Community
Castlemaine Zen is a vibrant, creative and socially engaged sangha. Here you can find examples of protests, performances, exhibitions and publications created by some of our members.
Silent Meditation Vigil for Climate Crisis
On Monday 7th October 2019 a few members of Castlemaine Zen joined the Melbourne Zen Group on the steps of parliament House to stage a silent meditation Vigil for Climate Crisis. The event kicked-off a week of activity inspired and led by Extinction Rebellion. We were by turns heckled, encouraged, applauded and ignored. A number of pedestrians stopped to ask questions, and others joined in. It was an incredible day of bearing witness to the crisis at our doorstep.
Broken Starfish
A new collection of haiku and ink paintings from Ron C. Moss, published by Walleah Press 2019. Ron is a great friend of Castlemaine Zen, and is based in Hobart with the Mountains and Rivers Zen Group. In 2019 he launched Broken Starfish at a Castlemaine Zen event.
“With poetry and ink paintings, Broken Starfish completely satisfies, while it leaves me waiting for the next volume from this remarkably talented artist and poet.” — Ferris Gilli, Consulting Editor of The Heron’s Nest.
For a signed copy ($22 including postage) contact Ron Moss at ronmoss8@gmail.com
Selected Poems — Yu Jian
Recently translated by Simon Patton and Naikan Tao, this Selected Poems brings all the zest and energy of this contemporary Chinese poet to life for English readers. Simon Patton lives and works in Barkers Creek, and is a cherished member of the group.
“Regarding translation, Yu is inclined to think that it ‘dismembers’ poetry. His personal friend and consummate translator, Simon Patton, knows what Yu means: but that has not prevented him doing the devotional work that makes this book possible —showcasing a major contemporary poet whose ear and tongue survived the blast furnace of Maoism. A survival not without anxiety, as his books over the last two decades have been demonstrating.” — Barry Hill, The Australian
Red Thread Zen
A radical, life-affirming book that reconciles Zen with our embodied humanity by Susan Murphy Roshi. Susan Murphy is a senior Australian Zen teacher who regularly leads events for Zen Open Circle.
Red Thread Zen explores every corner of the magnificent koan of being “still attached to the red thread,” or “line of tears.” This is an argument against the bloodless and socially disengaged form of Buddhism that is generally being gestated in the West, one that shades too readily into the blandest of bland self-help.
Love, attachment, the passions, gender, carnality, birth, bodily being, mortality, belonging, suffering, hope, despair, personhood, imagination, vitality, the struggle to be fully human—how do these things dwell wholly in emptiness, how do we reconcile their vivid life with “no-thingness”?
Minding the Earth, Mending the World
We all know our earth is in trouble. But is it beyond repair? Are we stuck with a planetary disaster we cannot hope to address?
Despite the reality we find ourselves in, Zen teacher and author Susan Murphy reminds us of the astounding intelligence and magnificence of nature and argues that not only is it not too late, but that we all have the capacity to embrace this challenge with a sense of hope and reason.
In the tradition of the great eco-theologian Thomas Berry, Minding the Earth, Mending the World offers a profoundly hopeful second chance to engage with what it means to deeply mind the earth once more.