Jan Brogan, longtime PZI Member & Head of Practice Beginning with Richie Domingue, who revivified the sutras and sang out into the meditation hall during retreat, we welcome musicians who transform andare transformed by their playing as part of the koan path. Musician – Music as a gift and feature of practice stretches back through our tradition over 1,000 years, and PZI is lucky to have a number of talented musicians in our community. Orchestrating and shepherding these meetings are the teacher-student liaisons: senior students who help guide retreat participants to their meetings and ensure our teachers have what they need. Liaison – A deep part of retreat includes the chance to meet with a teacher in dokusan, a one-on-one meeting. Part of what makes this possible is our Time Keeper, who becomes time itself for the duration of the retreat, not just by ringing the actual bells, leading walking meditation, and keeping the schedule, but by holding the ancient container of sesshin as a song that has its own rhythms and grooves. Time Keeper – One of the gifts of retreat is being able to descend fully into the experience and open beyond a usual sense of space and time. Key Roles in Our Tradition and How We Hold Them Sometimes, they begin to lead a koan meditation group locally, too. They usually take refuge and step into various leadership roles when called upon for events, or in temple service. In the territory of the Valley Spirit, living and dying is one garment with no seams.Īs community members find their own dharma practice and path they begin to work regularly with a teacher. The robe was a talk, a book, a garment to wear to dance, to wear to teach, to wear to die. The patches had some resemblance to the patchwork of rice fields seen from above, or the rakusu, the robe of refuge.

Recently, I was preparing to teach and dreamed one night that I was assembling a patchwork of squares. I was cutting a blue plastic one into shape the squares were cotton and other common and uncommon materials, the light shone beautifully through them. It’s not like there’s a bucket of knowledge that we’re pouring in-everybody’s bucket changes, and what we think of as knowledge changes and deepens. We’re all going in a deeper way with this exploration. In the Territory Known as the Valley Spirit In Chan we come together to find our own practice, to find our name, our gift, and our true path in which we are carried by the vastness.Īwakening teaches awakening, and we keep following that light and that thread. from the Record of Dongshan, First of the Five Ranks In the deep thick dark you see but don’t recognize a familiar face from ago “ You’ve got to start somewhere, and not-knowing seems like a good place to start.” And the not-knowing is not just something we run into and just have to put up with. Then we’re starting to trust the not-knowing.

In other words, I went right back to where I started.

I remember when I was going through the curriculum of koans, there was some sort of changeover for me. At first I realized I understood things, whether the teacher approved or not, and that was one step. But then I got into the curriculum, and realized I didn’t understand everything, and then it became quite important to me to be right and to have the teacher approve. That’s one of the things maturity in the dharma comes to, beyond ‘how do I look,’ and things like that. And that’s all right, but it’s got to be all right for you to still be exploring yourself.

“Being a leader is this interesting thing, because people expect something from you. The fundamental task of a teacher is to find your own dharmaĮveryone thinks there is a dharma or an enlightenment outside of themselves, but to think this is only putting off enlightenment and entry into reality. & Temple Roles Allison Atwill, “One Hundred Foot Pole,” 2008.

Zen time keeper