Its founding director, John Tarrant, was the first dharma heir to Robert Baker Aitken, in the line of the Sanbo Kyodan school of koan Zen.

[1] Tarrant has creatively developed ways of teaching koans that can orient anyone, including those with little or no experience in meditation or Zen, toward awakening to a richer, fuller engagement with their own lives.

According to the PZI website: Koan meditation is a way of showing up for your own life You sit or work or talk and don't add anything to it.

After graduating for the Australian National University, Tarrant worked at many jobs, ranging from laboring in a copper mine and smelter, to fishing commercially on the Great Barrier Reef.

Augusto Alcalde ended up sending a note of apology to John Tarrant for his own involvement, while Pat Hawk recalled, "'That was bad business,' shaking his head.

PZI never made a public reply to the letter, but the female student in question was Joan Sutherland, who became a popular teacher and founder of Open Source Zen.

PZI's projects include creating new English translations of some of the elements of the sutra collection as well the evolution of musical settings of many parts of the chanted liturgy.

Working translator Joan Sutherland and Zydeco band leader Richie Domingue, Tarrant collaborated in developing what is probably the first sung Zen liturgy in an American idiom.