Dharma Library

A large collection of articles, from past issues of New Chan Forum and more besides.

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Two Poems: Quiet Mind; Day Retreat in York March 2015

David Valentine-Hagart

Quiet Mind

When the quiet mind comes
I am moving up steadily
Hold after hold
Rock is under my hands
Under my feet
Sky above
Earth below 

When the quiet mind comes
I am in the midst of music
Note following note
Hands, steel and timber
All one
As each song unfolds 

When the quiet mind comes
I am ocean floating
On a glassy board
Waiting for the only wave
That will carry me
To shore

When the quiet mind comes
I am…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Poetry , Others

The Boat Monk and the 'Zenny' Teacher

Eddy Street

Based on a talk given at the Scout Hut, Canton Cardiff May 2014

There are many Zen stories that are important for us to know. These stories are often dialogues between Masters and their students with the most well-known of them found in the collections of koans such as ‘The Book of Serenity’ and ‘The Blue Cliff Record’. These collections were assembled by the compilers, who then provided…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Other Articles , Eddy Street

Basho’s “Form” On The Subject Of “Emptiness”

George Marsh

Matsuo Basho was the great innovator in haiku poetry in 17th century Japan. He was also a Zen Buddhist, though he seems to have been sometimes a Buddhist priest and at other times a travelling poet, sometimes in a black robe, sometimes not. He was also an innovator in writing prose travel journals: the haibun form, which was a prose journal with haiku poems.

The haiku aesthetic was already well…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Other Articles , George Marsh

The Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra: an explication

Simon Child headshot

We’ve been reciting the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra as part of the Morning Service. It’s not an easy text to understand so we may end up reciting words blindly without really knowing what we’re reciting. Sometimes – and I don’t think I’ve done it for a while – I talk through the Heart Sutra to give you an idea of what’s in there. We can begin with the title: what it’s about, where it comes from. 

…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Dharma Talks , Simon Child

Five Haiku

Jos Hadfield sitting on garden bench

Standing in the yard,
my face turned up to the sky;
soft blessings of rain.

Shimmering orange
of the tree’s pyrotechnics;
the dark bracken rests.

Backlit by a flame
I see my projection,
watchfully waiting.

I look down to see
two old hands resting on my lap;
winter is coming.

I was thinking of
the purity of lotus blossoms,
and slipped in the mud.

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Poetry , Others

Mindful Running as a Way to Greater Joy and Equanimity

Stuart McLeod running in RUNZEN shirt

Over the last five years, I have been offering workshops that blend a range of mindfulness-based practices with running and explore what it means to bring a mind orientated towards present moment awareness into physical activity.

My work in this area in fact began in 2017 when I co-created and supported a five-day WCF retreat led by Jake Lyne, which we called Zen Meditation & Running. Based at…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Other Articles , Others

The Diamond Sutra

Edd Phillips

The Diamond Sutra is one of the most well-known of the Prajnaparamita sutras (perfection of wisdom texts) of Mahayana Buddhism and takes the form of a discourse between the Buddha and one of his elder disciples, Subhuti, before a large assembly of monks. In this encounter, the Buddha strips away one by one his disciple’s misconceptions and doubts, each time refining the questions posed. Throughout…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Other Articles , Others

Purification

Jake Lyne head and shoulders

Look up!
Soot grey snowflakes
dancing, whirling, falling, landing –
white side up.

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Poetry , Jake Lyne

Book Review: Illumination by Rebecca Li

Cover of Illumination by Rebecca Li

A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method

This book feels familiar, like a homecoming, with its frequent references to Masters Sheng Yen, John Crook and Simon Child – Rebecca Li’s three teachers to whom she dedicates it. It is also simultaneously very challenging.

Rebecca’s background, born in Hong Kong and then studying in America while being the regular translator for Master Sheng Yen over…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Book Reviews , Others

Haiku, by Anna Jedynak

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Silence…
What is there?
What IS there?

Chestnut bud in a vase
Feels pain in her green petals forcibly opened
By a greedy glance

Achoo!!!
The whole universe
Broke into pieces 

This mouthful of tea
Never drunk before
Nor ever again

An old monk
Slowly walking step by step
Through a violent storm

Frost
Winter may come any day now
Where has the last one gone? 

The stream
Flowing all the time
Never tired

Sprin…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2023 , Poetry , Anna Jedynak

Laywomen in Buddhism’s earliest years: Clues to their significance in the Pali Canon

Calligraphy for the character Chan

In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Mara reminds the Buddha, now approaching death, of his earlier words: ‘I shall not come to my final passing away, Evil One, until my bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, laymen and laywomen, have come to be true disciples – wise, well disciplined, apt and learned, preservers of the Dhamma …’ 1 The role of each element of this Fourfold Assembly in preserving and propagating the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Other Articles , Others

Book review: The Angel's Wound – Collected Haibun

Cover image of The Angel's Wound

In this book George Marsh, one-time editor of this journal, presents a collection of haibun. Those familiar with the muse and process of haiku and haibun will know, however, that you do not collect them, they collect you. So here we have the assembled work of someone that has been collected through the experiences and activities of his life including those of a Buddhist practitioner.

For readers…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Book Reviews

Right Livelihood

Calligraphy for the character Chan

When I was asked several years ago to write a personal perspective on my career as a doctor in relation to right livelihood, I thought it would be easy. It is a huge privilege to work as a doctor with a livelihood dedicated to alleviating the effects of illness – we try and help people when they are vulnerable and are often admitted to their most private life events. The most useful advice I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Other Articles , Others

Investigating the Precepts

Simon Child headshot

An important component of Chan Buddhist practice is the practice of the Precepts. For lay practitioners the five lay precepts are the basis. There are several other formulations such as eight precepts, ten precepts, Bodhisattva precepts, and the monastic precepts which are counted in the hundreds. I shall leave those for another day and focus here on the basic five lay precepts of: not killing;…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Dharma Talks , Simon Child

Retreat Report – Silent Illumination July 2022

A cup of tea

heatwave
only the butterflies
still busy

I am a chatterer, verbalising everything in my head all the time, keeping a running commentary going and explaining events to some imaginary listener. It took me a while to realise on retreat that the ‘Silent’ in ‘Silent Illumination’ was not the silence of nature but had to be the silence of me.

I was strict with myself and cut down the flow of the wordy…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Silent Illumination Retreat Reports , Anon

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