Talk #6 from Term 2 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
23 August 2020
Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now. We will upload a transcription when it becomes available. ()
On Sunday the 30th August we come together for our sixth and final Sand Talk Study Group.
“Now that the small questions of existence have been answered – why are we here? How should we live? What will happen when we die? – us-two should be able to get back to the business of asking some of the bigger questions. We’ll need living lands and bodies to do that, though. So lets put these hands of ours to work.”
pg 277
What work do we need to continue with?
How do we “put these hands of ours to work”?
How do we move closer towards the charge of equanimity?
As we have explored Sand Talk together, what has stuck to you?
When: Sunday 30th August 2020, 4 -5:30ish pm AEST via zoom (please see your email for ZOOM details).
What we will do: Each fortnight us-two will continue our exploration of Sand Talk together.
Schedule: We invite you to sit zazen before gathering online. This will help to provide a wide open space for our discussions.
3:20 – 3:50pm | Offline zazen in place
3:50 – 4:00pm | Online space opens (cup of tea welcome)
4:00 – 5:00pm | Main Gathering
5:00 – 5:10pm | Closing & Notices
5:10 – 5:30pm | Informal social time.
See you Sunday
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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts
We look forward to coming together for our Study Group this Sunday 16th August at 4:00pm where we will continue our exploration of Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk.
We strongly encourage you to read/re-read the chapter Duck Hunting is Everybody’s Business pg 201-227. In this chapter we meet the notion of violence being part of the pattern. Perilous & complicated subject matter.
“Creation started with a big bang, not a big hug: violence is part of the pattern. The damage of violence is minimised when it is distributed throughout a system rather than centralised into the hands of a few powerful people and their minions. If you live a life without violence you are living an illusion, outsourcing your conflict to unseen powers and detonating it in an area beyond your living space.”
Sand Talk, pg 223-224
What conflict am I outsourcing? | What/who are the unseen powers? | Can it really be detonated beyond my living space?
The burden of patriarchy and misogyny narrows the lives of every person, irrespective of gender and culture. I strongly believe there needs to be a process of acknowledgement, reflection and renewal.
This requires more than an act of resistance; I see it as a process of rebirth, redesign and reconstruction… Collectively, we need to break free from the bondage of patriarchy, white privilege and the misogynistic structures that control us. This isn’t just desirable, it is necessary, if we want to be sustainable.
Sand Talk, Kelly’s words, pg 226-7
How do I experience misogyny? | How do I challenge patriarchy and white privilege?
“Violence is clearly part of the way the universe unfolds and expresses itself, is utterly intrinsic to many life processes, and cannot possibly be disowned. It is also part of the most horrific ways in which lives and communities and nations come tragically apart and cause vast harm.
So what are some of the places, drawing from our own experience, in which we can see a strategy or response of non-violence and non-harming being brought to meet fruitfully and creatively with violence?”
Roshi Susan Murphy
Please bring your unique contribution and together we will further grow this rich ecosystem we call sangha relations.
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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts
Talk #5 from Term 2 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
8 August 2020
Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now. We will upload a transcription when it becomes available. ()
By ~ Sally Mackinnon
I’ve felt a stuck muteness and poet’s block since 6 September 2019 when the first of the shocking Spring-Summer 2019-20 bushfires devoured the sweet neighbourhoods and subtropical rainforest that I call home – at Beechmont/Binna Burra in South East Queensland. Since then there has been too much news and too many logistics going on in my world.
On an evening walk with my dog recently, as we rounded the top of a steep hill and stood on the edge of the forest in the dark, I had a little yarn with the cosmos…”I miss writing poetry so much; I would love to write again. Please can you help me?” There is such power in intention and asking for help isn’t there? The next morning as the sun streamed into my bedroom, I sat up in bed and gliding through the ether came a poem…
My mother’s pyjamas hang lifeless on the washing line.
From the kitchen window, speckled with webs,
I watch them – inanimate – without her flesh,
as the sun reaches from the east across quiet sky
to light up new leaves on red cedar
like Christmas.
Today I will walk without the dog, into subtropical bush.
Like a whisper of invisible breeze I will drift past
those busy roadworks that deliver
engineered restraints across this mountain
after wildfire scorched us all.
It’s calling me again, that forest.
Any chink in the manmade armour and I’m in;
asking permission to enter only from the Old Ones and the sea of green,
answered by the keen of black cockatoos and shy butterflies.
In this time of plague and serious news from cities,
I pay attention to the way the ground rises to meet my feet;
how earth surface and sole, step-by-step connect.
This is no monologue,
it’s a dance, it’s a song, it’s a deep-time songline and I pray that
simple walking will mind this life…
It’s also this sweet home on the top of the hill that
anchors me here.
Nothing is straight or orderly but the way
the sunset glows through the kitchen to
ignite every facet in my grandmother’s cut glass bowl is an afternoon aria.
After almost a year, we are all home again in this study of light and shade,
pyjamas and forest,
black cockatoos and rising earth.
Nothing is straight or orderly but
at sunrise and sunset we sing.
Today is exactly eleven months since the fire. The study group is reigniting my capacity to lean into more than grief – to be open-heartedly curious and light again; and to feel I am becoming a student of Zen.
I’m so grateful to you all.
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Sally
Hello Sangha,
Some great new topical listening and viewing in our Bla(c)k Lives Matter Link Library…
You can access the BLM link library directly at www.brightanddark.net/blmlinks or via the [THEMES] menu above.
If you would like to contribute a link for the library you can do so here or email curlytrees@gmail.com
Enjoy!
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Oonagh
Country and the gift (2014) : Deborah Bird Rose
In this video, ethnographer Deborah Bird Rose looks at four pathways into country, drawing on the work of Aboriginal writers, elders and philosophers including Mary Graham, Ambelin and Blaze Kwaymullina & Jimmy Mangayarri. She considers working together for country as the most important issue of our time and asks how we could re-imagine cities if the aim of city life was to inhabit and care for country.
The Sydney Which Has No Postcode (2003) by Susan Murphy
An audio feature, written and produced by Roshi Susan in 2003 for Radio National. Exploring spirits of place and how they might talk to us; with Uncle Max Harrison Dulumunmun, Aunty Joan Cooper, Aunty Edna Watson, and sisters Pat and Fay, John Gallard and Red Cloud the kelpie.
Indigenous Language & Perception. ABC RN All in the Mind Podcast Produced by Lynne Malcolm. 2019
Relevant to our explorations of yarning, this program includes discussion of how our perception of the world is significantly affected by the language we speak. It frames our worldview by training our brains in line with cultural understanding. Indigenous languages from around Australia pose a vastly different perspective of the world than that of English. We explore how these languages influence perceptions of self, kinship and the natural world. With Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, linguist Prof Nick Evans and Bardi Psychologist Prof Pat Dudgeon.
I can’t Breathe – ABC 4 Corners Documentary by Stan Grant. 2020.
A profoundly moving story from special guest reporter Stan Grant in the wake of the shocking killing of unarmed black man George Floyd captured on camera in the United States. Mr Floyd’s death under the knee of a white police officer unleashed a wave of grief and anger across America. That wave reached Australia’s shores with thousands of Australians coming out to protest in support of our Indigenous community. In this deeply personal story, Stan Grant gives voice to the frustration and hurt that has defined the life experience of so many Indigenous Australians and explores why the death of George Floyd resonates so profoundly.
It seemed at the latest study group,
that the virtual ZOOM whiteboard was our shared
material cultural activity today;
our campfire.
“The primary mode of communication in yarns is narrative – the sharing of anecdotes, stories and experiences from the lived reality of participants. Might include sand talk. Physical demonstrations are included. Sharing drink or food is often part of the ritual (most commonly cups of tea today). Often yarning will occur around a shared material cultural activity like weaving, painting, string making, Ceremony preparation, crossword puzzles and setting up birthday party decorations.”
Sand Talk pg 132
Talk #4 from Term 2 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
26 July 2020
Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now. We will upload a transcription when it becomes available. ()
We look forward to coming together for our Study Group # 4 where we will continue our exploration of Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk.
This week we invite us-two into yarning about yarning.
Without yarning, stories are just something to put children to sleep. There has to be an exchange of stories if you want to be awake and grown.
pg 130
What is yarning?
How do we do it?
How is it different to a conversation?
Can we yarn with Country?
Is Country yarning with us?
Are we listening?
We encourage you to read/re-read pages 129 – 133 of Sand Talk.
Yarns and yarning can be more than tools to enhance memory and engagement. They can be a disruptive innovation that is empowering and liberating when transferred to contemporary media.
pg 133
This Sand Talk Study Group is a place for yarning. Yarning is the natural-feeling way to discover and affirm the intimacy of “us-two”. By speaking openly, honestly and from the heart, we reveal each other and ourselves to each other and open the Way. There is no “me” without “you” in any good yarn, just the life of “us-two”.
Study group guidelines
Remember you can always add your contributions to this discussion in the comments below.
When: Sunday 2nd August 2020, 4 -5:30ish pm AEST via zoom (please see your email for ZOOM details).
What we will do: Each fortnight us-two will continue our exploration of Sand Talk together.
Schedule: We invite you to sit zazen before gathering online. This will help to provide a wide open space for our discussions.
3:20 – 3:50pm | Offline zazen in place
3:50 – 4:00pm | Online space opens (cup of tea welcome)
4:00 – 5:00pm | Main Gathering
5:00 – 5:10pm | Closing & Notices
5:10 – 5:30pm | Informal social time.
See you Sunday
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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts
We look forward to coming together for our Study Group # 3 where we will continue our exploration of Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk.
What living sparks have you felt stinging you?
As Susan and Kynan shared in our guidelines:
We’re not here to “understand” Tyson Yunkaporta’s book, but to feel the living sparks that sting us back into life. Be alert to these sparks, no matter how small – they are far more powerful and necessary than any linear consumption of the book, and can ignite great personal and social change.
Without holding back or pushing yourself forward, listen and respond energetically to what is most alive in you, in full confidence that what you share will be heard and considered with respect and gratitude.
Remember you can always add your contributions to this discussion in the comments below.
When: Sunday 19th July 2020, 4 -5:30ish pm AEST via zoom (please see your email for ZOOM details).
What we will do: Each fortnight we will continue our exploration of Sand Talk together; us-two.
Schedule: We invite you to sit zazen before gathering online. This will help to provide a wide open space for our discussions.
3:20 – 3:50pm | Offline zazen in place
3:50 – 4:00pm | Online space opens (cup of tea welcome)
4:00 – 5:00pm | Main Gathering
5:00 – 5:10pm | Closing & Notices
5:10 – 5:30pm | Informal social time.
See you Sunday!
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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts