Dharma Library

Silence…
What is there?
What IS there?

Chestnut bud in a vase
Feels pain in her green petals forcibly opened
By a greedy glance

Achoo!!!
The whole universe
Broke into pieces 

This mouthful of tea
Never drunk before
Nor ever again

An old monk
Slowly walking step by step
Through a violent storm

Frost
Winter may come any day now
Where has the last one gone? 

The stream
Flowing all the time
Never tired

Sprin…

This morning I went for a swim in a local lake. It is early December, the weather has just turned colder, and the water at 8 degrees is so cold it stings my skin. As I approach the water and feel the first touch of the cold on my feet and ankles, I find myself remembering holidays in the Mediterranean years before, getting into much warmer pools while the sun beat down on the back of my head. It…

A Book by Rebecca Li

When faced with uncertainty that seems unbearable do you panic? Do you worry? Do you put things off? These are some of the all too human responses Rebecca Li discusses in her book Allow Joy into Our Hearts: Chan Practice in Uncertain Times. This delightful book is a series of essays written from recordings of talks Rebecca gave to her Zoom Chan Group in New Jersey at the…

In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Mara reminds the Buddha, now approaching death, of his earlier words: ‘I shall not come to my final passing away, Evil One, until my bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, laymen and laywomen, have come to be true disciples – wise, well disciplined, apt and learned, preservers of the Dhamma …’ ¹ The role of each element of this Fourfold Assembly in preserving and propagating the…

In this book George Marsh, one-time editor of this journal, presents a collection of haibun. Those familiar with the muse and process of haiku and haibun will know, however, that you do not collect them, they collect you. So here we have the assembled work of someone that has been collected through the experiences and activities of his life including those of a Buddhist practitioner.

For readers…

When I was asked several years ago to write a personal perspective on my career as a doctor in relation to right livelihood, I thought it would be easy. It is a huge privilege to work as a doctor with a livelihood dedicated to alleviating the effects of illness – we try and help people when they are vulnerable and are often admitted to their most private life events. The most useful advice I…

An important component of Chan Buddhist practice is the practice of the Precepts. For lay practitioners the five lay precepts are the basis. There are several other formulations such as eight precepts, ten precepts, Bodhisattva precepts, and the monastic precepts which are counted in the hundreds. I shall leave those for another day and focus here on the basic five lay precepts of: not killing;…

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…

The fresh crisp morning air assails my senses as I quietly close the kitchen door behind me. The gravel crunches under my feet, yet all is silent.

I turn the corner of the street and the south-west wind rushes across my face.

I hear the sea before I see the sea, for all is still dark at this early hour.

The smell of wet briny beach is strong as I descend the steps to the beachside path and turn…