Susan Murphy Roshi is our founding Zen teacher. She is also teacher for the Melbourne Zen Group, conducting a number of sesshin in both cities each year.
Susan is a writer, radio producer and film director, as well as teaching and mentoring writing in private consultation and occasional meditation and writing retreats. She taught film for many years at the University of Technology, Sydney, has co-written three books on film, and directs the annual Buddhist Film Festival in Sydney established in 2003. She also teaches embodied dreamwork and imagination for artists, therapists and actors with Dr Robert Bosnak.
Her most recent book is Upside-Down Zen, published by Lothian Books (now Hachette-Livre) in Australia in July 2004, republished by Wisdom Publications in the USA in 2006. She is currently working on a book exploring ecological issues in the light of Zen for Pan-MacMillan, The Whole World is Medicine in 2011.
Zen practice opens up into the whole of your life in time, but begins with learning the basics of seated and walking meditation. Breath counting and other techniques of following the breath and bringing body and mind into close accord are the foundation practices taught. When you can sit with real steadiness and focus, the practice opens up into Shikantaza and Koan Practice, the two streams of Zen brought together in the tradition we follow.
