Talk #2 from Term 2 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
28 June 2020
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Talk #1 from Term 2 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
14 June 2020
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Talk #6 from Term 1 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
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Talk #5 from Term 1 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
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Talk #4 from Term 1 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. / Talk #1 from the Melbourne Zen Group online Sesshin 2020
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
Date: 25 April 2020
Playlist of talks for Term 1, 2020
This self is a question, an ever opening question.
Roshi Susan Murphy
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Talk #3 from Term 1 of our Online Zen Group for 2020.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
Date: 12 April 2020
Dedicated to David Englebrecht (Dharma name: Harbour Star)
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By ~ Roshi Susan Murphy
Human beings have suddenly been forced to discover exactly how much we touch our faces. Very interesting. And how much our hands are our primary interface not just with the world but with each other’s worlds, in the general run of everyday life.
And then these highly receptive fingers of feel reach like tendrils for our faces… partly searching in space to prove we exist, is that at least partly it?
When I first heard the anouncement of ‘Don’t touch your face!’ as a mutually life-saving slogan for our sudden new world, not only did I begin to notice that soon after hearing it how frequently I did touch my face, I also heard it as a koan.
Face… such an interesting word. What we ‘face’ things with. The face we put upon things. The face behind which we hide. The face that draws the eyes to meet another pair of eyes and begin to read the lineaments of another human being’s soul. The tiny set of variations – minutely particular miniscule differences in shape and position of eyes, nose, mouth – that generates currently nearly 8 billion instantly recognizable personal faces.
As Maxine was suggesting on Sunday afternoon, one way we can locate a very good practice point in ‘Don’t touch your face!’ is most directly a keener noticing of what we are doing and being in this very moment. As Taylor Plimpton suggested recently in Tricycle, “… just because you feel an itch on your face does not mean you need to scratch it.” Instead, experience it fully, and let its sensation keep you present, awake, alive. Notice your desire to solve it, fix it, respond to it—but don’t. Keep your hands settled and calm. Let the itch rise and fall. What’s the worse that can happen if you don’t scratch it? Will that tickle on your nose kill you? No, but apparently, scratching it in the era of COVID-19 might.”
And then if you must, scratch your nose with your sleeve or the back of your hand … before going crazy.
But there’s another way to turn this koan in the light of the Dharma, touching (excuse the dangerous word) into the koan, ’What is your original face, the one you had before even your parents were born?’ In the light of this koan, is it even possible to avoid the touch?
Let’s inquire into this matter of face, and touch, at our next gathering, on Sunday.
Dear Sangha,
I just received my (very belated) copy of the New York Review of Books, and came across this little story in an essay called “Buddhist Baedekers”. It begins like this:
Once there was a woman who lived inside a rock. She had a husband, a desiccated, barren yogi, who also inhabited the rock and spent his days and nights in meditation, striving for liberation from earthly existence; he never touched his wife, whom he had created out of his own imagination. The woman, “like a lotus burnt by frost,’ was weary of this loveless life: she, too, sought release. One day a great sage, Vasishtha, wandering through the wilderness, heard the woman singing a sad and gentle song; he followed her voice and found her sitting outside the rock. She introduced herself and told the sage her story. She also taught him how to follow her into the rock. This took some practice – at first Vasishtha could see only the rough, stony surface. Eventually, he was able to enter the deep, open spaces inside. There he saw endless worlds folded within worlds; every atom contained millions of interlocking universes.
It’s a great story. It resonates on many levels, especially in this moment of forced isolation and “social distancing”. The desiccated, barren yogi can’t touch his wife because he’s fixated on liberating himself from earthly existence, represented by his wife, who for the time being remains a figment of his imagination, a fantasy. This is serious trap indeed – the dream of transcending the body, escaping pain, passion and difficulty. But the woman, thankfully, grows weary of this “loveless life”, and sings her sad and gentle song. It’s this that catches the sage’s ear and brings the two together – beyond inside and outside.
We’re told the sage learns from the woman how to enter the rock. What a beautiful move – to enter the earth itself instead of seeking salvation elsewhere! This takes practice, of course, but it’s what draws the sage into the deep, open spaces inside. He sees millions of interlocking universes, worlds folded within worlds. How wonderful!
I’m reminded of a great case from the Record of Chao-chou. A monk asks, “What about when the three-pronged sword has not yet fallen?” (The three pronged sword is is the moment before discrimination). Chao-chou said, “Densely packed together” The monk asked, “What about after it has fallen?” Chao-chou said, “Wide open spaces.”
We’re living in a strange moment right now. The world can feel like it’s closing in, rubbing up against us, suffocating our lives with bad news and restricted movement. The pressure of change can make everything feel “densely packed together”, even when we’re being told to stand 1.5m apart. From this point of view, it’s easy to see why the sage only saw the rough, stony surface of the rock at first. But he must have asked himself, is that all there is? Or is the rock inviting me into something greater, something of richer value? What if everything is so densely packed together that it becomes seamless, whole?
In response to the monk’s question about what happens after the three-pronged sword has fallen (ie. with discrimination), Chao-chou says, “Wide open spaces.” This can be taken multiple ways – it’s a koan after all. On the one hand, discrimination cuts us off from one another. It creates a space between beings, between me and you, where we are suddenly as far apart as heaven and earth. On the other hand, discrimination can be found to be completely empty, a wide open door to infinite possibility. What a beautiful invitation! And what a beautiful challenge for all of us right now – to find the wide open spaces in the midst of this extraordinary moment of lockdown, isolation, sadness and despair.
To find the wide open spaces in the midst of difficult takes practice, of course. Which is why we gather and turn our attention to all the human warmth, love and sorrow – the “sad, gentle song” – that is being sung right now, in every aspect of our lives. Everywhere I turn I see solemn faces, serious behaviour, genuine tenderness, blessed humour. None of this can be ignored. In fact, it’s the very song we must follow to find the wide open spaces of profound opportunity and connection, the interlocking universes of our lives.
Just ask the woman who lived inside a rock.
()
Kynan
Talk #1 from Term 1 of our Online Zen Group for 2020.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
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If you have a Zen practice you’ll already have a pretty strong sense of the value and productivity of difficulty. And especially of sticking with what is difficult. Of not turning away, not denying but actively including even the most messy and difficult matters, feelings, circumstances that arise in awareness.
I want to take up this aspect of things today, following on from where we were last time, talking about deep fears and the forms they can take, including the strong escape attempts that a lot of feelings can inspire. Such feeling can be as simple and obvious as fear, but fear can also be compounded by shame, anxiety, even envy. Envy in the sense of ‘Why does this have to be happening to me (not that other luckier person)!” And deeper in from that, possibly the fear that wonders, “And why should it not?”
Let’s look into this matter through a case from the Record of Dongshan, the 8th century figure from whose name and whose practice the Soto School of Zen derives…