Talk #5 from Term 1 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.
Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now.
by ~ Karen Fermin
Viewing notes: Please watch this with sound on.
We live with a stunning specimen from the plant world who I’ve named Eptasia. Or Epa for short.
Epa is a cactus which belongs to the night-blooming Cereus family.
I’m not sure what their botanical name is… perhaps someone knows and can let me know.
Epa was a gift from the former tenants of our home.
They gifted it to us as they were moving overseas (5 years ago) and couldn’t take it with them. They took a cutting and planned to grow another one in their new home. They had received it as a wedding present a few years earlier. We’re still in touch and I still send photos of Epa to them and we both continue to be nourished by our sweet connection.
Eptasia is a derivative of the greek word for 7 (epta). A cross section of one of Epa’s limbs would reveal a 7 pointed flower-like shape.
Epa is a steadfast companion for me. Along with the sun, the moon, the stars and the breeze.
One morning I wrote this after coming out to witness one of the flowers at dawn.
Night melts into day
Darkness into light
Many buds
Blossoming
From tough skin and prickles
I feel like this. Blossoming, from tough skin and prickles.
I hope you enjoy these recordings.
With love
Karen
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
Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now. We will upload a transcription when it becomes available. ()
by ~ Ric Streatfield
Academic Note: No-one is/was quite sure/un-sure whether Bu Yi actually existed/didn’t exist, or whether he/she was male/female, or something else. Otherwise, the reader can be certain of everything else.
Categories
You reading this, be ready
by ~ William Stafford (1993)
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
by ~ Lizzie Finn
on a day of human crisis
sweeping fallen pollen,
a carpet of yellow
on the ground by the tree
……waking up slow-ly
to the vibrant buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
of hundreds of bees
swept up… swept clean away
in this sound of rapid wingbeats
a doorway to our shared home
where time stands still
just buzzzzzing ….
full and complete
the deep hummmm of the earth
no crisis here for bees
serving the tree that serves them so well
gentle visitors moving deftly
each twig and leaf lightly touched,
each one working with single purpose
no effort or complaint
Just This….. collecting pollen for the queen bee’s nest
obeying the careful law of mother earth
my heart is warmed
….all is well in this endless bee moment
and now as I return,
a great tenderness and curiosity
I wonder where they live….?
….it must be nearby………
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)
Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now. We will upload a transcription when it becomes available. ()
Dear Sangha,
This is a slideshow of images and haiku I recently made into a little film.
()
May your lives go well,
Ron
by ~ Ric Streatfield
Click here to download as PDF
How can you be lonely, with no gap between you and all there is?
Roshi Susan Murphy
Now that the Covid-19 virus has caused many of us to isolate ourselves from the normally frenetic modern world it may be a good opportunity to take time to explore at least little bits of the infinity of the Buddha’s Universe. No need for trekking boots and backpacks. No need for Four Wheel Drives or speed-of-light spaceships. All that is needed is an inquisitive mind….and, a black pencil and a sheet of white paper.
Background
As the story goes the Buddha was born into a high status family in a small rural, non-Brahman, republic, in contrast to the surrounding Brahman (Hindu) kingdoms. It is now thought that the Buddha was contemporary with the Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 BCE) with his famous claim that ‘…..an unexamined life is not worth living’. More than a hundred years earlier the original of the Sophoi, or the seven Wise Men of ancient Greece, was Thales of Miletus on the Ionian Coast of Greece. Thales, besides correctly predicting an eclipse of the sun, some credit as being the originator of the profound Delphic Oracle advice of – ‘Know thyself!’.
Well into his young adult life Gotama the Buddha became dissatisfied with his understanding of the causes of suffering in the world around him. The prevailing Brahman view at the time was based on a cosmology of belief, a super-natural world with Brahma as the creator, the all-pervading Universal Consciousness. The life-force or soul (atman) was the individual Brahma spirit in all living things, and the re-incarnation cycle of life was this spirit of Brahma leaving the mortal body at death and then re-entering a newly forming body at conception, to be re-born into the world of suffering unless the ‘good’ kharma accumulated in the previous life or lives far outweighed the ‘bad’.
The Buddha spent six years in searching and practicing the traditional yoga and ascetic practices until, as the story goes, he gave up his searching, relaxed and sat in meditation under the Bodhi tree. It is there the understanding of the origins of suffering came to him. The methodology the Buddha used in gaining his insight or ‘Enlightenment’ is set out in the Buddha’s own words to Ananda, his personal assistant, almost hidden away in the Pali sutras, in the Paticca Samuppada.
Categories
A new season
Hi,
Writing and singing songs, while I do it a lot is very challenging to me to share. Hearing my own voice still is one of the most painful things! Here are some songs which have recently come from the ground.
()
Michael