Dharma Library

This library provides a database of articles, some from past issues of New Chan Forum and some available only from the website.

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Chronological List of articles:

The Interview in Practice

Eddy Street

In Chan practice everyone's experience of retreat and its processes are different. No two people sit exactly the same retreat and no two people follow the same personal path over the course of their Buddhist practice. On retreat, however, the group requires instruction and teachings that bring the Dharma to life so talks and lectures are designed for all practitioners in a general way. But because…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2017 , Highlighted , Eddy Street

Introduction to Meditation

Drawing of sitting meditator

An introduction for those new to meditation and for those who wish to develop their meditation further.

What is Meditation?

We are used to the concepts of training the body in a skill or for fitness or dexterity, and of training the mind in factual knowledge or in a mental skill such as arithmetic. Meditation is many things but it is none of these. Meditation is a training of the mind to be…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2015 , For Newcomers , Highlighted , Simon Child

For Non-beginners and Beginners Alike

Rebecca Li headshot

We had been curious about the Western Zen Retreat after hearing about it - it was a process that had been developed by Dr. John Crook, Master Sheng Yen's (Shifu's) first Western Dharma heir. At first we thought the retreat was for beginners, only because we had been told that the retreat was a good way for those new to Chan to start their practice. But after taking part in a number of Western Zen…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2010 , Highlighted , Western Zen Retreat Reports , Rebecca Li

Retreat Poems

Calligraphy for the character Chan

(Written during a three month solitary retreat at Mount Amiata in Tuscany, Italy).

Sitting by the doorstep 
on a dusty sheepskin 
in the early morning, 
a hazy sun warms my cheeks. 
I wonder what will
come to mind? 
I remember my dreams. 
My thoughts are like 
a bird tied to a pole 
by a long string. 
they fly in endless circles 
under the illusion of freedom.

Alone 
all alone 
in an empty room 
in an empty…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2005 , Poetry , Others , Highlighted

The Heart Sutra - An Introduction

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd


Almost as soon as anyone interested in Zen, or indeed almost any form of Mahayana Buddhism, begins to sit with a group of practitioners he or she will encounter the Heart Sutra. Most groups like to include a short liturgy in their evening's 'sit' and it is very probable that the Heart Sutra will form the key element in this. The text is by no means self-explanatory and meditation instructors…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2001 , John Crook , Highlighted

A Shining Silence

Drawing of barn in landscape, as jpg

Not many of us have to endure for years the disappearance of a loved one. To discover that the loss was due to horrendous murder is even rarer. Yet, in places like Kosovo or Kurdistan this experience is something of a commonplace. The anger, indeed fury, can reach out to strike down whoever or whatever is deemed responsible. Justice is not always easy to be done. Killing is easier. So the cycle…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Others , Highlighted

On the Path of Dharma: Bill Pickard's letters to Eric Johns 1984-1987

Calligraphy for the character Chan

In NCF 18 Eric Johns described how he set out to discover the Buddha Way by visiting Bill Pickard at Mousehole in Cornwall where there was a small group living under his instruction in Soto Zen. During the subsequent years of Eric's training as a monk (Sik Hin Lic) in Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, Bill sustained a flow of letters to him, acting very much as an older spiritual counsellor to a young…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Others , Highlighted

From a Meditator's Practice

Calligraphy for the character Chan

John Senior has sent us two short contributions arising from his practice. The first is "an attempt to extract the essence of the Diamond Sutra in a form which I can read back to myself before meditation. I find its reference to familiar things like gifts, teachings, happiness, particles of dust and the universe give it perhaps more richness than the profound but often abstract Heart Sutra."…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Others , Highlighted

Life at Po Lam Chan Monastery, Hong Kong

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Shortly before my fifteenth birthday I parted company with school. At seventeen I took karate lessons and at the end of each lesson we would practise zazen. I enjoyed this so much that I asked for more. The instructor suggested I go find myself a Buddhist group and I was prompt to act upon this advice.

When I was 20 I came across The Secrets of Chinese Meditation, a book by Charles Luk. It…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others , Highlighted

Intoxication and the Precepts

Calligraphy for the character Chan

At the culmination of retreats led by Shi-Fu the opportunity is usually given to participants to take the Precepts. Retreatants are told that they may take all the precepts, or they may choose to take only some. I think without exception participants unhesitatingly recite their intention to keep all the Precepts until the recitation reaches the Precept that states the intention to "refrain from…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Highlighted , Others

Chan Attitudes

Chan master Shengyen

On the wall of the dining hall in the Chan Center in Elmhurst, New York, hangs a notice summarising the attitude to be adopted by resident and visiting practitioners. These suggestions seem to provide very sensible guidelines for a life of appropriate relatedness with others, not only within but also outside the meditation hall. So we present them here, slightly edited, for your reflection. They…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Poetry , Sheng Yen , Highlighted

My Father's Hands

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I had always loved my father's hands. They seemed to be the only part of him I could love in safety.

I could love them in secret and in silence and my mother would never know. I could look at them when she was out of the room, cooking in the kitchen, banging the pots and pans as she worked.

She was an angry woman who had been forced to marry my father when she was only twenty years old because…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others , Highlighted

The Fenceless Gate

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

for Hughie

High in the hills of Wales
somewhere above Ceredigion
a fenceless gate swings in the wind.

Bold spirit are you?
A rugged glance, good boots or a 4 by 4
and you're away.

among sheep and ravens
cloudwise among crags
bogs and sudden mist

a falling white out
lost in the desert
chilly too.

Coming down a valley no one ever saw before
the dead still sing in the Inn.
Finding a way home not so easy…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Poetry , John Crook , Highlighted

Learning to be a Zen Cook

Pam Butler

Driving home from the January Mahamudra retreat I thought obsessively about taking up the opportunity to cook. Finally, decided to drop it, not think about it for a few days and just see if the situation clarified.

Next morning, the postman knocked and handed over a parcel. It turned out to contain a Christmas present from my brother - a teapot and a book on vegetarian cooking! I decided the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Other Retreat Reports , Highlighted , Anon

Obituaries: Don Ball and Jane Turner

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd


In the last few months old hands at the Maenllwyd have lost two much loved retreat companions. Don Ball and Jane Turner had been coming to the Maenllwyd ever since we started retreats there. They both knew the days when accommodation consisted of a barn with a much holed roof through which snow might drift or an owl come in to share the shelter. They both knew the crowded retreats we used to have…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1997 , John Crook , Obituaries , Highlighted

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