Dharma Library

It was still fully dark when I was first drawn from sleep; the guestmaster was raking out the wood burning stove in the Chan Hall just below where the male retreatants slept. A few minutes later we were all aroused by the sharp clack of mallet on wooden board, signalling time to get up. I scrambled into layers of warm clothes and was up and out into the yard in time for morning exercises. The…

Our retreat teacher in her introductory remarks emphasized the importance of silence: both cultivating our own inner silence and maintaining silence in our interactions with others. Silence meant no conversations, but it didn’t mean that we couldn’t ask someone to pass the butter at lunch time. It did mean, however, that we should draw ourselves away from social contact with our fellow…

I clamber over the stile, and climb toward the Callow Drove, which runs along the ridge above me. The path follows a farm track across a field. Sheep are grazing on grass still frosted where the winter sun doesn’t reach it. A heavy tractor has left deep grooves, hatched with the marks of coarse tyre treads, in the frozen mud. Leaving the field, the path becomes more rugged as it climbs steeply…