Tag: Mu

Sitting over words
very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
not far
like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
the echo of everything that has ever
been spoken
still spinning its one syllable
between the earth and silence
M.S. Merwin – Utterance.

Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
3 October 2020

Click on the recording below to listen to this talk now. We will upload a transcription when it becomes available. ()

zen open circle · Teisho 1: Who me?

Tags Linji, Mu, Not Knowing, Prajna Paramita, Rilke, The Heart Sutra, W.S. Merwin

2020 Term 2 Black Lives Matter Online Zen Group Roshi Susan Murphy Sand Talk Talks Teachers

‘Non-linear time is non-linear mind: Caught in the net of the law’

Post author By Zen Open Circle
Post date July 14, 2020

Talk #3 from Term 2 of our Online Zen Group for 2020. Click here for other talks in this series.

Teacher: Roshi Susan Murphy
12 July 2020

whitebait ah
their black eyes open
in the net of the law
Bassho

Click here to download a transcription of this talk. (PDF) ()

zen open circle · Non-linear time is non-linear mind: Caught in the net of the lore

Tags David Bohm, Dogen, Indra's Net, Mu, Russell Hoban, Sand Talk, Time, Time Being (Uji)

Koans Roshi Susan Murphy Talks Teachers

‘Yes, we have no bananas’ or ‘Intimate in the dark’

Post author By Zen Open Circle
Post date July 30, 2018

Talk #1 from Spring Sesshin 2018. You can listen to other talks from this sesshin here.

Speaker: Roshi Susan Murphy

Click here to download a printable transcript of this talk [PDF]

zen open circle · Teisho 1: Yes We Have No Bananas (Intimate in the dark)

Roshi Susan:

“As everybody knows who has attended sesshin before, this is the night of not knowing – of not knowing as our most intimate practice-realization.

‘Intimate’ is a way of saying: awake, complete, present, not even a speck of difference, as intimate and close in to unabridged reality as that. And I love the fact that the word intimate also offers the tenderness of being, because that is what awake-ness is.

I was tempted to call this talk, “Awake in the dark”, since it is the dark of not knowing in which we awaken and of course at this moment it’s night as well. But I actually think I’ll call it, “Yes, we have no bananas”. I always loved the fact that there’s such a triumphant “Yes!” before the completely sanguine, “We have no bananas”. The idea that no bananas is so joyously proclaimed, recognized, as a welcome matter in some way.

What would a no-banana taste like?

‘Mu’ is of course this one syllable short of complete silence with which we practice letting go of the mind-road. The mind-road is not the kind of open, empty road we can easily love, accompanying you with no-birds, no-trees, no-insects, and best of all, no-you. The mind-road is more like the pressured highway, whizzing with traffic, burdened with noise, shouting at you with signs, and always making the false promise of ‘somewhere to go’.

Tags Ikkyu, Len Anderson, Mu, Nanquan, Taking part in the gathering (Sandokai), Zhàozhōu