So the Teachings Have a Future: John Tarrant’s 2016 Year-End Letter

Hello Dear Friend:

You are part of something excellent. Thanks. You have stepped into the project of awakening and it changes the world for the better. The world is uncertain, we cannot depend on our expectations, and awakening hearts and minds is our offering in these times.

Koans were effective for the people dealing with Genghis Khan, so it’s likely they’ll get us through our current times as well. Our practice at Pacific Zen Institute is increasingly important. Zen and koans are our most reliable guide into unknown territory. Koan practice teaches us to look at an impossible problem in a new way—the predicament might be a doorway that we can step through without knowing how.

Thoughts at Midnight

I like to sit with a koan in the middle of the night. It’s one way I’m loyal to the practice of Zen and it’s never let me down. I learn and deepen too. In these disturbing times I wonder: how do we continue to fund this work? To provide a refuge, through our centers and community spaces? Through our retreats? Through our scholarships for young people and those in need?

We’ve been doing big and important things this year, becoming more visible, building a structure that can sustain itself. We currently have a deficit of $75k, which is larger than usual and needs attention. When I mentioned this to a friend, she was surprised and said: “I thought PZI was doing fine, you do such great work!” So I want you to know that, although it’s a tradition, it’s not a formality that I am writing this letter at year’s end asking for your donations. I’m coming to you because I want PZI to have a future.

PZI needs your help ensuring that our centers are funded, our retreats are affordable, that our teachers can be there and offer such substantial individual work with students, that our commitment to helping others wake up together continues.

At our Autumn retreat, after I spoke about waking up in the night wondering about making PZI’s future more secure, five people came together and between them raised $19,600. They created a matching fund.

It works this way: If you make a donation of any size (up to a total of $19,600) between now and the end of the year, it will be matched through this fund. If we can match the fund this year, it will help a lot. If we double it, it will go a long way toward eliminating our end of year deficit (which is currently being covered by my retirement fund).

Extra incentive: If you donate $250 or more we will send you a 1’x2’ gyclée of my Mu calligraphy that you see here (and on this year’s art card), individually signed by me.

 

Please Donate Now

 

Holding Each Other: Member Testimonials

At PZI it’s clear that our practice holds us all, keeps us company at work and at home. It’s especially encouraging to hear members of our community of all ages talk about how meditation and koans bring openings that let them put down old stories and be creative and honest and direct. Here are a few things that people have been saying:

“I volunteer my time as a Lacrosse coach for at-risk girls in Oakland, and when a leader in the community became unstable and threatened the girls, I found myself relying on my koan practice to steady myself and not become unhinged with anger and disappointment. Koans have helped me trust that I can find more creative responses in life, and PZI has given me a spiritual home. The girls are meditating now too, and look forward to it.”
—Jessica, Program Manager, age 29

“When my daughter died three years ago, I fought with grief and an inconsolable devastation. Koan study spoke to me but I didn’t know where it would take me. I trusted our teachers and came to value my time at retreat and in the interview room more than any work I had ever done in a therapist’s office. Things started changing first in my heart. I began to feel gratitude for my daughter’s life, which was so tough. And, over time, I realized that many of my cases started settling more quickly—and with less effort. My life wouldn’t be the same without PZI and our shared practices.”
—Melinda, Civil Rights Attorney & PZI retreat timekeeper, age 68

“I used to work for an ex-military guy who was always complaining about millennials and how we never ‘get’ the vision. He’s an intimidating guy in many ways, but I decided to tell him about koans, about how you can put the same koan in a room of people and have an astonishing range of responses to what the koan means. My boss softened and became interested in listening to people of my generation and learning how Apple’s vision was landing with them. My colleagues thought I was Yoda. Instead of taking credit, I just started bringing more of my friends to my koan group!”
—Lucy, Leader at Apple, age 26

“Something important shifts if a koan shows up at the scene of the action. The event horizon opens up, and what I do comes from more of the whole situation somehow. I know this makes it sound mysterious, but it seems natural when it happens. ‘Not knowing is most intimate,’ for example. Given the election results, are we headed for Armageddon? Can we say yes or no, or even maybe or maybe not? So the koan shows up and the four walls that are pressing in get some transparency and lightness to them. And even better, I feel an intimacy with strangers as well as friends. I notice my dogs want attention, and the train whistles sound like organ chords. I’m suddenly kinder to people, and myself.”
—D, Activist and Koan Small Group Leader, age 72

Making A Habit of Generosity

We are living in a time when generosity is especially important. PZI is a place where people can reliably go, regardless of their circumstances, and find companions and a practice. We make a habit of generosity: Our scholarship program is 10% of our budget and we keep our regular programs at our centers open to everyone and free of charge.

And PZI members make a habit of generosity, too. Memberships, donations and volunteers are how we do most of what we do, the quaint but effective idea of a gift exchange. We’re lucky to have you, our friends, donors and members. You make it possible to do what we do.

If we can all be as generous as the teachings are, we’ll do fine. I’m grateful that we are in this together.

Work at PZI continues to be done mainly by volunteers, including much of the teaching. As we have grown, with more people excited about what we do, our workload and expenses have grown, too. This year has been notable for dealing with the basic structures that support our work with people. So I ask for your help with this most excellent of organizations. Thanks for making it possible.

What we have been doing this year, the 30-second version, to be read really fast: 
 Well–attended retreats of many kinds, led by all different, wonderful teachers, including classes, art workshops, events, salons, with scholarships given for all of them; membership nearly doubled; new center opened in San Antonio TX; new small groups in many parts of the world; database integration project nearly complete; uncertainty.club magazine launched (second issue soon); more new people walking through the door than ever before; more volunteers; social media liveliness; paid staff working brilliantly together, now 4 of them; new, gorgeous, updated, mobile-friendly website, online before year’s end; Standing at the Blue Cliff DVD released, selling many copies; koans translated into Spanish in Oaxaca; writing by John Tarrant and others, in print and online; eating when hungry, sleeping when tired.

Priorities for 2017: online video archive for members, to be the largest of its kind; online store with PZI gear and art on our new website; program for small group leaders; more short retreats; lecture series; uncertainty.club podcast; community emergency fund; retirement fund increase; fundraising training and support; professional video lighting and microphones; the light shining in all things.
Here are some things you will help us pay for with your contributions:

  • $100 tea for one year of shared warmth
  • $100 a year of candles glowing on the altar
  • $100 printer paper for a year of cool things to read
  • $150 a month of power and water at a local center
  • $150 food, snacks and drinks at a one day retreat
  • $250 flowers for one long retreat
  • $350 yearly creative art card, image and text, free to visitors for years to come
  • $450 one week’s pay for friendly, organized membership coordinator
  • $550 average long retreat scholarship for one
  • $1,200 postage for year end mailing
  • $1000 one month of audio/visual/Livestreaming delight
  • $8,000 magnificent online archive, stage one
  • $8,500 fabulous food for one Open Mind Retreat
  • $10,000 one year (part time) enthusiastic outreach coordinator
  • $10,000 one year getting-our-ducks-in-a-row database support
  • $15,000 yearly print/web ad budget
  • $8,000—$18,000 modest but appreciated yearly stipend for a teacher
  • $30,000 retreat center rent one week.
  • $40,000 full time website encouragement, care and design
  • $50,000 yearly rent for two warm-hearted Bay Area local centers

 

Please Donate Now

 

Shining The Light

When we can talk about the deepest things together, a way appears. It’s easy to see the light in everyone, the light inside even the dark times. When what we expected and hoped for is blocked, our practice shines, a gate opens into the scent of orange blossoms, and all things gaze back us in greeting. And gratitude for you, too, rises to meet me as I write in the sound of the night birds and the rain.

I hope you will help us build a foundation for our teachings for years to come. When any one of us wakes up, the whole universe wakes up, too.
Gratefully yours,


John Tarrant, Roshi 
Director, Pacific Zen Institute