The Pacific Zen Institute(PZI), is a Zen Buddhist practice center with several affiliate centers in the lineage of John Tarrant, a dharma heir of Robert Baker Aitken, and formerly of the Sanbo Kyodan school of Zen.
Students and teachers at PZI work with Zen koan as the primary tool for transforming the mind and finding freedom, According to the PZI Web Site,
Zen koans are a key part of what we do in PZI, although there is no requirement that anyone work with koans to practice with PZI. For a long time PZI has been exploring different ways of working with koans to expand the ways that koans can be helpful.The Pacific Zen Institute offers multi-day retreats in several California Locations including Santa Rosa, California, and Bolinas, California as well as one-day workshops in the San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Oakland and Berkeley areas.
PZI was previously known as the California Diamond Sangha, According to writer Michelle Spuler,
...in 1999 a decision was made for his organization, the California Diamond Sangha, and its affiliated groups, to formally separate from the Diamond Sangha and start a new organization, the Pacific Zen Institute.Read more about Pacific Zen Institute: Affiliates, John Tarrant Biography, John Tarrant Lineage, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words pacific, zen and/or institute:
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”
—Alan Watts (1915–1973)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)