acknowledgments

My publisher Jack Shoemaker, for his immediate and unqualified “Yes!” to a bare one-page description of what I hoped this book might be.

My Zen teachers, to each of whom I am deeply indebted: Robert Aitken, John Tarrant, Ross Bolleter.

My numerous Zen students across the past decade and a half who drew this work into life.

My husband David Millikan—even though Zen koans cause his highly trained theological mind to explode, in a way I’m firmly convinced he will one day thank me for.

My brother Michael and late sister Gael, who never deviated from the Murphy Adventure Club motto we chanted together on its formal occasions in our childhood: “Never give up on an adventure.” And my children Jack and Maeve, and grandchildren Maya and Tom—who share with their cousins a rare and enviable inherited MAC membership.

And I dedicate this book to the beloved memory of my parents, Elwyn John (Peter) Murphy and Helen Beatrice Murphy, best of the best, for making it unquestionably worth risking unmitigated joy in being alive.