Meeting the Inconceivable | Zen Koans, Dreams & the Creative Life

The stone drenched with rain points the way. In this episode, Roshi Allison Atwill speaks on a koan born of a haiku by Japanese poet Santoka Taneda. What does it mean to be drenched in our own lives and experiences? This episode invites listeners into the constant downpour that is the universe itself. "It is a promising moment when we give up trying to control our situation; not to get our of the rain, but to let it soak through us." - Allison Atwill. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/23

We are all walking through the valley holding our lanterns. What is the Way? What do the valley and the lantern represent? Koans allow us to stop chasing. When we are not chasing things, we can experience freedom and delight. When you relate to something outside of yourself, you can be free. Listen to this episode as Roshi John Tarrant muses on having the mind of a dead log. "The whole of your life has a nobility and truth to it." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/22

With realization, all things are one family. Without realization, all things are separate and disconnected. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant talks about the empathy of meditation and its lack of opposition. Meditation assists in undoing the structures the mind makes. We can let go of control and let the koans carry us. Listen in to learn about the hidden allies we have in our lives and why the small self is always trying to be something. "The tradition teaches itself and teaches people to teach it." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/21

Today, Roshi Allison Atwill shares a poem about our intrinsic ability to always carry light and silence. In this episode, she explains how the original silence is always with us and within us. What are the elemental termas of Tibetan Buddhism? How can we apply these termas to meditation practice? We can learn and teach from the silence and the light that we each have within. "Awakening always appears in our actual life." - Allison Atwill. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/20

There is always a certain amount of mystery to who we are and where we are. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a poetic case entitled Jiashan's Beautiful State of Mind. What is your state of mind? What is it like to be you? "The universe is holding all of us and is all of us." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/19  

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant tells the story of Deshan and his transformative pilgrimage of awakening. We are all Deshan, ready to let go of our old pile of stories. What is it like to be on a journey? How do we get home from a journey? How does the journey change us? How can we meet our journey with openness? "Meditation is a kind of change of heart, but it is more a forgetting to carry our burdens." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/18

Today, Roshi John Tarrant takes listeners on a vivid imaginal journey into the depths of the Blue Dragon's cave of wisdom. "For twenty years, I've struggled fiercely. How many times have I gone down into the Blue Dagon's cave for you?" This great question appears in Case 3 of The Blue Cliff Record, the canonical Zen Buddhism koan collection. Tarrant offers context for the power of the Zen koan tradition, describing how the great images tap hidden reserves of the mind and open doors to awakening. If you've ever wished to ask questions to the source of wisdom itself, this talk is for you. "We have to submit ourselves to the current of life and be at ease." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/17

Today, Roshi Allison Atwill explores the bodhisattva’s unique relationship with uncertainty as a healing balm for suffering. Describing how Zen Buddhism draws from the Mahayana tradition in which the bodhisattva path means helping to awaken all beings, Atwill notes this is not a future goal to somehow be achieved but a moment-to-moment way of meeting every aspect of our own lives with sincere openness. Your awakening has no recipe, she says. It’s uniquely yours to discover as everything you’ve taken as a given falls away. "You can't get paint-by-numbers for a painting that doesn't exist. And it is the same for your awakening." - Tess Beasley. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/16

Can we trust our own unique response to life, our own dharma? In this episode, Roshi Tess Beasley speaks about how seductive problems are, and how frozen we can become when we think that something beyond what's already here is required. Telling the story of Juzhi and his infamous awakening encounters, first with the Zen Buddhist nun, True World, and then with the spirit of the mountain, Beasley considers the nature of a true word and what gets in the way of expression. Listen to learn more about how the practice of Zen Buddhism means connecting to a source greater than the small self. "Thankfully, we have these greater forces that seem to step in when we're about to get in our own way." - Tess Beasley. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/15

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a series of bright gate koans from The Blue Cliff Record, all featuring one of the greatest Zen masters of all-time, Yunmen. At the root of these dharmakaya koans lies the question of consciousness, or what Yunmen describes as: what is that light that everyone has? Chock-full of awakening stories from ancient China to modern day, this talk showcases Zen Buddhism's earthy, humorous, and joyful exploration of the wonders of existence. Listen in to learn more about finding your own light. “Look around. This is your temple of the Blue Cliff.” – John Tarrant.  Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/14

Today, Roshi John Tarrant speaks about peach blossoms and the end of doubt. Everyone has a light inside. What is this light that everyone has? Can you see the silvery threads connecting all koans? Listen to this episode to learn to trust the moment, yourself, and the darkness. “So many problems disappear when you realize you are already in the temple.” – John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/13

In this episode, Roshi Allison Atwill offers insight into Zen's signature transmission beyond words and letters. Telling the story of infamous Japanese Zen Master, Ikkyu Sojun, and his ambivalence toward transmission, Atwill describes how our particular awakening is always tailor-made to the circumstances of our lives. It always comes through the door we least expect, and dissolves whatever sense of separation we've held in place throughout our lives. Listen to learn more about the nature of awakening and how we are always receiving transmission. "We are always receiving transmission." - Allison Atwill. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/12

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a deep, strange koan in which a student asks Yunmen, "Where do all the Buddhas come from?" And, Yunmen answers: "East mountain walks on the water." Pondering the inevitable questions that appear as part of koan study, like where do we come from, and what is the source of this existence we find ourselves part of, Tarrant considers the traditions of Zen and Haiku as well as hippopotamuses. What do we do when everything we are holding onto falls down? Listen in to learn more. "The whole universe is in the glimpses." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/11

In this episode, Roshi Tess Beasley speaks about the nature of self-consciousness and how the koan path slowly guides us through the process of discovering our part in it all. It also ferrets out our strategies for making a separate self that cannot bear the intimacy of awakening. If we imagine that we are "us", it can be difficult to stare into someone's eyes for a long time until we envision ourselves as the night sky. When we forget to be ourselves our true nature can appear. "There is something nourishing and almost healing about seeing things as they are." - Tess Beasley. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/10

Join Roshi Allison Atwill to explore awakening as a great voyage, one that is entirely your own, and yet in which you are somehow accompanied by the entire universe. Atwill tells the riveting story of one sailor's solo journey around Cape Horn and reveals how, in the end, he gives up on the mind that races and compares, and turns toward Tahiti...a beacon for his true nature. What does it mean to give up on the project of improving and protecting the self? How does Zen Buddhism help us navigate a path to freedom? Each person takes the voyage of awakening alone and in some sense entirely accompanied by the universe." - Allison Atwill. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/09

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant tackles the first great gate of koan study, in which a student asks, "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" And, Zhaozhou simply answers, "No," (translated as "Mu" in Japanese, and "Wu" in Chinese). Exploring the vivid commentaries that accompany this foundational koan case, including instructions to "cut off the mind road" and "make your whole body a mass of doubt," Tarrant speaks about entering deeply the very trouble we usually seek to avoid, and the modesty of setting down our most treasured defenses against it. Being clever, being important, being tough won't help. It's when all this falls away that freedom appears. How then should you work with this? Listen to find out. "For the practice of Zen it is imperative that you pass through the barriers set up by the founding teachers." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/08

In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant takes up a koan from The Gateless Gate collection in which the Buddha tells his attendant, "That person is like a fine racehorse who runs at the mere shadow of a whip." Tarrant investigates our relationship to suffering, describing the four kinds of horse metaphors in Zen Buddhism, ranging from the one who runs at the mere shadow of the whip to the one who must be whipped to the bone. Noting how everyone wants to be the best horse, but Buddha's compassion actually arises for the worst, Tarrant reveals the unexpected joy and wholeness found in our "worst horse" moments. After all, it is the very worst horse who reaches enlightenment in the end. Listen for stories and reflections on embracing the worst horse. "We often give away our life hoping for a later improved version." - John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/07

Fire is the vital element of transformation. In this episode, Roshi John Tarrant discusses the Zen koan, Put Out the Fire Across the River, which originally arose in response to seeing the camp fires of Genghis Khan's army burn brightly through the night. Fire has a terrifying power for destruction but also a sacred role in connecting us. Like the old alchemists, we must immerse ourselves in something to transform it, and thereby we, too, cannot help but be transformed in the process. We cannot achieve much without a fire inside us, and meditation becomes a vessel by which we cultivate our capacity to become a living flame. Listen in to hear stories of all kinds of fire and also how koans come into existence. "Fire burns the barriers."  —John Tarrant. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/06

In this episode, Roshi Allison Atwill tells the story of Baizhang's Fox, a classic koan from The Gateless Gate collection about the nature of karma. In this koan case, an old man confesses he was once abbot of the mountain temple, but was sentenced to live 500 lives as a fox for misapprehending the nature of cause and effect. The story of his eventual freedom touches on the relief we find in realizing that our particular karma holds within it our awakening, and indeed our piece of the world's awakening. Listen to learn how Allison found Zen and why even 500 lives as a fox become 500 lives of grace. "Suddenly it is like you become the center of the universe." - Allison Atwill. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/05

Telling stories of how we are most deeply transformed by the encounters we try to keep at bay, Beasley reveals the tenderness that emerges when we can just simply feel how connected to everything we already are. Listen in to discover the red thread in your own life. “Somehow in the silence, we find each other.” - Tess Beasley. Learn more about this episode of Meeting the Inconceivable at https://www.pacificzen.org/04