Dharma Library

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. 

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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;…

Founding Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship 

On 17 July 2021, ten years after the death of John Hurrell Crook at the age of 80, the Western Chan Fellowship held a Zoom gathering to remember and celebrate this remarkable man and teacher. The following is an adaptation of a talk written by Simon Child for that gathering. 

John had such a full and diverse life that it’s not possible for me to…

2020 brought many changes for all of us. We experienced unwelcome curtailments on our freedoms such as lockdown and tiered restrictions on travel and meeting others, and on how we conducted ourselves such as in shopping and mask wearing. We experienced significant changes in working patterns, such as furlough, or loss of employment or transfer to home working, or coping with COVID-safe workplace…

Simon reflects on impermanence and non-self in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I felt a dilemma when our editor Pat Simmons asked me to write an article for this issue of New Chan Forum. Should I write about how our lives and practice are affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic – clearly a major topic – or should I write on a more traditional teaching theme? How could I consider not…

The first part of this dharma talk appeared in New Chan Forum 57, under the title The Five Skandhas. Here we continue and conclude the transcription of this dharma talk, which was given on a Silent Illumination retreat in September 2017.

Our Guiding Teacher, Chan Master Simon Child, Jing-hong Chuan-fa, is the second Western Dharma heir of the late Chan Master Sheng Yen of Taiwan, receiving Dharma Transmission in 2000. This is the first part of a transcription of a dharma talk he gave on a Silent Illumination retreat in September 2017. Our thanks go to the transcribers. The second part will be published as ‘Habit Seeds’

Today we have a blue sky, with a few little clouds. Yesterday we had plenty of clouds but not so much blue sky. Weather changes. Clouds slide around in the sky. Of course the sky is always blue, but we can’t always see the blue because of the clouds. How do we understand the cloud? A fluffy object floating in the sky; if we know what it’s made of we think of it as water drops. Sometimes it sinks…

John Crook used to like to say that the essence of Chan is self-confrontation. I’ve already spoken about Dogen’s saying, “to study the Buddha way is to study the self ”. And on the first evening here a few of you mentioned you came here to understand who you are. Why this emphasis on self, who we are, confronting ourselves. What’s the use of it?

I’ve spoken about how your koans bite back on you,…

Simon Child continues his account of koan practice, introduced in the last issue of New Chan Forum, by describing the breakthrough to enlightenment. We thank Jeanine Woodward who transcribed the original recordings of these edited retreat talks.

What do we think we’re playing at? We are sitting here, with our minds mixed up, confused, upset, tangled up, knotted up by words from a thousand years…