Desert Rain Zen

02/07/2026

from Tenney: I just posted the first part of a new piece to my zen substack, on the great Yunmen koan "The Golden Wind Reveals Itself." As usual, there's a poetry connection (developed in the next three parts of the essay): to Keats's "To Autumn, " Yeats's "Among Schoolchildren," and Stevens's "The Snow Man." so if either koans or poems work as a hook for you, maybe you can check the piece out. As always, I'd welcome feedback.
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Keeping Company with the Koan

01/25/2026

new on the Desert Rain Zen podcast: talks by Megan Rundel and Tenney Nathanson from the opening night of our March 2024 Desert Sunrise refuge retreat. Three other nights of talks from the same retreat to follow soon. Just search "Desert Rain Zen" on your favorite podcast hosting platform.

01/11/2026

Desert Rain Zen today on zoom, 3:30-5:00 Arizona/Mountain time. if you'd like the zoom link you can email [email protected]. We'll sit with this short koan, from Linji: "There is a true person of no rank constantly coming in and out through the gates of your face." (for some more info you cam head over to the FB page for Tenney Nathanson)

09/06/2025

Desert Rain Zen stuff. new podcast episode, my talk on "Sickness and Medicine" koan, from the Open Source Mahasangha Retreat in October 2024 over in New Mexico. Just search "Desert Rain Zen" on pretty much any podcast hosting platform. Can also download the talk here: https://tenneynathanson.com/soundfiles-of-zen-talks . And here at https://tenneynathanson.com/zen-writings there's a two part essay based on talks I gave at another Open Source retreat a few years ago, "Mujako and William Carlos Williams," talking about the Mujako koan from Samurai Zen (includes the phrase "the heart of the one who asks is Zen") by bringing in the Williams poem "The Widow's Lament in Springtime." Also at our Zoom sit tomorrow (Sunday) we'll more or less continue our series of recent "Bring a Friend" sessions, though we're gradually sliding away from an introductory focus as our newcomers get accustomed to how we talk together about koans. If you'd like the zoom link please email us us [email protected]

based on talks given by Tenney at the Desert Rain retreat at the Redemptorist Renewal Center at Picture Rocks in Tucson, March 2025

08/30/2025

Please join us on zoom for our "bring a friend" Sunday sit and koan conversation, coming up tomorrow. It's a special session designed for newcomers to koans or to Desert Rain Zen. If you'd like the zoom link for the session please email [email protected] . We meet 3:30-5:00 Arizona/Pacific time.

07/13/2025

Zoom sit and koan conversation today, 3:30-5:00. Still working with Zhaozhou's (initially?) disconcerting "there are no living things." If the rudimentary tech works out, our conversation will include playing a 3 minute podcast from NYT audio, from back on last year's Halloween: "The Scariest Thing I Know About the Universe." Stay tuned! (please email us for Zoom link, at [email protected])

07/06/2025

Sunday Sit on Zoom, 3:30-5:00 Arizona/Pacific time. You can email us at [email protected] for the Zoom link. We'll be sitting together and spending time with another brief encounter dialogue from The Recorded Sayings of Joshu [we say Zhaozhou]. The startling one where he says, in answer to a query from a visiting official about, all living things took refuge in Buddha but since the Buddha's Nirvana what do living beings take refuge in?; and Zhaozhou says, "there are no living beings." And the official says, "Even as I ask this?" And Zhaozhou says, "what other Buddha do you seek?" This seems a little strange, in a way, but . . .

07/05/2025

from our teacher:
I’m working at taking a few dharma talks (from retreats mostly) and turning them into writing of one sort or another—maybe some of them will be “essays,” while some will retain more of a “these were dharma talks” feel. I’ve put two of the three talks I gave at the spring DRZ retreat up on my website. If you’d like to take a look at either or both of them they are at https://tenneynathanson.com/tenneys-zen-talks-and-writing . I’d welcome comments (you can send them via the webpage down in the “contact” section).--Tenney

Explore text versions of Tenney Nathanson's Zen talks and writings. Download and listen to his insightful teachings and those of other esteemed teachers in his Zen lineage.

06/29/2025

We'll sit with and talk about a koan today on Zoom, 3:30-5:00 Arizona/Pacific. Zhaozhou's juniper tree in the front garden (Gateless Gateway 37). In The Record of Zhaozhou, when Zhaozhou says this (answering the query "why did Bodhidharma come from the west?") a student gets up in his face and admonishes him: "don't instruct by means of objects!" And Zhaozhou says . . .
If you'd like the Zoom link to join us please email [email protected]

06/27/2025

at tonight's Desert Rain Zen sit at Little Chapel (and on zoom) we sat with another Zhaozhou mondo from the James Green translation. Zhaozhou is really the gift that keeps on giving. And the Green translation, at least for someone who can't read the original, is phenomenally good--he really creates an individual and quirky voice, with lots of quicksilver changes of tone and a wonderful, understated wit. buy the book!

12/29/2024

We'll meet on Zoom today 3:30-5:00 Arizona/Mountain time. We sit for one period and then have a conversation about a koan. Our way of working together with koans isn't forbidding or esoteric. Try it! You might like it! If you'd like the zoom link please email Tenney at [email protected]

08/23/2024

Join us this Sunday on Zoom for meditation and koan conversation. 3:30-5:00 Arizona/Pacific. For the link please email [email protected] or [email protected] . Meanwhile:

Blue Cliff Record Case 52 : THE STONE BRIDGE OF ZHAOZHOU

A student asked Zhaozhou, “For a long time I’ve heard about the stone bridge of Zhaozhou. But now that I’ve come, I see only a log across the river.”
Zhaozhou said, “You only see the log, you just don’t see the stone bridge.”
“What is the stone bridge like?”
“It brings donkeys across, it brings horses across.”

[The city of Zhaozhou, where the teacher Zhaozhou lived, is famous for its Safe Crossing Bridge, the world’s oldest stone segmental arch bridge]