangshan\, the first of the five great schools of Tang era Chan/Zen. \nWho knows what became of the head monk. Maybe he constructed higher walls by blaming his teacher\, his community\, or the teachings. \nOne time in a group gathering I was asked to give a spontaneous five-minute presentation on a koan: Master Ma’s Sun-faced Buddha\, Moon-faced Buddha. My first reaction was shock: I thought I was too senior to be called upon and had been looking forward to giving others a chance to talk. Then I felt relief. I had written about the koan a few weeks ago and thought I could use that. \nIn my presentation I mostly repeated the points I had written in my note but it didn’t seem to be going well. So I asked if I could relate a dream I had had the night before. In that dream I walked into a large forest service cabin deep in an old-growth forest. Turning left from the entry room\, I went through a doorway into a bedroom\, where John Tarrant was in bed. I asked if there was anything I could do for him. He said\, “No\, I’m fine. Thank you.” With that\, I walked out of the house. \nThe dream\, of course\, was the presentation. But I felt embarrassed and ashamed as a senior teacher on how I had started out. I felt I had failed. \nPerhaps that was why I was laughing when I awoke the other morning with that koan fragment in my mind. The bone-headed response was actually funny: You can’t call it a shoe. It was a perfect response in its own way – a true reflection of the head monk’s mind in that moment. A miracle\, really. \nWe feel the way we do\, and then keep going\, climbing the hundred foot pole just so we can jump off again. It’s the climbing\, not the falling that matters. \n”Let’s talk recklessly\,” the poet William Stafford would say\, ”I need to be willingly fallible to deserve a place in realm where miracles happen.” \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-78/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/JonJosephCALENDAR500X375.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251110T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251110T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173558Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251108T150614Z
UID:10002205-1762795800-1762801200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Just Going Is Enough: The Answers Will Be There
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nElder Ting asks LInji a question. Linji comes off his seat and shoves the old man. Elder stands frozen\, and a monk standing nearby asks\, “Elder Ting\, why don’t you bow?” He bows. \nA traveling nun stopped by Juzhi’s temple. She walked around him three times while he was sitting\, and said\, “If you can say a word that satisfies me\, I will take off my hat and stay.” He could not\, so she left. \nActs of creativity and spontaneity have long been greatly valued by Chan–Zen masters in countless encounters over many many centuries. The universe is too large to say these qualities are required for awakening–afterall\, clouds also drift in the sky with a creative ease and Mocha the dog often barks with noisy spontaneity. But moving before thought in our own floating world somehow makes us more porous to the light that shines through all things. A touch of life less scripted\, before attaching to names like good or evil\, enlightened or deluded\, nice clouds and bad dog\, somehow affirms the freshness we already know surrounds us. \nThe dream world can offer us access to the space where the universe is still fluid. When in the dream world\, as a friend recently suggested\, we aren’t given an option to check ourselves; we experience ourselves just as we are. \nDokusan (J. honorable going alone)\, where we meet a teacher one-on-one\, can be a chance to enter the life of a koan without checking ourselves. A remembrance of dream–dokusans past came to me recently. \nIn a dream from several months ago\, I was sitting with a few others in the dokusan line at the SanUn Zendo\, in Kamakura\, waiting to see Koun Yamada\, something I had done hundreds of times. A woman before me rang the bell and went in. I moved up to the front\, and asked myself\, “What answer should I give?’ As I asked the question\, I opened my arms out wide and felt a deep sense of emptiness and light spread out in front of me. Then I thought\, “No\, don’t give that answer. Go\, and when you get there\, you will know.” \nIn the second dream\, which I remember vividly from a couple of years ago\, a group of about forty of us were sitting in a large dining hall\, kind of like the one in Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft. We were in sesshin\, silently eating\, and I kind of furtively looked left and right and thought\, “If I told them how very simple it is\, they would never believe me.” Then\, to the left\, Taizan Maezumi\, whose sesshin I joined as a young man\, walked perpendicular to the dining room and went down a short hall to his dokusan room. I was scheduled to go to see him and thought\, “What should I say?” Answering myself\, I realized I didn’t have to say anything. That just the going is the answer. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-79/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Storyville_500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251103T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251103T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20251010T173628Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251031T190119Z
UID:10002204-1762191000-1762196400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Timmy Falls Into the Well
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nWhat are you trying to say\, Lassie? Timmy fell into the well?\n\n —Mr. Martin\, Timmy’s stepfather in the TV show\, Lassie \n  \nWhat is the way?\nThe clearly enlightened person falls into a well. \n—Second of Baling Haojian’s Three Barriers\, PZI MK Case 74 \n  \nSomething or someone always seems to be falling into a well. \nAnd then there is the koan where Caoshan is talking to Elder De\, coming in from a high altitude and poetic. The Elder is a little more barnyard: \n“The Buddha’s true reality body is like space\, its form is a manifest response to beings\, like the moon in the water. How would you respond?”\nElder De said\, “It’s like a donkey looking in a well.”\nCaoshan said\, “That was really good\, but you said only eighty percent.”\nDe said\, “Well\, what about you teacher?”\n“It’s like the well looking at the donkey.” \nIt has been a tough several months in our household with the decline and finally the passing of both Nonno and Nonni.  A couple of nights after the last memorial\, Lynne and I were brushing our teeth and a strange request came out of me. I’m not even sure why I asked it; perhaps to bring a small bit of levity back into our lives. \nI asked her\, “What was that thing you said about Lassie?” She said\, “What? You mean a long time ago?” I said\, “Ya\, the thing about Lassie; you knew something. Something was said.” I couldn’t even recall the particulars but somewhere in my psyche it was important to me. \nShe said: ”What? You must mean when Lassie goes to the father\, who asks: ’Lassie\, what are you trying to say? Did Timmy fall into the well?’” \nI absolutely lost it\, burst out laughing and couldn’t stop until tears came to my eyes. It felt good to laugh again. \nIn the nineteen seasons the series ran on TV\, in nearly 600 episodes\, and with nine Lassies\, Timmy never once fell into a well. Perhaps he left it for us to do. \nWe fall into the well. Then the well falls into us. The donkey is looking down\, and at the same time the well is looking up. Relationships matter. A friend who was soon moving to Texas once said\, “I am getting ready for San Antonio\,” adding\, “And San Antonio is getting ready for me.” \nIndeed. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-80/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Lassie-Timmy_500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251027T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251027T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250930T131323Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251028T222204Z
UID:10002175-1761588000-1761593400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:PACIFIC ZEN LUMINARIES: Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir – Jon Joseph in Conversation with Author David Chadwick
DESCRIPTION:David Chadwick\, author\, activist\, musician\, and Zen priest\, joins host Jon Joseph for remembrances about the early days of San Francisco Zen Center and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. \nDavid began his study of Zen in 1966 under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi who ordained him as a priest in 1971\, shortly before Suzuki’s death. Later\, Chadwick continued to study with Zentatsu Baker Roshi and assisted in the operation of the San Francisco Zen Center for a number of years. Throughout this time\, he helped SFZC develop its centers and businesses\, including Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. \nHe is widely known as the primary archivist and biographer of Shunryu Suzuki\, with his Crooked Cucumber (1999)\, Zen is Right Here (2007)\, and Zen is Right Now (2021). Now\, Chadwick has begun to publish a three part series of anecdotes and recollections of the founding of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center\, called Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir\, of the first Zen monastery in the United States. \nIn addition to writing books\, David created maintains three websites\, Cuke.com (“an archival site on the life and world of Shunryu Suzuki and those who knew him”); ZMBM (a site dedicated to his book Zen Mind\, Beginner’s Mind); and Shunryusuzuki.com (a comprehensive archive of Shunryu Suzuki’s talks\, video\, photos\, and more). All these archives are free to the public. “I like to preserve things\,” he notes. \nSource: Cuke.com\, SFZC.com \n“Tassajara Stories is a marvelous and entertaining book and David Chadwick is a tremendous storyteller. We have here a record of his lifelong passion to record the arrival of Zen in California. I opened the book to check it out\, sat down at the kitchen table and there went my afternoon\, reading and reading. The best thing\, though\, is that these stories touch on the core of practice\, and the reason you might want to turn your heart toward the great matter. David encourages us to Zen practice in a subtle and amusing way. I’m giving it as a gift and reading it again myself.” \n—John Tarrant\, Director of The Pacific Zen Institute and author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros and Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life.  \nFrom the preface to Tassajara Stories:  \n“Shakkei is the outlying mountains and trees and whatever else one can see from a garden. If we look at what happened at Tassajara as being the garden of the book\, then the other content is the shakkei. This borrowed scenery sets Tassajara and our experience in that valley in a broad context that gives background and color to who we were and how we got there\, and includes the mountains\, the woods\, the road\, our neighbors\, the city\, the times\, the war\, the counterculture\, what was happening all around us.” \n—David Chadwick \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nAll proceeds for each event\, including teacher dana\, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able\, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests. \nOur suggested donation is $10 for PZI Members and $12 for Non-Members\, but the scale slides from zero depending on one’s ability to contribute. We also greatly appreciate Patrons\, who help support the program with larger gifts of $25—$250.
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/luminaries-tassajara-days-david-chadwick/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/David-Chadwick_500.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251027T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251027T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250826T130657Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250930T133137Z
UID:10002173-1761586200-1761591600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is on break for Pacific Zen Luminaries. Join us again on November 3rd!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-69/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251020T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251020T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250826T130735Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251017T153103Z
UID:10002172-1760981400-1760986800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Who Is Hearing the Sound of the Rain?
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nEarly this week we wound our way up the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains to begin a fall meditation retreat at the Mount Madonna Center. On the way up\, we were met by slashing rain and terrific winds as the first major storm of the year swept in from the Pacific\, only a few miles away. “Who is hearing?” became the thematic koan of the sesshin\, as we gathered the first night in the zendo\, listening to the drumming of rain on the darkened zendo roof. The coast redwoods and Chinook salmon were happy at the sound of the storm\, and so were we. \nEarly on in the sesshin we spoke of seasonal influences: Yunmen’s golden wind revealed itself; Wumen’s lovely poem appeared: \nIn spring flowers\, in autumn the moon\nIn summer cool breezes\, and winter snow.\nIf idle concerns don’t cloud the mind\,\nThis is the very best season. \nAnd as the days unfolded\, the “thusness” of sitting together in silence\, the soft clucking of wild turkey hens searching for acorns in the oak copse\, the clinking of spoons in bowls of warm morning gruel\, and the soundless sound of a strawberry sunrise over the Pajaro Valley. All brought an immediacy and intimacy to our shared time. \nSeveral hours south of Santa Cruz\, just over the Big Sur ridge is Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. David Chadwick\, one of its founding monastics and life-long chronicler of the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki (d. 1971)\, will be visiting our Pacific Zen Luminaries series to discuss his new book\, Tassajara Stories: A Sort of Memoir about the first year of the monastery’s founding\, in 1967. Suzuki\, best known for Zen Mind\, Beginner’s Mind (1970)\, a compilation of some of his talks\, was the founding abbot of Tassajara\, San Francisco Zen Center\, and Green Gulch Farm. HIs teachings have touched millions of people over the past half century. \n—Jon Joseph \nFrom an August 12\, 1971 talk at Tassajara: \nUnless you go through emptiness\, you are not practicing. But if you stick to an idea of emptiness\, you are not a Buddhist yet. Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower\, watching the sunflowers\, a cup of sun\, So I tried it too. It was wonderful. The whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation. A wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower. If you say\, “Oh\, this sunflower doesn’t really exist\, that is not our zazen practice. \nSuzuki’s final lecture on August 21\, 1971: \nTo solve our human problem doesn’t cover all of Buddhist practice\, and we don’t know how long it takes to make the buddha trip. We have many trips: work trips\, space trips\, the many trips we must have. The buddha trip is a very long trip. This is Buddhism. Thank you. \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-70/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Mount-madonna.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251013T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251013T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250826T130814Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251006T112703Z
UID:10002171-1760376600-1760382000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:ON BREAK for Great Fall Sesshin. Join us again on October 20th! \n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-71/
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:20251006T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251006T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250826T130843Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251004T123958Z
UID:10002170-1759771800-1759777200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: The Space Between
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nWuzu Fayan said\, “If you meet a man on the path who has accomplished the Way\, do not greet him with words or silence. Tell me\, how will you greet him?”\n \n—Gateless Gate Case 36 \nThrough his years of teaching\, Wuzu has served as a guide entering the space between words and silence. This is the place where we might discover “before thinking good or evil.” There are no protective barriers here—no walls\, no safety. It is just this. \nWe have been visiting with Song Era Chan masters these past weeks. \nIn ancient China there were three periods of Zen\, the Legendary period (5th–8th c.)\, when the likes of half-historical and partly-mythical Bodhidharma and Huineng walked the earth. Then we have the Classical period (8th–10th c.)\, the time of Mazu\, Baizhang\, Huangbo\, Linji\, Dongshan and the other ancients we know from koan stories. Finally\, the Literary period (10th–13th c.)\, the era of the Song greats: Dahui\, Yuanwu\, and Wuzu in China\, and Hongzhi\, Wumen\, and Dogen in Japan. \nWuzu Fayan entered the monastery at thirty-five years old\, rather late\, back in the day. He was said to be unassuming and plain-spoken\, which was in great contrast to his successors\, ‘son’ Yuanwu and his ‘grandson’ Dahui\, both literary firebrands. \nZen is said to be beyond scriptures and words. But what do we say upon hearing of a friend’s grave illness? How do you respond when you get notice you’ve been laid off? Or when your grandchild is born? Are those moments beyond silence and speech? They kind of are. “And yet\, and yet\,” writes Issa\, “the dewdrop world is the dewdrop world.” Words themselves are that dewdrop world. \nWuzu once told a story about going to the marketplace\, where\, he saw a puppet show for the first time. Fascinated\, he went in for a closer look: The puppets appeared to be moving around on their own\, walking and sitting down with dynamic arms and legs. Wuzu could see the puppeteer behind the blue curtain. \nHe called out\, “Sir! What is your name?”\nThe puppeteer responded\, “Honored priest\, just watch the show. Why ask for names?” Wuzu told his monks\, “Brothers\, when I heard him say this\, I had not a single word in response\, nor a single idea to espouse\,” adding\, “Can any of you say something in my place?” \nThe koans credited to Wuzu are often spare: \nFor example\, it’s just like a water buffalo passing through a latticed window. Her head\, horns\, and four legs have passed through. Why is it that her tail can’t pass through? \nEven Śākyamuni and Maitreya are servants of that one. Tell me\, who is the one? \nThe girl Qian and her true soul were separated. Which is the true Qian? \nWhen Wuzu was ill and failing\, he went to the hall and bade the monks farewell\, saying “Zhaozhou had some final words. Do you remember them? Let’s see if you can recite them.” When no one responded\, Wuzu recited Zhou’s words: \nFortune few among the thousand\,\nBut one has countless pains and sorrows. \nThen Wuzu said\, “Take care\,” and passed away that night. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-72/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wandering-on-the-path_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250929T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250929T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250825T162546Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250926T172624Z
UID:10002167-1759167000-1759172400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Duck Legs Are Naturally Short
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA crane’s legs are naturally long and a duck’s legs are naturally short.\nA pine tree is naturally tall and straight\, while brambles are naturally crooked.\nGeese are white\, crows are black.\nEverything is manifested in this manner…\nDo you have it? Do you have it?” \n—Yuanwu Keqin\, from The Record of Foguo \nYuanwu Keqin (Perfect Enlightenment) along with his teacher Wuzu Fayan and his student Dahui Zonggao\, formed a triad in the Linji School koan tradition in 12th-century China that remains an abiding foundation in Chan-Zen. Yuanwu is best known for his commentary on the 100-case collection of koans and verses called The Blue Cliff Record (pub. 1128). The Blue Cliff Record\, named for the temple at the Blue Cliff where Yuanwu gave lectures\, is the most famous Chan koan collection of all time\, and is used around the world in zendos today. \nYuanwu’s poetry can be extraordinarily beautiful\, like his preface to The Blue Cliff Record: \nBoundless wind and moon—the eye within eyes\nInexhaustible heaven and earth—the light beyond the light\nKnock on any door—there is one who will answer \nAcceptance is a key feature of Zen practice. \nAccepting that cranes have long legs and ducks short\, accepting the naturalness of a world in which pine trees are tall and brambles crooked. And what of us? Do we have it? We too are tall or short\, straight or gay\, progressive or conservative. Do we need to make any of that wrong? Or right? The universe does neither—John Tarrant says the universe has opinions similar to a microwave oven: It takes in everything. \nIn another passage\, Yuanwu asks\, “Just when it’s like this\, what is it?” Indeed\, what is it? Who am I? What am I? To ask the question is a good beginning. \nAt the end of his life\, Yuanwu’s followers asked him to write a poem. He sat up straight\, composed the following\, and passed: \nMy work slipped off into the night\nFor you no pretty song took flight\nThe hour is here\, I must be away\nFare you well\, take care alright! \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-68/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Duck_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250922T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250922T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250825T161741Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250919T145654Z
UID:10002166-1758564000-1758569400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is on break for Pacific Zen Luminaries this evening\, but will return on September 29th. We hope you join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-on-break-10/
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:20250922T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250922T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250821T152741Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250924T180502Z
UID:10002160-1758564000-1758569400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:PACIFIC ZEN LUMINARIES: Jon Joseph in Conversation with Translator Thomas Yuho Kirchner
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nThomas Yuho Kirchner\, a Zen monk of the Rinzai School in Japan\, is the widely respected translator of Zen koan classics\, including The Record of Linji\, Entangling Vines\, and Muso Soseki: Dialogs in a Dream. \nHe joins host Jon Joseph to discuss Dahui’s Letters. These letters are the critical writings of Dahui Zhonggao\, considered the father of koan meditation and the leading figure of the Linji Chan-Zen School in 12th c. China. The letters are timeless in that they provide valuable lessons on koan practice for modern–day meditators. \nKirchner was born in Baltimore\, Maryland\, in 1949. He went to Japan in 1969 to attend Waseda University in Tokyo for a year\, after which he remained in Japan to study Buddhism. He spent three years training under Yamada Mumon as a lay monk at Shofuku-ji before receiving ordination in 1974. Following ordination he practiced under Minato Sodo Roshi at Kencho-ji in Kamakura and Kennin-ji in Kyoto. Following graduate studies in Buddhism at Otani University he worked at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya and subsequently at the Hanazono University International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism. He presently lives at Tenryu-ji in Arashiyama\, Kyoto. \nOn more than a half century of Zen practice\, he says\, “I have a deep sense that this is a really\, really meaningful experience. It has given me a compass for my life. With time\, I will be able to face death with peace of mind.” \nSource: Wisdom Publications \nOn Entangling Vines:  \n“A wonderful book\, a book to take if you are planning to be shipwrecked on a desert island; it is the book I open every day\, and teach from every day. It is surprising\, lucid\, scholarly\, alive\, and unassuming\, and it goes deep.” \n—John Tarrant\, Director of The Pacific Zen Institute and author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros and Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life.  \nOn The Record of Linji:\n\n“A masterpiece of scholarship not only on Linji Chan\, but also on Chinese Buddhist language and history―the annotations\, which constitute almost two–thirds of the book\, explain in astonishing detail the meanings\, references\, and grammar of each line of text.” \n―Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nAll proceeds for each event\, including teacher dana\, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able\, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests. \nOur suggested donation is $10 for PZI Members and $12 for Non-Members\, but the scale slides from zero depending on one’s ability to contribute. We also greatly appreciate Patrons\, who help support the program with larger gifts of $25—$250.
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/luminaries-kirchner-sept-2025/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Kirchner_500.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250915T173000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250915T190000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250825T162506Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250913T125331Z
UID:10002169-1757957400-1757962800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Dahui Breaks Through
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nBeing and non-being are like vines clinging to a tree.\nIf suddenly the tree falls and the vines wither\, where do being and non-being go?\n\n —Book of Serenity Case 87\n\nEvery day Dahui went to Yuanwu Keqin for instruction\, but all Yuanwu would say is “Being and non-being are like vines clinging to a tree.” Whenever Dahui opened his mouth to respond\, Yuanwu would cut him off\, saying “That’s no good!”\n\nOne day Dahui went to the master and said\, ”I heard that you once asked your teacher Wuzu about being and non-being. Do you remember the master’s reply?” In answer\, Yuanwu only laughed. Dahui said\, “Since you asked in front of the assembly\, surely there’s no reason not to tell me Wuzu’s reply.”\n\nYuanwu then said\, “When I asked about the statement ’being and non-being are like vines clinging to a tree\,’ Wuzu replied\, ‘Try to describe it and it cannot be described; try to portray it and it cannot be portrayed.’  When I asked\, ‘What if the tree suddenly falls and the vines whither?’ Wuzu said\,’They come down together.’” \nDahui suddenly understood.\n\nDahui Zonggao (1089-1163) is considered one of the greatest Chan masters from the Song Dynasty\, a period when Chan had a profound influence on religious and political life in China\, the world’s largest nation at time. He is best known for promoting meditation using huatou (word head) koan fragments as a way to help students break through to kensho. \nDahui was also one of the most controversial teachers of the time. When he found that monks were over-intellectualizing his teacher Yuanwu’s koan collection\, The Blue Cliff Record\, he ordered all copies gathered up and destroyed. When the political faction his students were aligned with fell out of favor\, Dahui was defrocked and banished by the imperial court for fourteen years\, though he continued to teach and write. \nDahui’s Letters are perhaps best known for their harsh criticism of “silent illumination\,” a purportedly “quietistic” form of meditation practiced in the Caodong (Soto) School. Ironically\, it was a leading Caodong teacher\, Hongzhi Zhenjue\n(compiler of the koan collection The Book of Serenity)\, who helped Dahui return from exile and regain an abbot position at a leading monastery. \nAs he was dying\, Dahui wrote this poem: \nBirth is just so.\nDeath is just so.\nSo\, as for composing a verse\,\nWhy does it matter? \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-67/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Tress-with-vines-unsplash_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250908T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250908T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250825T162254Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250908T202815Z
UID:10002168-1757354400-1757359800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Dreams in the Dark\, Dark and Dim
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nYunmen taught\, “Everybody has a light inside\, but sometimes it appears dark\, dark and dim. What is this light that everybody has?” \nI can tell when I’m beginning to fall asleep; perhaps you can too. As I watch my thoughts drift and kind of hop a track\, they begin to stretch normal distances and time in all possible directions. Objects and interactions gain in permeability as they break away from ordinary thoughts and concerns. We are now in the dream world\, which is dark and dim\, but which also shines with its own light. \nTraveling in ancient China\, I encountered a Chan monk on the road who offered to be my guide. Together we visited three large temples\, each honoring a different teacher: Deshan\, Dongshan\, Yunmen. Each temple had its own flavor\, but all radiated a warm golden color with hundreds of monks in residence embodying a quiet joy as they went about their activities. I chose to stay at Yunmen’s Cloud Gate temple. \nYunmen’s has always been my favorite among the Five Chan Schools. In some ways the dream was an affirmation of that. Mostly\, I felt welcome and included. \nIt so happened that this morning I was reviewing Muso Soseki’s Dialogues in a Dream (2015)\, a series of letters written by the famous fifteenth century Japanese Zen master\, beautifully translated by Thomas Yuho Kirchner. \nIn it is an account of how Muso got his dharma name. Practicing as a monk in the Tendai and Shingon schools\, the nineteen-year-old Muso was uncertain of his future course of study and decided to enter a hundred-day solitary retreat. \nThree days before the end of retreat\, Muso had dream in which he too met a monk-guide at a temple called “Shushan.” The two went on to a second temple\, called “Shitou.” Both are famous Tang era teachers. \nAt the second temple\, the two travelers met an old priest. The guide addressed the priest: “This monk (Muso) has traveled here in search of a sacred image. Please\, Reverend\, be so kind as to present him with one.” \nAt that\, the old priest handed Muso a scroll\, which he unrolled and found to be a painting of Bodhidharma. He rolled up the scroll\, put it in his sleeve\, and woke from the dream. Muso felt the dream was leading him to Zen\, and he changed his dharma name to incorporate both the dream and the two masters: Muso (dream-window) Soseki (rough-stone). \nDreams are a mystery\, and perhaps we can only feel our way into them; full understanding being neither possible nor necessary. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-66/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Dreamworld_500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250901T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250901T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250825T161753Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250825T161753Z
UID:10002162-1756749600-1756755000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on September 8th. We hope you join us then!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-on-break-11/
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:20250825T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250825T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250623T162134Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250823T133134Z
UID:10002103-1756144800-1756150200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Our Own Perfect Awakening
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nAll buddhas of the past\, present and future\nalso take refuge in prajñaparamita (perfection of wisdom)\nrealizing unexcelled\, perfect enlightenment … \n—Excerpt from The Heart Sutra \nIn a recent article in The New Yorker\, called “Enemy of the Good; The Pain of Perfection\,” Leslie Jamison writes about the growing trend of perfectionism\, not as a constructive aspiration\, but as pathology. That perfectionism might be some form of admirable striving is misguided\, says Gordon Flett\, a clinical psychologist who has co-authored many studies on the subject. “I can’t stand it when people talk about perfectionism as something positive\,” he says\, “they don’t realize the deep human toll.” \nI considered the notion of striving for “perfection” in our Zen practice. There it is in the Heart Sutra\, the foundational sutra of our school: with all our being we work to achieve perfect wisdom. To do that\, we get up early\, sit with a straight back\, keep nose vertical and eyes horizontal\, and soak into our koan\, day and night. \nAs it is for students\, so it is for teachers. How do I be a perfect teacher? Do I try to go toward it\, or not? As Nanquan said\, ”If you go toward it\, you go against it.” To which Zhaozhou remarked\,“If I don’t go toward it\, then how do I know it is the true Way?” \nKoshin Paley Ellison writes in his book\, Untangled: “I often tell my students\, ‘I will disappoint you!’ And then I like to say\, ‘And I’m committed to being with you in the disappointment.’ This makes for a good beginning. We need to find a good enough teacher\, we need to find a good enough community\, which is one where you can be dirty potatoes in a barrel [rubbing up against each other to get clean].” \nFlett found that the antidote for perfectionists was for them to realize that their lives mattered. He calls it “the psychology of mattering.” It is the mattering of our own unique jewel\, shining within Indra’s vast and boundless net. The universe would be a darker place without our light. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-60/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Droplets-unsplash_500x375.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250818T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250818T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250623T162219Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250816T112806Z
UID:10002102-1755540000-1755545400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Isn't This the Sound?
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\n“Wuzu said\, “Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? The cypress tree in the garden!”\nAt these words Yuanwu was suddenly enlightened. He went outside the cottage and saw a rooster fly to the top of a railing\, beat his wings and crow loudly. He said to himself\, “Isn’t this the sound?” Full of gratitude\, he took incense back to Wuzu’s room. He told of his discovery and said\,\n“The golden duck vanishes into the golden brocade\, with a country song the drunk comes home from the woods; only the young beauty knows about her love affair.”\nWuzu said\, “I share your joy.”\n\n —Ferguson\, Entangling Vines Case 98\, Notes \n\nUnfathomable\, inexhaustible\, its source mysterious—joy often sustains me in my practice. But is joy the only point? I’m not so sure of that. \nI was probably in a foul mood when I recently reviewed Kosho Uchiyama Roshi’s How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment. I was struck by how little joy he seemed to be expressing in his life at the small temple Antaiji in Kyoto. When a student asked the Roshi what he did for fun\, he was “totally taken by surprise” at the question. The Roshi offered that he takes three shots of whiskey at night to keep his feet warm\, but “at the same time\, I do not live my life to have fun.” \nFun\, of course\, is not the same as joy and gratitude. Uchiyama was the author of some twenty books and a respected Soto master who generously worked with Westerners for decades before his death in 1998. And in the book\, toward the end\, he does devote a few paragraphs of commentary on Eihei Dogen’s exhortation: \nHow fortunate we are to have been born as human beings to be given the opportunity to prepare meals for the Three Treasures. Our attitude should truly be one of joy and gratefulness.\n\nMy querulous mind began bringing up contrasting images of practice from our own zendo. At our Pacific Zen sesshin\, when the Roshi’s dokusan room is near\, loud laughter often spills into the quiet zendo during the one-on-one interviews. Our daily sutra dedications are infused with warmth. ”What I like about you guys\,” one new member told me recently\, “is you laugh a lot.” \nMay you have joy and be welcome\nMay you have joy on the roads\nLet wisdom go to every corner of the house\nLet people have joy in each other’s joy\n\n(Tarrant and Sutherland)\n\nBut that does not make Uchiyama’s reserved way wrong. \nIt is the expression of his life\, his culture\, and his karma. As a young monk\, Uchiyama suffered terribly\, living in a poor\, broken down temple in post-war Japan. After the war\, people were starving. An article of his in Lion’s Roar magazine\, translated as “Laughter Through the Tears\,” speaks of his difficult early days. Those days seemed to have many more tears than laughter. \nIsn’t that also the sound? \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-61/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Silver-Sea_500.png
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250811T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250811T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250623T162254Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250808T185011Z
UID:10002101-1754935200-1754940600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Horses Cross Over
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA student asked Zhaozhou\, “For a long time I’ve heard about the stone bridge of Zhaozhou. But now that I’ve come\, I see only a log thrown across the river.”\nZhaozhou said\, “You only see the log bridge\, you just don’t see the stone bridge.”\n“What is the stone bridge like?”\n“It lets donkeys cross\, it lets horses cross.”\n \n—The Blue Cliff Record\, Case 52 \nAn arched stone bridge. Yes. Horses and donkeys clattering across. Yes\, yes. Such powerful and sensual images. In reading this koan\, horse memories and bridge dreams have visited me again and again. Look\, look\, they say. \nThere is some historical context to this koan: one of the three old stone bridges in China was built at a town called Zhaozhou\, not far from the famous teacher’s temple. The river floods\, or dries up from drought\, but the bridge holds. It is such a grand old bridge\, allowing a whole parade of life: dogs and fleas\, rats\, bandits and emperors. We too may cross. \nYet sometimes all we can see is the narrow\, rickety log plank\, with its uncertainty and dangers. The crossing becomes treacherous\, the world now more fluid. “As I cross the bridge\,” offers Fu Ta-shih\, “the bridge flows\, the water is still.” We don’t know how the crossing will go. \nAs a kid\, I was around horses a lot. My best friend through middle school was a competitive Western–style horseman\, eventually winning the state junior championship for barrel racing. When I stayed over\, we never rode\, but always tended to the horses. With hand hooks we swung green hay bales off the pickup truck. Splitting the alfalfa into flakes for the animals would release a wonderful sweet herbal scent. And the week–old pine shavings\, used for bedding in the stalls\, were soaked with horse piss with its ammonia stink and mixed with fresh shit. I loved shoveling that crap into a wheelbarrow\, being close to the horses. \nThat semi–rural neighborhood is now long gone in time and space; the creeks got paved over\, and the fields were filled in with houses. Gary and his horses moved away\, and we lost contact. After several decades\, I found him on the internet and we reconnected. I worry about him sometimes. A while ago they found a tumor in his brain they had to take out. And three years ago\, he discovered a heart condition the doctors called a “widow–maker\,” which is what his father died from. \nIt sometimes feels like we are in an era of log bridges\, flowing bridges with no familiar structures to rely on. On the phone with an old Zen friend\, she mentioned how dangerous the world has become: Washington\, Gaza\, and fires. It was hard to disagree. Later\, sitting outside in the backyard in the warm sun with my dog\, a lawnmower kicked up next door. It was the most beautiful essence of summer sound. I’m not sure if the sound was a log bridge or a stone bridge\, a horse or a donkey. Maybe that’s not the point\, as long as we can cross. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-62/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Terracotta_Horses_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250804T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250804T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250623T162332Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250801T173537Z
UID:10002100-1754330400-1754335800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Feast On Your Life
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nSit. Feast on your life.\n\nThese are the last lines of the Derek Walcott poem\, “Love after Love.” Walcott\, whose family was of English\, Dutch\, and African descent\, and who grew up in the Caribbean\, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. When Edward Espe Brown recently visited our Luminaries Series\, I asked him to read Walcott’s poem\, which he included in his latest book\, The Most Important Point. Edward recited it from memory. \nOn reading and then hearing the poem\, powerful thoughts and references welled up for me. This verse is often seen as a song of rediscovering oneself\, of finding a new self-acceptance after being awash in heartache and loss. \nThe time will come\nwhen with elation\,\nyou will greet yourself arriving\nat your own door\, in your own mirror\,\nand each will smile at the other’s welcome\n\nHere we meet Dongshan’s old woman from The Five Ranks\, who wakes up late one morning\, looks into a mirror\, and finds in her own face a new reflection. \nAnd the monk Jinniu\, who in The Blue Cliff Record laughs and dances heartily as he serves the monks food\, saying: “Bodhisattvas\, come eat your rice!” \nWalcott continues: \nand say\, sit here. Eat.\nYou will love again the stranger who is your self.\nGive wine. Give bread. Give back heart\nto itself\, to the stranger who has loved you\n\nall your life\, whom you have ignored\nfor another\, who knows you by heart.\nTake down the love letters from the bookshelf\n\nthe photographs\, the desperate notes\,\npeel your own image from the mirror.\nSit. Feast on your life.\n\n(Derek Walcott\, Collected Poems 1948-84) \nEdward recounts a private meeting with Shunryu Suzuki: \nThe roshi tells him: “The most important point…” and he paused as I prompted\nmyself to listen intently as the words came out slowly\, “is… to find out… what is… the most important point.”\n\nGoing into our Luminaries chat\, I asked myself\, as I do daily: \nWhat is the most important point? \nWhat is my inmost desire? \nWhy am I practicing? \nWho am I? \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-63/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Derek_Walcott_500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250728T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250728T193000
DTSTAMP:20260424T074308
CREATED:20250623T162624Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250623T162624Z
UID:10002098-1753725600-1753731000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is on break for Pacific Zen Luminaries. Join us again on August 4th!\n\nWe are not alone in the world. We have each other to turn toward. All we need to do is ask. \n—Jon Joseph \n\nJon Joseph Roshi\n  \nCOME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-on-break-8/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
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