Dharma Library

heatwave
only the butterflies
still busy

I am a chatterer, verbalising everything in my head all the time, keeping a running commentary going and explaining events to some imaginary listener. It took me a while to realise on retreat that the ‘Silent’ in ‘Silent Illumination’ was not the silence of nature but had to be the silence of me.

I was strict with myself and cut down the flow of the wordy…

Planting a great oak at Shawbottom
and returning each year to say, “I did that”,
that would be something.
The sapling trees were ready in pots,
the spade resting against the shed.

I could only claim a short-lived success
weeding between the paving slabs.
About his many enlightenment experiences
Sawaki Roshi once said,
“they didn’t amount to a whole hill of beans”.

In my secret koan, ‘Tokusan’s Bowls’,
eg…

Rushing off to begin a solitary retreat last month, I suddenly remembered that I wanted to check something in the liturgy so, in a hurry (yes, I know!!), I grabbed the first copy I could find and set off to my hut. Only later, once I’d settled down, did I take a look and realise that it was a very old copy indeed. To my surprise, there, on the front cover (see overleaf), is some writing in John’s…

Covid 19 restrictions have meant that WCF’s normal retreat programme has had to be abandoned. Instead we have developed a format for online day and week retreats, which are proving to be very valuable. 

WCF’s first online retreat – and I loved it! 

I found the whole process of bringing the retreat out into my ‘market place’, into my living room, was really wonderful. And I enjoyed the experience…

The image that comes to mind when I try to sum up the retreat is of a triple: a three-legged stool, a tripod, a triptych. This represents what were for me the three components of the retreat: the huatou, the brushwork, and the sitting. Each locked into the other.

I can’t remember the exact words of the huatou but in essence Joshu asks Nansen how to pursue The Way. Nansen tells him that making…

I arrived not knowing what the retreat was going to be like. I knew we would investigate the question “who am I?” but preferred to find out how once I got there to avoid expectations or anxiety. I was very much looking forward to the luxury of having everything organised for me. I would not have to make any decisions, just follow instructions and bells. This time, I didn't even wear a watch and it…

…Day two. Koan day. I eventually plumped for one that, rather arrogantly, I believed I could answer. Hah! Silliness. We sat, the Koan playing in my mind as I searched for an answer. After a few sessions, Simon brought in a communication exercise whereby each retreatant sits with another and takes it in turns to answer a question on their Koan. I was coupled with the most open and honest individual…

The first day was just awful really. Sitting there, facing myself. It was like torture. No distraction, no ‘phone a friend’, no reading, no internet, no work, no walking the dog, no watching tv. Just sitting there, having to face what emerges in my mind. I found it unbearable. I really did think I could not bear to stay and started thinking about how I could just leave. I was cold; it didn’t…

I am not sure where or when the journey to Maenllwyd began, but it had its roots long before the day of our arrival for a Western Zen retreat in February. It was a relief to arrive on that darkened Welsh hillside, and somewhat surreal to enter the gas-lit farmhouse and find a small crowd of other retreatants, talking, laughing, drinking tea – all of whom had also made their own journeys there on…

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…