Dharma Library

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

  • Search by keywords, using the search box, and the corresponding articles will be listed below the search box (followed by recently published articles).
  • To select articles by various categories such as topic or author or date click on the section menus ( below the listed articles on a mobile view, or to the right on a desktop view), and the corresponding articles will be listed below the searchbox.


Chronological List of articles:

Liturgy

Eddy Street

In terms of our ceremonies, as lay practitioners, we only undertake a small part of what occurs in monastic communities, but as with everything we need to examine and question what it is that we actually do. We need to discover the larger sense of what constitutes our liturgy and to appreciate its place within the totality that is Chan Buddhism. Our liturgy reveals a history of the tradition of…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2018 , Eddy Street

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

Baizhang and Work Practice

Eddy Street

A feature of most Buddhist retreats and certainly an important part of our retreats is work practice. It is so natural an element of what we do that we do not think about the way the practice originated, and we certainly do not think about the Chan Master who instigated the practice as, originally, it was not a part of the activity of Buddhist monastics.

At the time of Buddha and in the Indian…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2017 , Eddy Street

Bumping up Against Ourselves

Eddy Street

The spiritual path is seldom if ever straightforward. When we embark on our spiritual quest, we naturally engage the nature of the person that we are with the tasks that will present themselves to us along the way. The trials, tribulations and obstacles along the path are not an inherent element of the path itself but are the outcome of the way we personally interact with the requirements involved…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2013 , Eddy Street

Hearing Photos: an Exploration by Eddy Street and Rob Stratton

Man jumped from a bridge to swim in the river

Rob has managed to earn a living in photography as a 'professional' while Eddy has the interest of an 'amateur'. They frequently discuss their shared involvement in this activity.

How extraordinary! How extraordinary!
The insentient express the way! How mysterious!
If you listen with the ears it is incomprehensible
If you hear sounds with the eyes it is truly knowledgeable.
Dongshan

By Way of…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Eddy Street

Mindfulness and 'Mindfulness Training'

Eddy Street

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness can be interpreted in two ways;

  • concentration which is narrow and laser-like
  • awareness which is more panoramic. 

These are obviously linked, for with concentration there is the focus, and awareness is knowing that one is focused. When we are aware we are mindful not only of what we are doing but the feelings, the emotions that are arising and what's happening…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2006 , Eddy Street

Cardiff is a Nice Place

Eddy Street

Evidently inspired by the Ten Koans of Layman John (NCF32) Eddy recalled this finely crafted koan. Enjoy. Tsan!! Eds

At a time of great personal turmoil, Layman Street, who had not yet stepped onto the Path, had it suggested to him that he visit Lam Rim Buddhist Centre and speak with Geshe Damchos Yontan. Layman Street had only read about meeting with Buddhist teachers and he had the notion that…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2006 , Eddy Street

The Snowy Heron in the White Moon Hides

Eddy Street

Family therapy and Buddhism

two traditions, two authors, one article

Being

For many years our professional lives and personal /spiritual lives have had a curious intertwining. We have similar and different backgrounds and have interests in both family therapy and Zen Buddhism. We have worked together as family therapists and at work so often our discussions have drifted to spirituality and…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2000 , Eddy Street

Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki

Eddy Street

I am not normally a consumer of biographies but this is one I wanted to read. One of the first things I did when I began the Buddhist path was to buy a copy of Suzuki’s ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind’. I can still recall standing in a bookshop in London, wondering which book for beginners to buy. I choose the thinnest, what seemed to be the simplest and the one with a picture of the nice man on the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Book Reviews , Eddy Street

Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson

Eddy Street

I've been throwing basketballs for almost as long as I have been sitting. At about the same time that I began to sit regularly I started attending a Keep Fit evening class where basketball is the staple diet. So most Thursday evenings will see me along with a group of similarly middle aged and slightly overweight (?) men running up and down a gym trying to throw a ball into a suspended basket.

So…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Book Reviews , Eddy Street

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

Cookie Extension Logo