Dharma Library
A large collection of articles, from past issues of New Chan Forum and more besides.
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Retreat Report: Awareness in the Everyday
Anonymous retreatant |Shawbottom Farm 2024, Leaders Juliet Hackney and Alysun Jones
In order for me to go on retreat there had to be a negotiation with those I would leave behind, my wife and my stepdaughter. It is all too easy to forget the personal cost to others of the absence of those going on retreat. The initial reluctance to let me go, in time moved to acceptance that I could.
This was my first retreat and it…
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My tenth Silent Illumination retreat
Anonymous retreatant |Shawbottom Farm 2024, Leader Simon Child
This was my tenth Silent Illumination retreat. Looking back over previous retreat reports, there is a constant theme: when will I stop manipulating my meditation and learn to let go?
My typical retreat would begin with the feeling that finally I have learnt the knack of meditation – how to conjure up the (rather self-indulgent) experience of floating in…
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An Anonymous Haiku
Anonymous |Written During a Snowy Retreat in January 2025
midwinter
a hare's tracks
returning to solitude
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Retreat Report – Silent Illumination July 2022
Anonymous |heatwave
only the butterflies
still busyI 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…
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Retreat Report, Koan Retreat September 2022, a poem
Anonymous |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… -
Host and Guests: A Retreat Talk
John Crook |(Given at a Western Zen Retreat in 1988)
We have been doing a meditation called searching the heart in which we have been allowing the experiences of our lives as they are remembered to rise within us – to tell us their story and bring us their feelings. In this way we have been reviewing and uncovering and allowing to emerge that which we are. Maybe we have also been seeing that, when that…
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No Guru, No Church, No Dependency
Susan Blackmore |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…
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Online Retreat Report
Anonymous |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…
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Chan Brushwork Retreat 2019
Anonymous |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…
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Western Zen Retreat April 2019, a participant reports
Anonymous |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…
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