A True Pillar of Chan Buddhism in the West

Remembering Dr. John Crook

Dr. John Crook was an expert trained in the studies of Western psychology and animal behavior, yet he found the key to inner peace in the Eastern thought of Chan Buddhism. He was the first Western Dharma Heir of the late Chan Master Sheng Yen. During his lifetime, he carried the torch of spreading Chan Buddhism internationally, founded the Western Chan Fellowship that has more than 20 affiliates in the U.K., and devoted his life to teaching Chan meditation across Europe. Thanks to him, the seeds of Chinese Buddhism have been firmly planted and are now flourishing in the West.

By the Sangha of Dharma Drum Mountain

Dr. John Crook passed away on July 15th, 2011. He was 82. Born in 1930, he was a professor of psychology at the University of Bristol for many years, specializing in ethology and anthropology. John’s path crossed with Master Sheng Yen’s in 1985 when, in Hong Kong, he came across Master Sheng Yen’s English book “Getting the Buddha Mind” in a bookstore selling Chinese Buddhist books. After reading the book, he decided to seek out Master Sheng Yen, who was teaching in New York at the time. Dr. Crook had begun teaching meditation in the U.K. by then but felt he needed someone more experienced to show him the way.

In May 1986, Dr. Crook attended for the first time a seven-day meditation retreat led by Master Sheng Yen in New York’s Chan Meditation Center, thus beginning what was to become a lifelong relationship. Dr. Crook found immense joy in the experience. In the spring of 1989, he attended another meditation retreat led by Master Sheng Yen, on which occasion he received the permission from the Master to teach and to lead mediation retreats on his behalf in the U.K.

To help bring the Dharma to the West, Dr. Crook many times invited Master Sheng Yen to lead retreats in the U.K. During these retreats, often held in a simple farmhouse in rural Wales, Dr. Crook was known as the most dedicated host -- he arranged for room and board for all participants, planned and implemented the retreat schedules, handled the morning and evening boards and the bell, took on all administrative duties and tended to the needs of all those who were there.
In 1993, after a seven-day intensive Chan retreat in New York, Master Sheng Yen held a ceremony in which he gave Dharma transmission to Dr. Crook, formally making him a Dharma Heir and a holder of the lineage in the Chinese Linji (Rinzai) sect of Chan Buddhism with the name Chuan-Deng Jing-Di, meaning "Transmitting the Lamp Seeing the Truth". Master Sheng Yen advised all those present that there are four conditions that must be met before someone can receive Dharma lineage:

1. The person must have the correct understanding of the Dharma;
2. The person must have his own experience of practice;
3. The right conditions must exist in space and time, the circumstances must be appropriate; and
4. Help must be given to all those wishing to learn.

Master Sheng Yen then reiterated that without these conditions being fulfilled, a Dharma transmission would not be fruitful, and that he had decided to pass the Dharma linage to Dr. Crook because he had seen firsthand Dr. Crook’s personal abilities and development and was confident that he met all four conditions.

Dr. Crook did not fail Master Sheng Yen’s affirmation and faith in him. He planted the seeds of Buddhadharma in the U.K. and across the Continent. Through his own work and his translation of Master Sheng Yen’s writing, he introduced Master Sheng Yen to meditation centers not only in the U.K., but also in Warsaw, Moscow and Berlin. Throughout his life, Dr. Crook worked tirelessly to bring the Dharma to the West. Even when he was in his eighties, he continued to lead meditation retreats throughout the UK and travel to places as far as Poland, Norway and the United States to do so. In fact, he had planned on leading another retreat at the end of July. The Western Chan Fellowship, which he founded in 1997 based on the principles of Chan Buddhism as well as Western psychology currently has more than 20 affiliates in the U.K. and is tremendously influential in the development of Chan Buddhism in Europe.

Dr. Crook had pointed out in his writing that in the West, where principles of science, skepticism, individualism and competition are held supreme, Silent Illumination meditation, which does not offer dramatic effects but clarity, balance and the experience of self-nature, is most suitable for those seeking the path to understand oneself and one’s relationship with the world. He had made Buddhism accessible to Westerners through presenting it from a Western mind.

While Dr. Crook is no longer with us, his words continue to ring true. The future of Chan Buddhism in the West is ever brighter because of his life’s work.

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