BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Pacific Zen Institute - ECPv6.15.17.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.pacificzen.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Pacific Zen Institute
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20230312T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20231105T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20240310T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20241103T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20250309T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20251102T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20260308T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20261101T090000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250512T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250512T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250416T152713Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250416T185327Z
UID:10002052-1747072800-1747078200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is on break\, hosting Pacific Zen Luminaries today. Join us again on June 2nd!\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-3/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250512T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250512T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250408T162612Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250513T230526Z
UID:10002028-1747072800-1747078200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Original Love – Jon Joseph in Conversation with Author & Zen Teacher Henry Shukman
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nHenry Shukman joins Jon Joseph to discuss his writing and how his history of both studying and teaching Zen has influenced his work and life. He will read from his memoir One Blade of Grass as well as his latest book\, Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening. \nHenry wrote his first book at the age of 19 and worked as a full-time writer for many years\, writing several award-winning and bestselling books of poetry and fiction. His poems have been published in the New Yorker\, Guardian\, Sunday Times (UK) and London Review of Books\, and his essays in the New York Times\, Outside\, Guardian and Tricycle.  He has also taught poetry at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Oxford Brookes University and was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow of Poetry\, and Poet in Residence at the Wordsworth Trust. He has an MA from Cambridge\, an M.Litt. from St Andrews. \nHenry is a teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage and has trained in various other meditation schools and practices. After a spontaneous spiritual awakening at the age of 19\, he embarked on a long journey of healing and deeper awakening\, guided by Roshis John Gaynor\, Joan Rieck\, Ruben Habito\, and Yamada Roshi\, international abbot of Sanbo Zen\, who ultimately appointed him a teacher in 2010. Since then he has been leading a growing number of practitioners on the path of awakening\, in Europe and the US. He has also been authorized to teach Mindfulness by Shinzen Young\, and is a certified dreamwork therapist. He is the Spiritual Director Emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe\, New Mexico. \nSource: https://henryshukman.com \n\n“Original Love is one of the rare books destined to inspire new and seasoned meditators alike. Drawing on his own deep experience and years of teaching\, Henry Shukman brings a lucid and refreshing cast to the fundamentals of practice\, and reveals how the loving we yearn for is always\, already here; love is intrinsic to what we are.” \n—Tara Brach\, author of Radical Acceptance \n“If you’ve ever wondered how a messed up kid like you or me might master the wisdom of Zen\, One Blade of Grass is the adventure for you. It’s great company―and after reading it\, you might recognize that you’re further along than you imagined.” \n―David Hinton\, editor and translator of The Four Chinese Classics \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/pacific-zen-luminaries-series-henry-shukman-with-jon-joseph-friends-may-12th/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Henry_Shukman500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250505T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250505T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250416T154320Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250522T232721Z
UID:10002051-1746468000-1746473400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Finding Poland: We're Already in the Land of Awakening
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA monk asked Zhaozhou\, “The ten thousand things return to one. Where does the one return to?” Zhou said\, “When I was in Blue Province\, I made a cloth shirt. It weighed seven pounds.” \n—The Blue Cliff Record\, Case 45 \n  \nWhy do we so often wish to be somewhere else\, be somebody else? Why is awakening always over there\, just around that foreign\, mysterious corner? Our restlessly seeking mind\, even in midst of that search\, is already naturally at rest. \nA dream visited me during a retreat a few weeks ago: \nI was in a large old house\, with rich and dark wooden paneling\, standing in a hallway crowded with people. There was a kind of reception going on. I went up to one of our Pacific Zen teachers\, and told him\, “I want to go to Poland.” He said\, “Come with me\,” and took me down a hallway\, through some double doors into a large library. The library was also beautifully paneled and had a wide desk in it. Sitting behind the desk was an elderly man\, flanked by two attendants. I knew him to be a Polish poet\, but could not remember his name: was it Bukowsky\, Orlowsky? \nI sat down\, and knew I had to get permission from him if I were to get to Poland. So\, still not recalling his name\, I started to bullshit him\, saying\, “I loved your last two collections of poetry.” It was obvious he was having none of it. He said nothing\, and after some minutes gave a doubtful grunt\, got up and left. \nI then stood up\, and turned left to some windows and a French door. I opened the door and looked outside. It was a beautiful Spring day\, and in my view was a parkland with large deciduous trees and people picnicking here and there on the cut green grass. I said to myself\, “Oh\, this is Poland. This is what it is.” Later\, I recognized the man at the desk as the famous Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. \nI think in my dream Poland represented awakening. I wanted to go to the land of enlightenment.  That land was foreign and far away\, and I thought I had to work the system\, to bullshit the master\, to get there. But it didn’t work. The teacher clearly saw through me. After he left\, I had no more plan. Only then\, in going to the window and opening the doors\, did I realize I was already in the place I was seeking. \nWhere does the one return to? Is there a place to return to other than this one? This very place is the Lotus Land\, says Hakuin Ekaku. It is only here that we can know the weight of a seven-pound shirt\, the taste of honey in tea\, the sound of a lawn mower\, the light reflected on tree leaves. \nThe two monks Yantou and Xuefeng were traveling together and got snowed in on Tortoise Mountain. Yantou slept all the time while Xuefeng stayed up meditating. Yantou rolled over\, turned to his friend and said\, “Haven’t you heard that what comes in through the front gate isn’t the family treasure? You must let it flow out from your own breast to cover heaven and earth.” With that\, Xuefeng understood where the one returns to. \n—Jon Joseph \n  \nLATE RIPENESS \nNot soon\, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year\,\nI felt a door opening in me and I entered\nthe clarity of early morning. \nOne after another my former lives were departing\,\nlike ships\, together with their sorrow. \nAnd the countries\, cities\, gardens\, the bays of seas\nassigned to my brush came closer\,\nready now to be described better than they were before. \nI was not separated from people\,\ngrief and pity joined us.\nWe forget – I kept saying – that we are all children of the King. \nFor where we come from there is no division\ninto Yes and No\, into is\, was\, and will be. \nWe were miserable\, we used no more than a hundredth part\nof the gift we received for our long journey. \nMoments from yesterday and from centuries ago –\na sword blow\, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror\nof polished metal\, a lethal musket shot\, a caravel\nstaving its hull against a reef – they dwell in us\,\nwaiting for a fulfillment. \nI knew\, always\, that I would be a worker in the vineyard\,\nas are all men and women living at the same time\,\nwhether they are aware of it or not. \n—Czeslaw Milosz \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-56/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Milosz_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250428T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250428T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T202123Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250425T165901Z
UID:10002007-1745863200-1745868600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: The Buddha Asks the Earth Goddess for Help
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nMara’s final strategy was argument. He challenged Siddhartha\, asking\, “By what right do you claim the seat on which you sit?”  \nFor Siddhartha\, something unstoppable was unfolding. He didn’t really care what questions were being asked. Mara continued\, “I have my armies to bear witness for me\, but who will speak for you?”  \nSiddhartha’s hand answered—almost out of courtesy\, he reached down and touched the ground. The voice of the earth goddess\, Bhumidevi\, rose from below: “I can bear witness.”  \nThe sun and the moon paused\, the animals bowed. Mara howled\, and his howl diminished as he fled. \n—From The Story of the Buddha by John Tarrant \nIn the above segment\, one of the most important in Siddhartha’s long journey to awakening\, he affirms his foundational right to exist on this earth and find a way to fulfillment. Siddhartha also shows us\, and all things\, how to claim the same right—to realize the light that shines both in Mara’s arrows and Bumidevi’s rich soil. \nThe earth goddess as source of support has been a tenet of Buddhism from its earliest days. Later\, the enlightened Tathagata\, or “the one who is thus gone\,” instructs his son Rahula on how to meditate: \n…for when you develop meditation that is like the earth\, arisen agreeable and disagreeable contacts will not invade your mind and remain. Just as people throw clean and dirty things… on the earth\, and the earth is not repelled\, humiliated\, and disgusted because of that\, so too\, Rahula—develop meditation that is like the earth. \nThe translator and poet David Hinton\, in his new book\, Orient\, writes about his experience with the earth goddess as a young man\, an encounter that fundamentally changed his life: \nIt was sometime in my twentieth year when I saw it: rain on pooled water\, a few scattered drops\, circles of light igniting on the dark surface\, occurring\, originating\, then expanding and disappearing back into empty darkness.  \nDarkness of the pool\, but also darkness of mind’s mirrored depths… It felt like returning to home-ground I’ve never known\, like orienting…  \nDark pool\, dry leaves—each raindrop orienting\, opening this home-ground\, this mirror deep sincerity. It was from this magic of the rain that the word first appeared: from nowhere else\, occurrence. \nThe earth can and will heal herself. If we ask her\, she may heal us as well. \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-55/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Buddha.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250421T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250421T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T201951Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250416T152159Z
UID:10002006-1745258400-1745263800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on April 28th. 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-54/
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:20250414T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250414T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T201810Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250411T184216Z
UID:10002005-1744653600-1744659000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Our Mysterious Melody: Playing the Flute with No Holes and Other Impossibilities
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nPlay the flute with no holes\n\n—from the Pacific Zen Miscellaneous Collection \nWhat a marvelous and mysterious thing\, to cross the border from the land of sense to the country of sensibility and the play of no-sense. One old Zen dictionary interprets the “flute with no holes” as “one from which any sound may be heard.” \nWhat is the source of that sound? What is our natural virtuosity? \nThe origin of this phrase is found in Yuanwu’s comment on a koan in the Blue Cliff Record. Xuefeng\, before he became a teacher\, was living alone in a hut when two monks came to visit. Feng pushed open the door and asked\, “What is it?” One of the monks responded\, “What is it?” Yuanwu comments: \nGhost eyes. A flute with no holes. He raises his head\, wearing horns. \nHe mentions this magical instrument a few other times\, suggesting it be used like a rug beater: \nA flute with no holes strikes against a wool felt pounding board. \nThis flute is not picky about its sounds. \nIn a similar spirit\, the 18th c Japanese master Genro also gathered one hundred koans with commentaries\, calling it the Tekkei Tosui (鐵笛倒吹)\, which means “blowing the iron flute upside down.” But alas\, Genro did not include this koan in his collection except in the title. \nWhat is it\, to blow the flute with no holes? In a posthumous collection of her father’s poems\, Kim Stafford writes that her father would often say\, “Let’s talk recklessly… I must be willingly fallible to deserve a place in the realm where miracles happen.” \nWhatever the river says\, I say. \n—Jon Joseph \nASK ME by William Stafford \nSometime when the river is ice ask me\nmistakes I have made. Ask me whether\nwhat I have done is my life. Others\nhave come in their slow way into\nmy thought\, and some have tried to help\nor to hurt: ask me the difference\ntheir strongest love or hate has made.\nI will listen to what you say.\nYou and I can look at the silent river and wait. We know\nthe current is there\, hidden: and there\nare comings and goings from miles away\nthat hold the stillness exactly before us.\nWhat the river says\, that is what I say. \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-53/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Mayumi-flute_500w.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250407T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250407T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T201623Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250212T201623Z
UID:10002009-1744048800-1744054200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on April 14th. 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-2/
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:20250407T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250407T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250114T232713Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250409T170750Z
UID:10001982-1744048800-1744054200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Things as It Is and Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been – Jon Joseph in Conversation with Poet & Teacher Chase Twichell
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nChase Twichell has published eight books of poetry including Things As It Is (2018) and Horses Where Answers Should Have Been (2010)\, and is currently working on a new collection. She began a lay Zen practice in the mid-1990s at Zen Mountain Monastery under John Daido Loori\, and her poetry and practice have been co-mingled since then. \n“Zen threw me a big curve ball\,” she has said. “There is almost no metaphor in Chinese poetry: Zen tries to see things as they are\, without the spin.” \nChase’s poems have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker\, The Paris Review\, and The Nation. In addition\, she has taught poetry at Princeton University\, the University of Alabama\, and Hampshire College. \nTHINGS AS IT IS \nLast night my hand began writing\nin the hand of some future me\,\nas if a branch in wind had scribbled\non freshly fallen snow.\nIn the dark\, coyotes called\nback and forth in the bird-silence.\nI put down the pen and went outside\,\nstood listening to wind in snow’s translation.\nWild dogs\, teach me\na few of your words before I die. \nHIS ABSENCE \nHis absence is hard to pin down.\nNo martini glasses in sight\nno secret ashtrays.\nI can ask him anything–\nlocked in a dark library.\nall that he knew and remembered is lost to us both.\nAnd the whole world of the night\nhas gone missing.\nIncluding the scent of our joy. \n\n\nChase Twichell’s poems are among my favorites ever written. Often brash\, always vivid\, smart\, and lyrical\, pointing toward essential things—this is a marvelous and rich body of work. \n—Tony Hoagland \n\nShort Bio \nChase Twichell was born in 1950\, and grew up in Connecticut and the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. She is the author of eight books of poetry\, most recently Things as It Is (Copper Canyon\, 2018). \nAfter teaching for many years (Hampshire College\, the University of Alabama\, Princeton University)\, she left academia to found Ausable Press\, a not-for-profit publisher of contemporary poetry\, which was acquired by Copper Canyon in 2009. \nFrom 2013 to 2016 Twichell served as Chair of the Kate and Kingsley Tufts Awards Jury. \nShe recently taught in the Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. \nA longtime student in the Mountains and Rivers Order at Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York\, she splits the year between the Adirondacks and Saratoga Springs\, NY. \nsource: https://www.chasetwichell.com/about \n\n \nJon Joseph Roshi of San Mateo Zen and PZI created this series to support the hardworking innovators and shining voices of modern Zen: scholars\, writers\, poets\, translators\, activists\, artists\, teachers\, and more. \nAll proceeds for each event\, including teacher dana\, go directly to the guest speaker. Event attendees are encouraged to give as generously as you are able\, so we can offer deep thanks to Luminaries guests. \nOur suggested donation 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/zen-luminaries-horses-where-the-answers-should-have-been-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-author-chase-twichell/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Chase-twichell_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250331T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250331T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T201411Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250328T191301Z
UID:10002004-1743444000-1743449400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Like A Mosquito Bites an Iron Ox: An Abiding Wisdom in the Absurd
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA monk asked Zhaozhou\, “‘The Ultimate Path is not difficult—just avoid picking and choosing.’ Isn’t this a cliché for people of these times?” Zhou replied\, “Once someone asked me\, and I really couldn’t explain for five years.”\n\n—The Blue Cliff Record Case 58 \nYuanwu\, the commentator of The Blue Cliff Record\, speaks to the extraordinary difficulty of working with this koan; likening it to a mosquito trying to bite an iron ox\, or attempting to climb a silver mountain\, or breaking through an iron wall. We all know the feeling of deep frustration\, bordering on insanity\, in confronting the impossible over and over again with no satisfying result. \nA couple of months ago\, I found myself in a state of intense despair with some personal struggles. While watching TV with my wife—was it The Lincoln Lawyer\, Lioness\, or Succession?—tears suddenly welled up in my eyes. I asked myself\, “Why do you keep banging your head against the wall?” In that moment\, an unexpected answer rose from within me: “Because you can’t give up on Mu.” \nThe response was startling and strange. It came from a deep\, foundational place inside me. I haven’t worked on Mu as a koan in decades\, though I often sit with its English translation\, “No.” Yet\, in that moment it was an original statement\, familiar to me\, and one from the very beginning of my Zen practice\, more than fifty years ago. \nSomething shifted in that inner dialogue\, though I cannot fully explain how. The problems that once seemed insurmountable pretty much vanished. The iron ox\, the silver mountain\, and the iron wall no longer appeared as obstacles but rather as absurd partners in an intimate game. \nThe “Ultimate Path” koan appears four times in The Blue Cliff Record\, with Zhaozhou offering a different response each time. In one case\, he warns\, “As soon as you hear these words\, you think this is picking and choosing\, or clarity. This old monk does not dwell in clarity.” When a monk asks\, “What do you dwell in\, then?” Zhou replies\, “I don’t know\,” and tells the monk that simply asking the question is enough. \nHow inconceivable that just trying to bite the iron ox would be enough. That standing on the top of a hundred foot pole\, that holding onto a branch with our teeth would all be the full expression of our Buddha nature. Perhaps the Ultimate Path is not somewhere else\, in some sense-making\, light-filled universe. Maybe in some absurd way\, it is right here. Asking the question may be enough. \n—Jon Joseph \nSnow–Globe Vesuvius \nI live on the flank of Vesuvius\, in Pompeii.\nEach day the sky fills with leaflets\,\nsmokelets\, prayers to  powers\naglitter whether storming or still\n(the old ones mica\, the new ones who cares what).\n\nEveryone knows there’s more than one\nkind of consciousness. Everyone knows\nthat in the snow-globe of Vesuvius\,\nthe “snow” is really ash–\neach time the volcano buries the town.\n\nWould you meet me in a world like that?\nIf not there\, where?\n\n —Chase Twichell\, Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been \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-52/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Oxen500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250324T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250324T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T201228Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250321T212049Z
UID:10002003-1742839200-1742844600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Dios Pasas: The Gods Pass By
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nA couple of nights ago\, my dog Mocha Puppachino was restless in the very early morning\, so I got up to let her out. After a few minutes\, she came back\, and we returned upstairs. Falling into a half sleep\, I began to dream. \nI was standing on the side of a wide dirt road. Going down the lane was a procession of indigenous Aztecs or Mayans\, with high cheekbones and aquiline noses\, lightly dressed in ceremonial wear\, passing in profile from left to right. Their colors were earth tones of ocher\, soft yellows and browns. \nIn my sleep I began to repeat to myself\, “Dios pasas!”\, “Dios pasas!”\, over and over again\, almost as if I were saying a prayer or holding a koan. Though my Spanish is not very good\, I translated the phrase in my mind as\, “The gods are passing by!” (My Spanish-speaking daughter later corrected my grammar un piquito.) \nI’m not fully sure what the dream meant\, but I had a strong feeling of inclusion. I was witness to the sacred; not sacred as an idea\, but as a relationship. With great warmth and appreciation\, I understood I was being watched over. The gods too were being witnessed by me. Each of us was expressing our essential relationship to the other\, in that moment and place. To make ourselves whole\, we needed each other. \nA dream-like koan came to me in connection to the dream itself: \nShoushan said to the assembly\, “If you attain it with the first phrase\, you will be teacher of buddhas and ancestors. If you attain with the second phrase\, you will be teacher of humans and gods. If you attain it with the third phrase\, you will not even save yourself.” A monk asked\, “At which statement did you attain it\, teacher?” Shoushan said\, “The moon sets\, it is midnight. I walk through the marketplace.” (BS 76) \nOur movement through the dark and empty marketplace is singular and sometimes deeply lonely. Yet it is full of potential: absence completely open to receiving presence\, as David Hinton writes. \nSoon enough\, farmers and merchants arrive on their donkey carts and horses. The horizon lightens and the sun comes over the ridge. Women with sleepy children in tow come to shop for dinner; chickens squawk and dogs bark. And the buddhas\, ancestors and gods are there. They walk among us even now. \nHongzhi Zenghue in his verse on this koan writes: \nWe meet the lowly and then the noble\nWe meet the noble and then lowly\nGetting the jewel through formlessness\nThe ultimate way is continuous \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-51/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/monday.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250317T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250317T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T201047Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T144238Z
UID:10002002-1742234400-1742239800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: The Mysterious Co-Mingling of Our Lives
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nYunmen\, teaching the community\, said\, “The old Buddha and a pillar embrace—how available are they to each other?”  He answered for them\,  “On South Mountain clouds gather\, on North Mountain rain falls.”\n\n—The Blue Cliff Record\, Case 83 \nThis morning\, I woke in the dark to the delicious sound of rain on the roof. Late in the season\, we in California are getting another series of atmospheric rivers—those long narrow storms heavy with warm\, moist air\, sometimes called the pineapple express—which will bring several inches of rain to the green foothills and drop several feet of snow on the divides and basins of the High Sierra. \nThe sound reminded me of years ago when I was in sesshin\, awake at night listening to the sound of heavy dewdrops falling from the eves outside the window. How utterly splendid was the sound of each drop before it hit. But I wander. \nClouds gather on South Mountain while rain falls on North Mountain. It may be inconceivable to connect the two. Koun Yamada\, our ancestral teacher\, cautions against it. “When we hear about clouds on South Mountain and rain on North Mountain the temptation is all too great to conclude that there is some connection between the two. And as soon as we do that\, we are caught up in concepts and are far indeed from the spirit of the koan. We have been caught in the trap which Yunmen has laid for us.” His advice is to wonder at the thusness of each: how wonderful the clouds\, how amazing the rain. \nBut maybe Yunmen’s “trap” is actually an invitation to embrace that which is irrationally linked and to explore the deeper\, more mysterious relationships in our lives. Like the old Buddha and the pillar\, to what degree are we open and vulnerable to the people and things around us? That which seems fractured may actually be part of a greater whole. We need not explain it; we can just live it. \nEd Espe Brown\, the Soto priest and author of No Recipe: Cooking as Spiritual Practice\, relates a story about the famous Italian chef Massimo Bottura. One day an assistant chef came in and confessed he had dropped and broken a whole tray of lemon tarts. Instead of throwing out the broken and fractured tarts\, Bottura folded them into a lemon pudding\, and it has since become one of the favorite desserts at his Osteria Francescana. \nOne time Baizhang was walking outside with his teacher\, Mazu\, when they flushed a brace of ducks. The teacher asked\, “Where did they go?” Zhang replied\, “They flew away.” The teacher grabbed his nose and twisted it\, saying\, “When did they ever fly away?” Zhang returned to his room\, and a monk found him weeping. Later\, the monk came back and Zhang was laughing. The monk asked him about it\, and Zhang said\, “Before I was crying\, and now I’m laughing.” The ducks and his nose shared an inconceivable co-mingling\, both in laughing and in crying. \nLast week\, I spoke with an old friend\, who informed me he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I had recognized some decline in him in the past year\, but the news was very saddening. Going forward\, we agreed to check in regularly. Later\, I went to a wonderful birthday dinner with friends\, and afterward we all went to a club to listen to some amazing folk and blues guitar. It was fantastic. So sad and so fun\, co-mingling. \nXuetou\, himself an old Buddha\, writes in his appreciatory verse on this koan: \nIn suffering happiness\nIn happiness\, suffering\n \nPerhaps just because it is fractured\, life somehow works. \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-50/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Plate500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250310T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250310T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T200850Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250212T200850Z
UID:10002001-1741629600-1741635000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: ON BREAK
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on March 17th. 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/
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:20250303T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250303T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250212T200441Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250305T174107Z
UID:10002008-1741024800-1741030200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: The Way to Cold Mountain: A Hermit's Poems and Life
DESCRIPTION:Looking for a refuge\nCold Mountain will keep you safe\na faint wind stirs dark pines\ncome closer\, the sound gets better\nbelow them sits a gray-haired man\nchanting Taoist texts\nten years unable to return\nhe forgot the way he came \n—The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain\, Red Pine\, (4) \nFor over a thousand years\, this has been one of the most beloved poems in Chan-Zen Buddhist and Daoist communities everywhere. The hermit writes that for a very long time he has lived deep in the mountains\, and he is now not sure if he wants to\, or even can\, return home. “Cold Mountain\,” writes Gary Snyder\, “in Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems\, is more than the name of an anonymous Tang Dynasty poet; it is also a place and a state of mind. As verse\, the poems are ‘colloquial\, rough\, and fresh.’” \nCold Mountain has always been the people’s\, rather than the critic’s\, choice. “The Chinese literati over the centuries never seemed to embrace the rag-wearing beggar as one of their own\,” writes Bill (Red Pine) Porter. Porter believes Cold Mountain is the people’s favorite just because he is simple\, honest and rudely playful. \nThe 300 poems\, collected off rocks\, bamboo\, wood and the walls of houses\, demonstrate in the writer a vast range of human emotion: expansive consciousness (“my mind is like the autumn moon/clear and bright in a pool of jade”)\, occasional bitterness (“Wise ones you ignore me/I ignore you fools”)\, and a melancholy loneliness (“recently visiting family and friends/most have left for the Yellow Springs”). \nHe gives hints of a former\, perhaps easier\, life now lost: tending a garden with his wife\, raising daughters\, enjoying a high social position. This is what the people understand in him: Love\, loss and loneliness. “Cold Mountain was a flesh-and-blood sage\, not a bronze or porcelain image\,” writes John Blofeld\, in his introduction to Red Pine’s translation. But Cold Mountain also shows in stories of his madcap life with two sidekicks\, Pickup and Big Stick\, that all is not tears. \nOne day while he was dusting the statues in the shrine hall Pickup went to the altar and ate a piece of fruit left by a worshiper in front of the statue of Shakyamuni. Then before the statue of Kaundinya\, the Buddha’s first disciple\, he yelled\, ”Hinayana monk!” The other monks who saw this reported it to the chief custodian\, who moved Pickup into the kitchen to work… \n–o– \nOnce when the monks were grilling eggplants\, Cold Mountain (who occasionally worked in the temple kitchen) grabbed a string of them and swung them against a monk’s back. When the monk turned around\, Cold Mountain held up the eggplants and said\, “What’s this?” The monk cried out\, “You lunatic!” Cold Mountain turned to another monk and said\, “Tell this monk he’s wasting salt and soy sauce…” \n–o– \nOnce I reached Cold Mountain\nI stayed for thirty years\nrecently visiting family and friends\nmost had left for the Yellow Springs\nslowly fading like a dying candle\nor surging past like a flowing stream\ntoday facing my solitary shadow\nsuddenly both eyes filled with tears (53) \n–o– \nI have a single cave\na cave with nothing inside\nspacious and devoid of dust\nfull of light that always shines\na meal of plants feeds a frail body\na cloth robe masks a mirage\nlet your thousand sages appear\nI have the primordial buddha (163) \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-49/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/coldmountain500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250224T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250224T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20250114T204533Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250226T184401Z
UID:10001981-1740420000-1740425400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Dancing with the Dead – Jon Joseph in Conversation with Author & Translator Red Pine (Bill Porter)
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nPlease join us this Monday night when in our Pacific Zen Luminaries Series we visit with the celebrated Dharma translator\, Red Pine.  \nRed Pine\, also known as Bill Porter\, will share with us his pilgrimage to find and learn from present-day Chinese mountain hermits as chronicled in his book\, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits\, and featured in the recent Woody Creek Pictures documentary\, Dancing with the Dead. Also joining us for this multi-media presentation are the film’s producer and director\, Ward Serrill\, and the vocalist in the film\, Spring Cheng. \nIn addition\, Red Pine will read from one of his earliest translations\, The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse.  \nStonehouse was a little-known Chinese hermit-poet of uncommon clarity and insight. Born into an elite family in 1272—the last years of the great Song Dynasty before it was overthrown by the Kublai Khan—at the age of twenty\, Stonehouse decided to become a Buddhist monk and went on to study with several outstanding teachers of the day.  \nA brilliant student\, he accepted the post of meditation master at a prestigious temple\, and was rapidly promoted to the position of abbot at several larger monasteries. But at age forty he tired of institutional prestige and position\, and gave up teaching to live as a simple hermit in a hand-built bamboo hut in the mountains. \nBelow are two of his many poems: \nDon’t think a mountain home means you’re free\na day doesn’t pass without its cares\nold ladies steal my bamboo shoots\nboys lead oxen into the wheat\ngrubs and beetles destroy my greens\nboars and squirrels devour the rice\nthings don’t always go my way\nwhat can I do by turn to myself\n \n(Mountain Poems\, 10) \nStripped of conditions\, my mind is at rest\nemptied of existence\, my nature is at peace\nhow often at night\, have my windows turned white\nas the moon and stream passed by my door\n \n(Mountain Poems\, 108) \n\nSo I’ve come to realize that translation is not just another literary art. It’s the ultimate literary art. For me this means a tango with Li Bai\, or a waltz with Wing-Wu. But in any case\, a dance with the dead. \n—Bill Porter \n\nShort Bio \nBill Porter assumes the pen name Red Pine for his translation work\, and is recognized as one of the world’s finest translators of Chinese poetic and religious texts. \nHe was born in Los Angeles in 1943\, grew up in the Idaho Panhandle\, served a tour of duty in the US Army\, graduated from the University of California with a degree in anthropology\, and attended graduate school at Columbia University.  \nUninspired by the prospect of an academic career\, he dropped out of Columbia and moved to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After four years with the monks and nuns\, he struck out on his own and eventually found work at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong\, where he interviewed local dignitaries and produced more than a thousand programs about his travels in China.  \nHis translations have been honored with a number of awards\, including two NEA translation fellowships\, a PEN Translation Prize\, and the inaugural Asian Literature Award of the American Literary Translators Association.  \nHe was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to support work on a book based on a pilgrimage to the graves and homes of China’s greatest poets of the past\, which was published under the title Finding Them Gone in January of 2016. More recently\, Porter received the 2018 Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  \nHe lives in Port Townsend\, Washington. \nsource: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/authors/bill-porter/ \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/zen-luminaries-dancing-with-the-dead-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-author-translator-red-pine/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/RedPine-CALENDAR_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250224T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250224T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203617Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250217T181836Z
UID:10001943-1740420000-1740425400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: Monday Zen with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on March 3rd. 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-48/
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:20250217T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250217T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203537Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250218T003438Z
UID:10001944-1739815200-1739820600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Language of the Heart – A Chat about Classic Chinese Poetry
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\n“Poetry is China’s greatest art\,” writes translator Red Pine (Bill Porter)\, especially during the great dynasties of the Tang (618-906) and Song (960-1278). “The Chinese have ever since called this their Golden Age of Poetry.” It was also the golden age of Chan/Zen Buddhism in China. \n“The Chinese word for poetry shih (詩) is nominally a combination of word (言) and temple (寺)\, but it’s origin is actually chih\, made of the two characters for word (言) and to aspire\, or heart-felt (志)\,” writes Red Pine. He translates the character for poem as “language from the heart.” \nIn these two dynasties\, there were monk poets\, hermit poets\, government official poets\, and emperor poets\, and they wrote everywhere: on paper\, rocks\, cave and temple walls. They got inspiration from birds and animals\, human relationships\, water courses\, history\, weather\, and wine. And always the narrative was one of human beings standing in a timeless time and spaceless space in the midst of the ever-changing and forever-moving Way. \nThese three poets are among the greatest in the Tang: \nDu Fu (712-770)\, trained as a Confucian\, is sometimes called the “poet-historian.” He was for many years a government official\, serving on the front lines in war or in the capital\, falling in and out of favor\, depending on the imperial court and events of the times. He died in near poverty. \n“Moonrise” \nThin slice of ascending light\, arc tipped\nAside all its bellied dark—the new moon\nappears and\, scarcely risen beyond ancient\nfrontier passes\, edges behind clouds. Silver\,\nchangeless—the Star River spreads across\nempty mountains scoured with cold. White\ndew dusts the courtyard\, chrysanthemum\nblossoms clotted there with swollen dark. \nLi Bai (701-762) was the Daoist of the three\, and his poems often celebrated friendship\, the wonders of nature\, and the joys of drinking wine. He married several times into different wealthy families\, but often gave his belongings away to friends\, and failed at several attempts to serve in court. His life\, like his friend Tu Fu’s\, was greatly impacted by the disastrous An Lu Shan Rebellion of 755. It is said Li Bai drowned\, falling out of a boat on his way to exile while one night trying to capture the moon in a drunken embrace. \n“Waiting for Wine that Doesn’t Come” \nJade winejars tied in blue silk….\nWhat’s taking the wineseller so long?\nMountain flowers smiling\, taunting me\,\nit’s the perfect time to sip some wine\,\nladle it out beneath my east window\nat dusk\, wandering orioles back again\,\nSpring breezes and their drunken guest:\ntoday\, we are meant for each other. \nPo Chu-I (772-846)\, who also served as politician and artist\, was the Chan-Zen Buddhist of the three greats. His poems advising stopping a needless military campaign and satire of greedy officials got him exiled from court several times. His poetry is known for its accessibility\, and it is said if one of his servants could not understand a poem\, he would rewrite it. \n“Sick and Old\, Same as Ever: A Poem to Figure it All Out” \nSplendor and ruin\, sorrow and joy\, long life or early death:\nwhen the human realm’s a figment of prank and whimsy\,\nis it really so strange if I’m a bug’s arm or a rat’s liver?\nAnd chicken skin or crane plumage—what would It hurt?\nIn yesterday’s winds\, I was happy to begin my long journey\,\nbut today in all this sunlit warmth\, I feel better.\nAnd now that I’m packed and ready for that distant voyage\,\nwhat does it matter if I linger on a little while here. \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-47/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/heartbook500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250210T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250210T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250218T002425Z
UID:10001945-1739210400-1739215800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: What Is the Source of Our Muse?
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nWords do not express the fact.\nSpeech is not useful;\nIf attached to words\, one should be mourned.\nIf mired in phrases\, one becomes confused. \n—Gateless Gate\, Case 37\, Wumen’s Verse \n“Tell me\, Muse\, the story of a man\, it’s many twists and turns\, how many times he was led astray\, having been at the destruction of Troy’s holy city…“ So begins The Odyssey. What is the mysterious source of the muse Homer calls upon? How does the muse sing\, dance\, sail\, and fight? \nI recently listened to a 2004 interview with the musician Neil Young\, who spoke of the first time he heard his muse. \nAt 17\, Young had formed a band and was writing and singing his own music\, but he didn’t feel it was very creative and improvisational. One night\, while playing in a small club\, he recalled: \n“I did something on my guitar where we started playing this song\, and then we got into the instrumental\, and I just basically went nuts. And I think it was the first time that ever happened. And I just kept playing. And I just kept going and going and grinding and just pounding away at this rhythmic thing and exploring little nuances of it… \nAnd at that point\, you know\, I realized\, well\, there’s a place I can go. And I didn’t — I just kind of fell into it by accident. And I think I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to get there.” \nMapping the place where the muse resides has long been important work in the Chan-Zen tradition. And stumbling off course\, getting lost\, has always been part of the grand exploration. A young monk named Dragon Tooth (Longya) was once traveling around China seeking out many of the famous teachers of the time. He came to Virtue Mountain (Deshan) and asked: \n“How is it when a student holding a sharp sword tries to take the teacher’s head?” The teacher Virtue stretched out his neck and uttered a grunt. Tooth exclaimed\, “The teacher’s head has fallen.” Virtue smiled slightly and let it go at that. \nHmm\, not quite yet. Despite his earnestness\, Tooth could not yet accept Virtue’s invitation to directly enter the playfield of the Universe. He was still “attached to words” and “mired in phrases.” \nNext\, our friend Dragon Tooth went to the famous Cave Mountain (Dongshan). \nCave asked\, “Where did you come  from?” Tooth said\, “From Virtue Mountain.” Cave replied\,  “What did he have to say?” Tooth recounted his story. Cave asked\, “Yes\, but what did he say?” Tooth said\, “He had no words.” Cave replied\, “Don’t say that he had no words. Instead try to take Virtue Mountain’s fallen head and show it to me.” \nAt this\, Tooth realized he and all things were not two. The source of his muse was unknowable\, but also\, he did not need to know. Dragon Tooth burned a stick of incense and gazed toward Virtue Mountain in deepest thanks. \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-46/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/sword500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250203T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250203T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203415Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250218T001114Z
UID:10001946-1738605600-1738611000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Snipe Hunt for Intimacy
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nWhen I was about in the fourth grade\, I joined the Boy Scouts where I stayed into high school. I remember my mother shopping with me for a khaki shirt and scarf at H.C. Capwell’s department store and then myself sewing the patches “Troop 302”\, a touch crooked\, on the left shoulder. The Scouts gave us a great chance to go camping\, which I loved\, and eventually I saved enough money from mowing lawns to go to the council’s summer camp\, called Wolfboro\, in the Sierras. \nA monk asked Great Master Ma\, “Apart from the four propositions and beyond the hundred negations\, I ask you teacher\, to clearly show me the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West.”\nThe Great Master said: ”I’m tired today and can’t explain it for you. Go ask Zhizang.”\n \n—The Book of Serenity\, Case 6 \nThere was a tradition at the camp that on the first evening\, the Tenderfeet were taken on a snipe hunt. I didn’t even know what a snipe was. The older boys gave us younger ones a flashlight\, a plate and spoon from our mess kit\, and guided us into the forest to search for the elusive bird. We were told to bang the plate with the spoon and yell\, “Here snipe! Here snipe! Come here\, snipe!” \nThe monk then goes to Zhizang\, who tells him he has a headache and can’t explain\, but suggests he seek out elder brother Hai (Baizhang). Hai says that\, “For all the time I have been here\, I still don’t get it.” \nWe were excited when we headed into the woods\, and soon enough one of the older boys shouted\, “There is one over here!” We ran over shining our beams\, but the bird had fled. Another boy shouted from the other direction\, “There’s one!” and we rushed toward him. Alas\, the snipe once again escaped. After about a half hour of banging and yelling\, and several more missed chances\, we made our way back to the campfire where the scoutmaster had hot chocolate waiting for us. We laughed and joked around the fire. \nThe hapless monk then returns to Mazu\, who tells him\, “Zang’s head is white\, and Hai’s head is black.” \nWhat is our monk searching for here? It is the same things you and I are wanting: inclusion\, intimacy\, and some sense of the light. What he probably does not realize is that the search itself is full of inclusion\, intimacy\, and light. The search itself is the fulfillment of his deepest wants. In the kindest way\, that is what the three teachers are trying to show him. Koun Yamada writes of this koan: “It is important to realize that each of these statements is the complete manifestation of the ultimate truth of Buddhism\, the meaning of coming from the West.” Each statement is an invitation to join in the play of the universe. \nAfter a few years in the Scouts\, I was asked to watch over some Tenderfeet coming to camp. One morning we woke up and\, though we had bacon to cook for breakfast\, someone had forgotten the darned bacon stretcher. So I asked several younger boys to go around to other camps and see if they could borrow a left-handed bacon stretcher. They searched and searched\, but could not find one. \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-45/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snipe500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250127T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250127T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203324Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250121T185833Z
UID:10001947-1738000800-1738006200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:No regular Monday meeting today. \nJOIN JON JOSEPH & FRIENDS FOR A VISIT WITH PICO IYER \nIN OUR ZEN LUMINARIES SERIES ON JANUARY 27th \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 next Monday for koan meditation\, dharma talk and conversation. All are welcome. \nJon Joseph Roshi\, Director of San Mateo Zen Community
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/monday-zen-with-jon-joseph-44/
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:20250127T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250127T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20240916T190254Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250129T190907Z
UID:10001829-1738000800-1738006200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Aflame – Learning from Silence: Jon Joseph in Conversation with Essayist & Author Pico Iyer
DESCRIPTION:Pico Iyer returns to Zen Luminaries for a wide-ranging discussion on his life\, work\, and latest book\, Aflame: Learning from Silence. \nReading Aflame may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind. \n—His Holiness the Dalai Lama \n\nPico Iyer is one of the great storytellers of our time. He has traveled the world for decades\, writing for periodicals or doing research for one of his many books. For much of that time he would return\, again and again\, to the Hermitage—a Benedictine monastery high above the Pacific Coast in Big Sur\, California. Pico has visited the Hermitage over a hundred times in the past thirty-two years\, in search of silence. In Aflame: Learning from Silence\, he shares memories and reflections on his time spent there in solitude. \nThe silence of a monastery is not like that of a deep forest or mountaintop; it’s active and thrumming\, almost palpable. And part of its beauty—what deepens and extends it—is that it belongs to all of us.  \nIn the solitude of my cell\, I often feel closer to the people I care for than when they’re in the same room\, reminded in the sharpest way why I love them; in silence all the unmet strangers across the property come to feel like friends\, joined at the root. \nAnd there has been been fire\, not just the fire that destroyed Iyer’s Santa Barbara home\, but the grass fires threatened his treasured Hermitage and its resident monks. \n“Sooner or later the world must burn\, and all things in it\,” writes the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. Yet he also knows that the monk’s first duty is to keep the fires within alight. “If you so wish\,” observes one of the Desert Fathers whose sayings Merton collects\, “you can become aflame.” \nJoin us for a fascinating conversation with Pico on the Hermitage\, Leonard Cohen’s time as a cloistered Zen monk\, his journeys with the Dalai Lama\, and fires that burn within our hearts and in the world outside. \n—Jon Joseph \n\n\nPico Iyer was born in Oxford\, England in 1957. In 1980\, he became a Teaching Fellow at Harvard\, where he received a second Master’s degree\, and in subsequent years received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters. Since 1982\, he has been a full-time writer\, publishing fifteen books translated into twenty-three languages\, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism\, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. \nHis books include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu\, The Lady and the Monk\, The Global Soul\, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. He has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time\, The New York Times\, Harper’s Magazine\, the Los Angeles Times\, and more than 250 periodicals worldwide. His four recent talks for TED have received more than eleven million views. \nSince 1992\, Iyer has spent much of his time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur\, California\, and most of the rest in suburban Japan. \n\nSource: www.picoiyerjourneys.com \n\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/zen-luminaries-aflame-learning-from-silence-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-essayist-novelist-pico-iyer/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/picoCALENDAR.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250120T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250120T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203242Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250117T232139Z
UID:10001948-1737396000-1737401400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Gaia Shows the Way
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nFollowing the heavy rains\, scores of Chinook salmon showed up in Sonoma Creek\, a narrow\, thirty-mile stream that flows into the San Francisco Bay. They came to spawn and then die\, as they have done for millennia. Extreme drought and decades of development brought the collapse of salmon and steelhead populations\, forcing California to ban fishing of those species along its Pacific coast. Yet this year the large salmon\, also known as “Kings\,” returned. \nGaia shows that she can heal. Here is a koan for healing: \nYunmen said to the assembly\,\n“Medicine and sickness cure each other.\nAll the great earth is medicine.\nWhat are you?” \n—Blue Cliff Record Case 87\, transl. John Tarrant & Joan Sutherland \nImages and videos of the fires in SoCal bring painful memories for those of us previously touched by fire. Five years ago the Kincade Fire rode on the back of Diablo winds—similar to Santa Anas—devastating our rural Sonoma neighborhood: Charred live and valley oaks\, burned manzanita and madrone\, and underfoot\, scorched grass. All the homes in the area\, save our own and a few others\, had burned. After the fire passed I watched a lone coyote amble on the blackened slope across the creek\, searching for dead rodents. \nMedicine and sickness heal each other. But despair has not been my strongest emotion hearing the terrible news from Los Angeles. I feel my appreciation for the power of renewal and healing that the great earth\, Gaia\, brings. \nIf Gaia can heal\, perhaps we\, too\, can heal. When I hike with my dog through the Mayacama hills\, most signs of the Kincade have been overtaken by new growth: the wildrye and fescue returned quickly\, followed by madrone\, manzanita and oaks. Only the gray pines remain as charred sentinels along the ridge line. \nDespair could come easily in these times\, especially for us gray-hairs. But at Pacific Zen we have a saying\, “Despair assumes too much knowing.” I see my young daughters deeply engaged in great-earth work\, seeking to make their future not just possible\, but promising. One has worked for several years in forestry and is currenly training to be a prescribed-burn crew boss. The other works as an analyst at a political polling firm. When I meet their friends\, I find them energetic\, action-oriented\, and full of hope. It is wrong and unfair for us to predict that they have no future. \nGaia finds a way\, all on her own. We don’t need to help her so much as we need to get out of her way. When we do\, the Chinook return to Sonoma Creek. \nHomeric Hymn to Gaia\nby Diane J. Rayor\, from The Homeric Hymns\, 30 \nI will sing to the mother of all\, firmly-rooted Gaia.\neldest living deity who feeds all the world’s life—\nwhether on the divine land\, in the deep sea\,\nor flying about—all beings feed from your plenty.\nFine children and rich harvests arise from you.\nO Queen; you alone give mortal folk a livelihood\,\nor take it away. The one you graciously honor\nis truly blessed. For him\, all is abundant:\nhis life-giving fields bear fruit\, flocks thrive\nin his pastures… \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-43/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/chinook500.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250113T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250113T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T203150Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250111T144322Z
UID:10001949-1736791200-1736796600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: In the Sea of Uncertainty: Knowing the Not Knowing of Our Lives
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nIn the dream\, I am floating on my back off the coast of the Big Island\, in Hawai’i. There is a gentle swell\, and the water is clear and warm\, and very deep. I look around me\, and the waters are alive with schooling fish and diving birds. I fall asleep in the dream for a time and\, when I awaken\, I realize no sharks have come\, though most of the fish and birds have moved on. The feeling of the dream is warm\, vast and inviting. \nIn recent years\, this is the kind of feeling that has visited me\, and I am sure you too\, when I keep company with “not knowing” in my life and practice. It is a greater appreciation for the vast and clear sea of life\, sea of love\, sea of light\, sea of uncertainty\, with both immediate gifts and infinite possibility. And pain\, as well. \nThere are a number of well-known koans that return us again and again to the sea of uncertainty: \n“Why are you going on pilgrimage?” asked Dizhang. “I don’t know\,” replied Fayan.\n“Who are you\, standing here before me?” inquired Emperor Wu. “I Don’t know\,” responded Bodhidharma.\nA student asked Zhao Zhou\, “If you don’t dwell in clarity\, what do you live by?” “Again\, I don’t know\,” said Zhao. \n—The Book of Serenity\, 20; The Blue Cliff Record\, 1&2 \nLast week we were having a holiday glass of wine with friends\, one of whom was recently diagnosed with cancer\, underwent chemotherapy and had his bladder removed. He said the doctor had found him to be cancer free\, and we all gave him a hearty toast. He then wryly added\, “At least until my next checkup in six months.” I thought\, “None of us can see beyond six months. We can’t even see beyond a week.” Another acquaintance\, extremely fit in his mid-80s\, broke a wrist playing tennis a couple of weeks ago\, developed sepsis and died on the first day of Hanukkah. Floating on the sea of uncertainty. \nIn some mysterious way\, the universe is constructing and deconstructing itself moment by moment. We are part of that construction project. Yet by the time we recognize our vital role\, the moment has passed and the universe has changed\, made wholly new once again. \nThis process of deepening\, of appreciation\, is without end. Many years ago\, sitting in sesshin at the small SanUn Zendo\, I was surprised to hear Koun Yamada start his teisho with the simple statement\, “In the past ten years\, my understanding of this koan has deepened immeasurably. A decade ago\, I would not be giving the same talk.” We are continually knowing not-knowing. And then not knowing that. \nThis morning we received a video clip from a friend whose house is in Altadena\, in Los Angeles. Driving down her neighborhood block is house upon house\, gutted and burned out\, with many of them still smoldering. She was certain her’s was lost\, but she comes to it and finds it still standing\, and exclaims\, “The turquoise lawn chairs survived. Amazing!” \nHunger for Something \nSometimes I long to be the woodpile\,\ncut-apart tree soon to be smoke\,\nor even the smoke itself\, \nsinewy ghost of ash and air\, going\nwhere I want to\, at least for a while. \nNeither inside nor out\, \nneither lost nor home\, no longer\na shape or a name I’ll pass through \nall the broken windows of the world.\nIt’s not a wish for consciousness to end. \nIt’s not the appetite an army has\nfor its own emptying heart\,\nbut a hunger to stand now and then \nalone on the death grounds\,\nwhere the dogs of the self are feeding. \n—Chase Twichell\, The Snow Watcher  \n  \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-42/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/waves500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250106T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250106T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241220T212457Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241220T212457Z
UID:10001973-1736186400-1736191800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on January 13th. 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/on-break-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/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241230T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241230T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241120T163508Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241228T160344Z
UID:10001921-1735581600-1735587000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: Taking Refuge in Family
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nThe winter holidays are family time around my house. Decades ago\, my mother began a tradition of gathering her six children and our broods on Christmas Eve. A few nights ago we numbered nearly thirty. As the seasonal rains murmured through the downspouts\, we threw juniper chunks on the fire\, tucked into our potluck feast\, and later played some very silly games. \nTraditionally\, the ceremony by which Buddhist monks are ordained is called shukke (出家)—home departure—which is a grave severing of the filial duties most Asian societies expect of children. Zen’s Sixth Ancestor Huineng was making a meager living selling firewood while he and his mother suffered extreme poverty. On hearing a monk chant the Diamond Sutra\, Huineng awakened and knew he must leave his mother and travel to a monastery in the north to study Zen. He left one small family to find another. \nLayman Pang\, who lived a couple of generations after Huineng\, is probably the best known family man from the golden age of Chan-Zen. After studying with Mazu\, he traveled about with his wife and two children\, visiting various temples and teachers. \nLayman Pang and his daughter Lingzhao were selling bamboo baskets. Coming down off a bridge he stumbled and fell. When Lingzhao saw this she ran to her father’s side and threw herself on the ground.\n“What are you doing?” cried the Layman.\n“I saw Daddy fall down\, so I’m helping\,“ replied Lingzhao.\n“Luckily no one was looking\,“ remarked the Layman. \n—The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang\, The Anecdotes \n“I take refuge in my companions\,” is the third of the PZI Refuge Vows\, which include taking refuge in awakening and the teachings. When we join a sangha\, we come together as a kind of family—as brothers and sisters on the path. It is a familial act to look after one another: a check-in\, a brief note\, sitting together in the Open Temple. This is what family members do: they fall down together on the road. And then they pick up the baskets together. \nThis is how we come to understand our relationship to the greater household we live in\, the community of all things. Rocks\, sticks\, ants and grizzly bears support us\, and it is lovely that we\, in turn\, support them. \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-41/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Ant-bridge500.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241223T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241223T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241120T163218Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241218T214751Z
UID:10001919-1734976800-1734982200@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today\, but will return on December 30th. 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-40/
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:20241216T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241216T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241120T162759Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241216T172814Z
UID:10001918-1734372000-1734377400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: There Is a Light That Shines in All of Us
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nYunmen taught\, “Everybody has a light inside of them. Sometimes it is dark\, dark and dim\, and hard to see. What is the light that shines in you?” \n—Blue Cliff Record Case 86 \nZen is about seeing and appreciating the light in all things. Some of that is finding the light within the light: This early winter morning\, broken sunshine illuminated wet grass in the olive orchard across the drive. The grass\, thickened in the seasonal rains. \nPerhaps the greatest work is in realizing the light within the dark: This afternoon an unhoused woman stood in the portico of the local Walmart\, soaked from the cold rain\, possessions in the shopping cart standing by her. Perhaps she was weighing her options. She too shone with a kind of light. \nA few nights ago classics translator Emily Wilson visited with us and reflected on the light within the dark in her work. Of The Iliad\, Homer’s poem of the Trojan War\, she writes: “Human mortality is at the center of it all …” Yet The Iliad makes the whole world feel gloriously alive. \nHow is that possible—so much death and so much life? So much blood and so many tears? \nWilson ends her introduction like this: \nYou already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again. \nIn the above koan it is Yunmen who guides us toward appreciating the unfathomable by celebrating the fathomable. He points to the fact that the light is only knowable in its ordinariness\, in its expression of this complicated life. In responding to his own question\, “What is the light that shines in you?” Yunmen answers “Kitchen pantry and temple gate.” Dark and dim\, how wonderful that it shines on this plain of Troy. \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-39/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/JonJosephCALENDAR500X375.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241211T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241211T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20240914T000042Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241209T190821Z
UID:10001828-1733940000-1733945400@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ZEN LUMINARIES: Jon Joseph in Conversation with Classicist & Author Emily Wilson — Western Koans: The Goddesses and Women of Homer
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nIn the old days there were sixteen bodhisattvas. When it was time to bathe they got into the bath together. They suddenly realized the cause of water and said\, “This subtle touch releases the brightness. We have become the sons and daughters of the Buddha.” \n—Blue Cliff Record Case 78 \nThere is something about the above koan that reminds me of the warriors\, women\, and gods of The Iliad. Their bath is on the plains of Troy\, where they find themselves immersed in love\, fighting\, tears\, and\, ultimately\, death. “Human mortality is at the center of it all\,” writes classics translator Emily Wilson. “I know of no other narrative that evokes with such unflinching truthfulness the vulnerability of the human body.” \nPerhaps more than anything\, The Iliad centers on the story of two great warriors: the Greek Achilles and the Trojan Hector. After Hector kills Achilles’ dear friend Patroclus\, Achilles seeks murderous revenge\, finally cutting Hector down. The gods wish Hector to have a proper burial\, and direct his proud and grieving father\, Priam\, to go to Achilles’ camp and offer ransom for Hector’s body. On arrival\, wholly exposed to his enemy\, old Priam supplicates himself. \nThis made Achilles yearn\nto mourn for his father. With his hand\, he gently\ntook hold of the old man and pushed him back.\nThen both remembered whom they had lost.\nCurled like a ball beside Achilles’ feet\nPriam sobbed desperately for murderous Hector.\nAchilles wept\, at times for his own father\,\nand sometimes for Patroclus.\nSo their wailing suffused the house. \nWilson writes\, “I have now lived with this poem for some thirty-five years—rereading it\, teaching it in the original and in various translations\, and now\, rendering it into English. For the last six years\, I have worked intensively on this translation. But even now\, when I turn back to lines I have read hundreds of times already\, I find that the raw power of the Greek still startles me\, like Athena suddenly tugging Achilles by the hair to stop him in his tracks. Often\, I am unable to read without goose bumps\, tears\, or both.” \n\nEmily Wilson is a British American classicist\, author\, and translator. In 2018\, she became the first woman to publish an English translation of Homer’s Odyssey. Her translation of the Iliad was released in September 2023. \nWilson is Department Chair and Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She attended Oxford University and Yale University\, receiving a Ph.D. in Classics and Comparative Literature. \nWilson has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and Early Modern scholarship\, a MacArthur Fellow\, and a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Philadelphia with her family and pets. \nMore books by Emily Wilson: Mocked with Death: Tragic Overliving from Sophocles to Milton (2004)\, The Death of Socrates: Hero\, Villain\, Chatterbox\, Saint (2007)\, and The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca (2014) \nsources: Wikipedia\, emilyrcwilson.com \n\nThe effect [of Wilson’s translation] is not so much to bring the characters of the Iliad into the contemporary sphere\, as to bring us into theirs. … A poem you read with your heart in your throat. \n—A. E. Stallings\, The Spectator\, September 2023 \n\nThis event is funded in part by the 2024 Frederick P. Lenz Foundation “Women in Buddhism” Grant.\n\n \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 $50—250. \n 
URL:https://www.pacificzen.org/event/zen-luminaries-jon-joseph-in-conversation-with-classicist-author-emily-wilson/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Emily-wilson_500x375.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241209T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241209T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241120T174401Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241120T174401Z
UID:10001931-1733767200-1733772600@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today and will return on December 16th. We hope to see you 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/on-break-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/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241202T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241202T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241120T162246Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241202T232358Z
UID:10001920-1733162400-1733167800@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph: It's Complicated: Odysseus Returns Home
DESCRIPTION:REGISTER\n\nTell me about a complicated man.\nMuse\, tell me how he wandered and was lost\nwhen he had wrecked the holy town of Troy\,\nand where he went\, and who he met\, the pain\nhe suffered on the sea … Now goddess\, child of Zeus\,\ntell the old story of our modern times.\nFrom the beginning. \n—The Odyssey by Homer\, translated by Emily Wilson \nSo opens the nearly three-thousand-year-old Greek epic about a man trying to return to his original home. This tale is not very different from our own wandering in the Chan-Zen tradition. Perhaps it is wholly the same. \nDizang asks Fayan\, “Where are you going?\nLost\, Fayan responds\, “I am wandering\, trying to get back to my true home.”\n“Why are you doing that?”\n“I am not at all sure\,” replies Fayan.\n“Being lost\, being unsure\, that itself is your original home\,” answers Dizang. \nWhen The Odyssey opens\, our hero—sacker of cities\, trickster\, beggar\, pirate\, loving husband and father—is being held captive by the alluring and powerful nymph Calypso\, who wishes to keep him as her lover for all eternity. Instead\, forlorn\, he sits all day long on the shore of her island\, weeping for the family and community he has not seen in two decades. Rather than the immortality of the gods that she is offering\, he wishes instead to once again “see the smoke that rises/from his own homeland\, and he wants to die.” \nEmily Wilson’s translation of the classic is “majestic as literature gets\,” writes one critic. She brings forth the light of this one hero’s journey that shines through all ages\, regions and cultures. It radiates with the nature\, which is our self nature. There is an immediacy\, intimacy and familiarity in both the story and the translation that allows us to embody the journey and know it to be our own. \nTell me about a complicated man and woman\, who have wandered and have been lost\, who have done both wonderful and awful things\, and who now just wish to return home to their hearths and families. Tell me\, Muse\, an old story of our modern times. \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-38/
LOCATION:PZI Online Temple
CATEGORIES:PZI Zen Online
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://www.pacificzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/JonJosephCALENDAR500X375.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241125T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20241125T193000
DTSTAMP:20260426T073634
CREATED:20241029T190350Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241029T190643Z
UID:10001905-1732557600-1732563000@www.pacificzen.org
SUMMARY:ON BREAK: MONDAY ZEN with Jon Joseph
DESCRIPTION:Jon Joseph is not teaching today. Come join us next on December 2nd! \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/on-break-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/2021/06/wooden-bucketCALENDAR500x350.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR