In the 50th-anniversary year of the death of John Coltrane, Zen teacher Sean Murphy looks back at the jazz icon and how meditation practice and a deep interest in Eastern traditions informed his monumental late-period work. One predawn morning in 1964, the already-legendary saxophonist John Coltrane was sitting in meditation in his Long Island home when the structure and [...]
“Zen and the Art of Art: Natalie Goldberg’s Wild Mind School of Writing Practice” — An Excerpt from One Bird, One Stone
For over a year Sean Murphy was on the road conducting interviews with some of the most influential figures in Western Zen, including Philip Kapleau, Robert Aitken, and Gary Snyder. Compiling his research, Murphy then went on to produce the engaging One Bird, One Stone: 108 Contemporary Zen Stories, a book which explores both Zen tales and teachers. In the following excerpt [...]
