Pacific Zen Institute

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Pacific Zen Institute

We use Zen koan meditation, art and conversation toward this end. Other centers and groups can be found on our website, pacificzen.org.

PZI operates from the simple yet profound discovery that awakening can happen in this very life, at this very moment, rather than in some other life at some other time. Our two main centers are The Santa Rosa Creek Zen Center at santrarosazen.org, and Rockridge Meditation Community at oaklandzen.org. After 20 years of teaching koans in a classical way, John Tarrant, the founder of PZI, developed a

new way of teaching koans in a setting that requires no experience with meditation or Zen. The emphasis is on taking one step into freedom. Everything we do is directed to that end. We hold 7-day and 1-day retreats devoted to freeing the mind. We also have small group seminars on koans. As a community we help deepen one another's practice, often without really trying. PZI holds weekly gatherings online see pacificzen.org/events

05/30/2026

MAY 31st Deep Sit Sunday Zen: Each Being Is an 8,000 Foot Precipice

Meditation can’t be praised enough.
The benefits of generosity and discipline,
prayer, self-reflection, and practice,
have their source in meditation.

With what we gain from just one sitting,
all our crimes are wiped away.

—Hakuin Ekaku

Enlightenment happens inside this life that we have. It’s not some other more satisfactory life with special conditions. So you set off!

You go through one archway, and then you go through a second, and then a third archway, and eventually your worries fall away, though you didn’t ask them to, all desperation falls away and any cause of suffering in the mind is illuminated. Life after life you have been doing this and it’s not a surprise that you come eventually to the Buddha, who is sitting on an ordinary zafu smiling, and Buddha says, “Yes, that’s it, you are doing it alright, just do zazen like that!” and happiness comes over you.

Meditation is also extra good if you do it together with friends.

—John Tarrant Roshi

Join us this Sunday as we take up the koan:

Each being’s eternal radiance appears before you.
Each being is an 8,000 foot precipice.

—Miaozong

Register for Deep Sit Sunday Zen May 31st – 9:00am PT in the PZI Online Temple – Link in comments!

*Registration is FREE for members and guests, or you may elect to donate $10. Dana gratefully accepted.

05/18/2026

Tonight on Pacific Zen Luminaries!

Roshi Joan Jiko Halifax is one of the most influential Zen teachers of our time. Her work has included studies of shamanic rites in indigenous communities, civil rights organizing, and working with the dying and imprisoned.

In 1990 she founded and continues to direct the Upaya Zen Center of Santa Fe, which runs an active calendar of meditation and cultural programs. Roshi Joan received transmission from Bernie Tetsugen Glassman, and has extensive experience with Korean, Vietnamese and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

Join us for this fascinating conversation on the next Pacific Zen Luminaries Series!

Follow the link in comments to register and receive your link for tonight's event.

05/16/2026

MAY 17th: Sunday Zen with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill

Spring Freedom

The dinghy drifts near the bank

Blossoms shake down on our heads,

The quail cluck like ancient aunts,

The oriole shows a flash of the alchemists’ gold

But in the night a silence under everything

allows us to escape

whatever has captured us.

We are transparent in spring.

Join us this Sunday!

—John Tarrant Roshi

Register for Sunday Zen with John Tarrant, Tess Beasley, & Allison Atwill – May 17th – 10:30am PT in the PZI Online Temple – Link in comments!

*Registration is FREE for members and guests, or you may elect to donate $10. Dana gratefully accepted.

05/15/2026

Registration now open for PZI's Summer Open Temple!

Morning Meditation, 5 Days Weekly — FREE to PZI Members.

Wherever you are in the world, let's sit together.

Open Temple Pass gives you nine weeks of unlimited access to two morning meditations,
Mondays–Fridays, May 18th through July 17th.

Practice leaders ring the bells and hold a cushion for you.

All are welcome. Join us!

Register for PZI's Summer Open Temple – Link in comments!

05/11/2026

Next Monday Night on Pacific Zen Luminaries!

Roshi Joan Jiko Halifax is one of the most influential Zen teachers of our time. Her work has included studies of shamanic rites in indigenous communities, civil rights organizing, and working with the dying and imprisoned.

In 1990 she founded and continues to direct the Upaya Zen Center of Santa Fe, which runs an active calendar of meditation and cultural programs. Roshi Joan received transmission from Bernie Tetsugen Glassman, and has extensive experience with Korean, Vietnamese and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

Join us for this fascinating conversation on the next Pacific Zen Luminaries Series!

Follow the link in comments to register and receive your link for next week's event.

04/25/2026

APRIL 26th Deep Sit Sunday Zen: What Is This Light That Everybody Has?

Meditation can’t be praised enough.
The benefits of generosity and discipline,
prayer, self-reflection, and practice,
have their source in meditation.

With what we gain from just one sitting,
all our crimes are wiped away.

—Hakuin Ekaku

Enlightenment happens inside this life that we have. It’s not some other more satisfactory life with special conditions. So you set off!

You go through one archway, and then you go through a second, and then a third archway, and eventually your worries fall away, though you didn’t ask them to, all desperation falls away and any cause of suffering in the mind is illuminated. Life after life you have been doing this and it’s not a surprise that you come eventually to the Buddha, who is sitting on an ordinary zafu smiling, and Buddha says, “Yes, that’s it, you are doing it alright, just do zazen like that!” and happiness comes over you.

Meditation is also extra good if you do it together with friends.

Join us this Sunday as we take up the koan:

Yunmen taught, “Everybody has a light inside. When you’re looking for it, you
can’t see; it’s obscured in the dimness. What is this light that everybody has?”

He answered his own question, “The kitchen pantry, the entrance gate.”

Then he said, “It’s better to have nothing than to have something good.”

—Blue Cliff Record, Case 86
(transl. by John Tarrant & Joan Sutherland)

—John Tarrant, Roshi

Register for Deep Sit Sunday Zen April 26th – 9:00am PT in the PZI Online Temple – Link in comments!

*Registration is FREE for members and guests, or you may elect to donate $10. Dana gratefully accepted.

04/11/2026

Atwill, Beasley, and Tarrant teaching on a good Sunday.

Yunmen asked the assembly, “I don’t ask about before the time of the full moon. What about after the full moon? He himself replied, “Every day is a good day.”

This koan is like a bowl; the emptiness inside is what makes it beautiful. If you don’t hold onto things, you will see that this life now is what you were born for; your kitchen is a palace, and your hallway is a palace, and you move around with a blessing on your head, a blessing that you can pass on to everyone you meet.

Join us for a good Sunday.

—John Tarrant, Roshi

Register for Sunday Zen with John Tarrant, Allison Atwill, & Tess Beasley – April 12th – 10:30am PT in the PZI Online Temple – Link in comments!

*Registration is FREE for members and guests, or you may elect to donate $10. Dana gratefully accepted.

03/28/2026

MARCH 29th Deep Sit Sunday Zen: The Hazy Moon of Spring

Meditation can’t be praised enough.
The benefits of generosity and discipline,
prayer, self-reflection, and practice,
have their source in meditation.

With what we gain from just one sitting,
all our crimes are wiped away.

—Hakuin Ekaku

Enlightenment happens inside this life that we have. It’s not some other more satisfactory life with special conditions. So you set off!

You go through one archway, and then you go through a second, and then a third archway, and eventually your worries fall away, though you didn’t ask them to, all desperation falls away and any cause of suffering in the mind is illuminated. Life after life you have been doing this and it’s not a surprise that you come eventually to the Buddha, who is sitting on an ordinary zafu smiling, and Buddha says, “Yes, that’s it, you are doing it alright, just do zazen like that!” and happiness comes over you.

Meditation is also extra good if you do it together with friends.

Join us this Sunday as we take up the koan:

Though you find clear waters ranging to the vast blue sky in autumn;
How can it compare with the hazy moon on a spring night?
Most people want to have it pure white,
But sweep as you will, you cannot empty the mind.

—Keizan (Aitken & Yamada translation)

Register for Deep Sit Sunday Zen: The Hazy Moon of Spring– March 29th – 9:00am PT in the PZI Online Temple – Link in comments!

*Registration is FREE for members and guests, or you may elect to donate $10. Dana gratefully accepted.

03/26/2026

Dragons & Tigers, Oh My!
Our Great Summer Sesshin with John Tarrant & PZI Teachers

Mount Madonna Center
Watsonville, California
June 8th–14th, 2026

Dragons and tigers, hidden and crouching, and bears, song birds, and tall, thin mystics and plump, kind librarians in aprons, and queens who give gifts.

All things appear in sesshin, all things that fall under the law of change and sesshin makes a vessel in which fires and darkness and kindness occur together, transforming us.

Join us for our Great Summer Sesshin!

—John Tarrant, Roshi

Registration now open! Follow the link in the comments for more details and to register!

03/21/2026

SUNDAY ZEN with John Tarrant, Allison Atwill & Tess Beasley: Things Are Not As They Appear, Nor Are They Otherwise

In any given moment, we think we know what’s what, but then there’s this other thing happening, the big lumbering aurochs that runs the universe is just ambling along beneath the surface.

Discrepancies appear between our ideas and experience, uncertainty seeps in, which is far more interesting.

You’re supposed to be happy but you feel sick, or you laugh when you’re sad. It’s why buying gizmos does not console us, because the big lumbering aurochs doesn’t care about gizmos.

Awakening is about befriending the aurochs, even praising it.

Join us Sunday as we explore a famous line from the Lankavatara Sutra:

"Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise."

—Tess Beasley, Roshi

Register for Sunday Zen with John Tarrant, Allison Atwill & Tess Beasley – March 22nd – 10:30am PT in the PZI Online Temple – Link in comments!

*Registration is FREE for members and guests, or you may elect to donate $10. Dana gratefully accepted.

Address

P. O. Box 2972
Santa Rosa, CA
95405

Telephone

+15105249575

Website

http://www.pacificzen.org/

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