Joanna Macy

Bill Plotkin

Vandana Shiva

Richard Rohr

Wendell Berry

David Loy

Thích Nhất Hạnh

John Stanley

Mary Evelyn Tucker

John Grim

Thomas Berry

Sandra Ingerman

Winona LaDuke

Satish Kumar

Geneen Marie Haugen

Jules Cashford

Susan Murphy

Pir Zia Inayat-Khan

The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was asked what we need to do to save our world. "What we most need to do," he replied, "is to hear within us the sound of the earth crying.” Our present ecological crisis is the greatest man-made disaster this planet has ever faced—its accelerating climate change, species depletion, pollution and acidification of the oceans. A central but rarely addressed aspect of this crisis is our forgetfulness of the sacred nature of creation, and how this affects our relationship to the environment. There is a pressing need to articulate a spiritual response to this ecological crisis. This is vital and necessary if we are to help bring the world as a living whole back into balance.

The Cry of the Earth

Spiritual Ecology

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'? The red (or 'vermilion') thread originally connoted the color of the silk undergarments courtesans were obliged to wear. Most spiritual traditions do their best to distance themselves as thoroughly as possible from such direct and intimate contact with the fact of impassioned human bodily being, if not to declare open war upon the flesh, and the female body that most plainly bears flesh into the world. Spirituality has trouble dealing with the fact that we arrive here covered in blood. But the red thread can never be cut. Why not? Why would no perfectly accomplished saint ever even dream of cutting it? Red Thread Zen will set out to explore 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.

Humanly Entangled in Emptiness

Red Thread Zen

John Tarrant

Upside-Down Zen invites readers to explore the vivid spirit of Zen Buddhism in fresh ways. Recalling, in another vein, the warm, lyrical style of Lin Jensen's Bad Dog!, author Susan Murphy offers a multifaceted take on the spiritual, grounded in the everyday. She uses her skills as storyteller, filmmaker, and poet to uncover the connections between Zen and Western cinema, as well as between Zen and traditions as diverse as Australian aboriginal beliefs and Jewish folktales. In the process, she finds spirituality where it has always belonged ? wherever life is happening. Murphy helps readers make sense of Zen koans, the often oversimplified and misunderstood teaching stories of the tradition, and highlights their wisdom for any reader on the spiritual path. A strong new voice in Western Buddhism, Murphy speaks for the many ?unrecorded” women of Zen while bringing a lively, literate approach to a sometimes daunting genre.

Finding the Marvelous in the Ordinary

Upside-Down Zen

After conquering the collegiate scene, the I Hate series branched out into all those everyday nuisances you love to hate. Writer and columnist Susan Murphy crystallizes our worst pet peeves and renders them laughable in this lighthearted new twist on the I Hate collegiate sports books by Paul Finebaum that have achieved bestselling status nationwide. And in retaliation for all the laughs Susan has gotten at his expense, husband Harold has penned his own "gotcha" book -- I Hate Women.

225 Reasons why You Should, Too

I Hate the IRS

Paul Finebaum

Harold Murphy

Bet you never knew there were so many reasons to hate ARIZONA! You will laugh out loud as Paul Finebaum goes down the list...

I Hate Getting Old

What if medicine's greatest achievement was also its most deadly - and its most profitable? In the 20th century mankind discovered controversial new ways to create life but now a wave of mysterious deaths is suddenly sweeping across America. Is it God's plan? An outcome of medical experimentation that was always possible? Or something even more sinister? Notorious LA detective Dominic Santino is desperate to stay out of the public gaze but the unexplained death of a friend's nephew drags him into the most puzzling and lethal investigation of his chequered career. Despite his reputation for solving the most difficult cases, the seasoned detective is baffled by a trail of seemingly-healthy victims. With no apparent evidence of criminal foul play, Santino enlists the help of a renowned geneticist, the intriguing Dr Arnya Sloane. With the body count rising, Santino and Sloane race against time to stop the media, Big Pharma and the FBI from burying the truth along with the mounting dead. With 5 million lives in the balance, one family's private misery provides the crucial clue that links all the deaths - but is it too late? A relentless cop and a brilliant doctor are thrown together by powerful forces and an old enemy in this page-turning thriller about giving life, taking life and getting rich at any cost.

Fatal Flaw

225 Reasons Why You Should Too

I Hate Men

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'? The red (or 'vermilion') thread originally connoted the color of the silk undergarments courtesans were obliged to wear. Most spiritual traditions do their best to distance themselves as thoroughly as possible from such direct and intimate contact with the fact of impassioned human bodily being, if not to declare open war upon the flesh, and the female body that most plainly bears flesh into the world. Spirituality has trouble dealing with the fact that we arrive here covered in blood. But the red thread can never be cut. Why not? Why would no perfectly accomplished saint ever even dream of cutting it? Red Thread Zen will set out to explore 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.

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 practitioner 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. By shining a sober light on the current state of emergency, Murphy delivers a brilliant rethink of the crisis we face, radically reimagining the stories we tell ourselves about the world, and illuminating the ways humanity might become the solution, rather than the problem. What if we were to choose courage and resolve, rather than fear? What if we discovered the difference each of us could make and started to listen closely to what the earth is saying, and to our own connections with it? 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.

Minding the Earth, Mending the World

Susan Murphy

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