Dharma Library

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

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A Western Zen Retreat Interview

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Teacher: Tell me who you are?
Participant: I am the answer.
Teacher: What is the question?
Participant: Moment to moment.
Teacher: What do you feel?

Participant: Space with no boundary or pressure. (THIS SPACE DID NOT FEEL VAST OR LARGE OR IN ANY WAY OVERWHELMING, YET ONE SENSED IT HAD NO END, WAS TIMELESS, AND HAD EXISTED BEFORE THE BIG BANG, WHICH WAS EXTENDING INTO IT.)

Teacher: What do you hear?
…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Western Zen Retreat Reports , Anon

The Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

Edited text of a series of three lectures on the Heart Sutra given by Dr John Crook to the Bristol Chan Group in 1992

Part 1 - 4th November 1992

Introduction and Background to the Sutra

When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara
was coursing in the deep Prajnaparamita,
he perceived that all five skandas are empty,
thereby transcending all sufferings.
Sariputra, form is not other than emptiness
and…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , John Crook

Not Noticing

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

This talk is dedicated to the memory of Georgina Marjorie Crook. It was delivered to the assembly of practitioners at the Two Day Retreat in Rickford, October 24th 1992.

Two things are omnipresent in our lives and yet day after day we fail to notice them - death and the sky. Every day people are dying: if they are our dear ones we know and feel it but the fact of everyday dying, next door, in the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , John Crook

No Path at All!

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

from the "Sermons to the Stones and Trees" tapes, Summer 1992

There comes a moment in Zen training, a moment both shocking and surprising, when one realises intuitively that there is no path at all.

Ho! What then is Zen practice?

Practice is the realisation that there is no path at all, yet one keeps on going, going on, going on beyond, always becoming being.

Listening to a talk on Buddhism on…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , John Crook

Chan and Psychoanalysis

Chan master Shengyen

This dialogue is reprinted with permission from the Institute of Chung Hua Buddhist Culture in New York. It was first published in Chan Magazine Volume 12, Number 4, Fall 1992.

Question: How is Chan similar or different from psychotherapy? Is the relationship between student and Master similar to that of patient and therapist?

Shifu: There are similarities and differences. The goals of Chan are…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Sheng Yen , Highlighted

Zen and Christianity, The Dialogue

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd


Christianity lies at the root and heart of Western culture. Today intellectually rejected because of its failure to relate effectively with science, and sentimentalised by those who seek popularity within a world of adolescent values that last a lifetime, the traditional European religion none the less continues to stir the heart. Perhaps it is the story of Christ himself, rather than the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , John Crook

Darkness

Calligraphy for the character Chan

It's a dark night
The trees stretch their limbs in the breeze.
The air is cool and the nostrils flare.
Suddenly, the clouds part
And there stands the moon, bright and serene.

 

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Others

Taliesin, At The Court Of Maenllwyd

Calligraphy for the character Chan

A poem in old Welsh style

I am chief doctor unto six thousand,
My country of origin was the Land of Angles.
Ruth and Hilda called me Roger.
I was the question set Sir Gwain;
I am the father of three doctors;
I am the husband of their mother;
I am the voter much misled;
I am a debtor, yet a householder;
I am little Gwion's hurt child;
I am a sleeket cowering timorous beasty;
I am a dense thicket of thorne;
I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Others , Highlighted

Dharma Hunger

Eddy Street

A Western Zen Retreat Poem

The Universe is as the Boundless Sky,
I should have had another piece of bread and jam
As lotus blossom above 
I wonder if we'll have tea after this meal
unclean water,
Pure and beyond the World is the mind 
Bloody Buddhist Ceremonials
of the trainee,
O Silence of Nature
Don't like him
We take refuge in Thee
Here we go again.

Calm and Clear

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Highlighted , Eddy Street

Meditation on the Seven-Twelve

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Cars converge on Swindon station,
Strained commuters clamber on,
Briefcase, mala, travel passes,
"Sorry, power unit problems."
I take refuge in the jewels,
Generating Boddicitta,
Through the virtues I, by giving,
"Train departing, Platform one."

Free from hatred and attachment,
"Passengers who've just got on,
Please, your tickets for inspection."
Offer objects of attachment,
Visualise, arrayed before me
All…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Others , Highlighted

Some Images of India

Ken Jones headshot

A haiku diary of a tour through Uttar Pradesh by bus, boat, plane and rickshaw in the winter of 1992.

The plane stops at Abu Dhabi.
White faces recede;
The Fast floods in.

Against a high-rise backdrop,
Two vultures on a pig's back.
Third World.

The fawning rickshaw wallah's
Smile
Frames my guilt.

A black bull
With a white egret on his back;
Time out of mind.

Muzzafarnagar -
Dust and Chaos
No, not chaos.
Everybo…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Ken Jones

Why? Why? Why?

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Physically, I did not find the retreat too difficult. Having regularly practised the one hour meditation sessions traditional in vipassana, sitting for half an hour at a time is not much of a problem for me. And the exercises offered during the breaks between sessions were enough to get the stiffness out of my limbs. Alternating between sitting cross legged and kneeling also helped me avoid any…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Anon , Koan Retreat Reports

Mind In Flow

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I have just returned home, and it seems sensible to write the report before the memories of the retreat begin to slip away. Yet even by writing about it, the events seem so strange and wonderful that words alone cannot express the sheer depth and vast space that has at times punctuated the practise; the clarity of perception, the long silences that can only be likened to the desert, not a…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Chan Retreat Reports , For Newcomers , Anon

Seeing the Nature

Simon Child headshot

It felt such a privilege to be attending the retreat with Shifu. I couldn't make the effort to go to New York, but he had come here! And yet a retreat is just a retreat. Really it was like a solitary retreat, as I just isolated myself from the environment and continued my practice.

I came to the retreat feeling that I wanted to be there, and John wanted me to be there in particular to confirm my…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Simon Child , For Newcomers , Silent Illumination Retreat Reports

What Can I Say?

Calligraphy for the character Chan

The retreat was an opportunity to practice. But it was also a rare event, for when does a Chan Master such as Master Sheng Yen ever come to a remote Welsh cottage to lead a retreat? Those of us who were able to participate were indeed fortunate.

Last December in New York, Shifu advised me to rest before my next retreat. Having suffered greatly in New York, I made sure I took his advice. I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Chan Retreat Reports , Anon

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