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:

Comet Above The Yard

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd


Up at the Maenllwyd -
funny how the days roll by. 
I don't seem to be doing anything,
cleaning and writing and cooking
and sitting and walking
sleeping and waking.

Where does it all go?

The time so clear 
nobody here 
hours - hours 
or merely minutes? 
Today it is warm; 
yesterday cold; 
the wind changes,
clouds keep going -
in different directions.

Tonight a comet hangs over the yard 
tail streaming in far off…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1997 , Poetry , John Crook , Highlighted

Welsh Winter: Maenllwyd

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd 

                          Grey stone mountain
                          rain
                          and the gathering fogs
                          Drip drip the gutters
                          and the gurgling stream.
                          Two ravens out of the mirk
                          strut about warily
                          not seeing the face behind the window,
                    …

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1996 , Poetry , John Crook , Highlighted

Authenticity and the Practice of Zen

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

The Need for an Examination

The authority of experience depends upon authenticity. If we base our action or feeling in inauthentic experience it can only lead to play acting or pretence with potentially catastrophic consequences. Sadly, many of our justifications for action rest on the outcomes of past personal, familial and social tensions that have remained unresolved and which distort our…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1996 , John Crook , Highlighted

Mind in Agriculture

Calligraphy for the character Chan

To work the land or to gain one's living from the land is 99% hard work and, in the history of Man, the shift from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture was perhaps the most important change in our whole structure and way of thinking.

Without agriculture where would the monasteries be? To sustain such a complex there must be a stable local economy or at least a trade route nearby. The very…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1996 , Others , Highlighted

Reading Sutras as a Spiritual Practice

Chan master Shengyen

A talk delivered at Tibet House in New York City, on 5 November, 1994 and edited by Linda Peer and Harry Miller, edited with permission for NCF by John Crook 1998. In this talk Shifu tells us about the traditional uses to which the Sutras are put in China. Some of us may like to make use of these methods. For Westerners Sutra reading is also important. In particular the oldest Sutras, the ones…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1994 , Sheng Yen , Highlighted

Hermit at Stallion's Rock

Ken Jones headshot

It was a cliff overhang rather than a real cave. But the walls glowed with beautiful lichens, and at one end was a rockfall hung with ferns. I cleared out the sheep dung, set up a little shrine, cut a bed of reeds and laid out my sleeping bag. I was in business at least as a part-time hermit.

Notwithstanding two decades of tough Zen training, I still had a romantic itch for the hermit life - all…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1994 , Ken Jones , Highlighted

Everyday Joy

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

Written during a solo retreat.

In the practice of the Dharma it becomes essential to understand that within the everyday lies the Great Joy. It is not that Joy is elsewhere nor that it has to be laboriously worked for. It is not that one is worthless, undeserving, wicked and hence unable to discover it Dharma Joy itself lies within the everyday.

Why then are we so normally cast down, anxious,…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1993 , John Crook , Highlighted

In Chinese Mode: Thinking of a Friend

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

This poem, parts of which were written at various times in the 1960's and revised now in 1993, is dedicated to Yiu Yan Nang, JP, now (1993) Deputy Commissioner of Labour, Hong Kong.

Reading a book of Chinese translations 
I remember my Chinese friend, 
bamboo breezes drift though my study, 
moonlight on the terraced temple shines again. 
Climbing to those high places 
sometimes you picked flowers 
and…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1993 , John Crook , Poetry , Highlighted

Shaping The Future?

Stephen Batchelor presenting

Western Buddhist Teachers Meet the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India. March 22-23, 1993

Before our formal sessions with the Dalai Lama began, we gathered for a preliminary meeting. "I'd like to suggest an exercise," announced Jack Kornfield, "Close your eyes and imagine the kind of Buddhism you foresee in 20 or 30 years time. The practices, the centres and the world itself ... What role does the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1993 , Highlighted , Stephen Batchelor

Chan and Psychoanalysis

Chan master Shengyen

This dialogue is reprinted with permission from the Institute of Chung Hua Buddhist Culture in New York. It was first published in Chan Magazine Volume 12, Number 4, Fall 1992.

Question: How is Chan similar or different from psychotherapy? Is the relationship between student and Master similar to that of patient and therapist?

Shifu: There are similarities and differences. The goals of Chan are…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Sheng Yen , Highlighted

Taliesin, At The Court Of Maenllwyd

Calligraphy for the character Chan

A poem in old Welsh style

I am chief doctor unto six thousand,
My country of origin was the Land of Angles.
Ruth and Hilda called me Roger.
I was the question set Sir Gwain;
I am the father of three doctors;
I am the husband of their mother;
I am the voter much misled;
I am a debtor, yet a householder;
I am little Gwion's hurt child;
I am a sleeket cowering timorous beasty;
I am a dense thicket of thorne;
I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Others , Highlighted

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

Meditation on the Seven-Twelve

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Cars converge on Swindon station,
Strained commuters clamber on,
Briefcase, mala, travel passes,
"Sorry, power unit problems."
I take refuge in the jewels,
Generating Boddicitta,
Through the virtues I, by giving,
"Train departing, Platform one."

Free from hatred and attachment,
"Passengers who've just got on,
Please, your tickets for inspection."
Offer objects of attachment,
Visualise, arrayed before me
All…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1992 , Poetry , Others , Highlighted

Life in a Chan Monastery

Chan master Shengyen

Lecture by Master Sheng-yen at the University of Toronto on October 18th 1991. Edited text by permission from Chan Newsletter No.92, May 92

In ancient Chinese monasteries a practitioner's time was divided between meditation, attending Dharma talks and daily work. Morning and evening was spent in meditation, daytime was for working. We are somewhat ignorant of the daily schedule in early Chan…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1991 , Highlighted , Sheng Yen

Methods of Practice in the Chan Hall

Calligraphy for the character Chan

This is part two of a translation of a text by the great Chan master of the early part of the 20th century, Hsu Yun (1839-1 959). It is reprinted by permission of the Institute of Chung Hwa Buddhist Culture, New York, from Chan Newsletter 87, August 1991. The first part of this talk appeared in New Chan Forum No.4. Spring 1992.

1. Introduction:

Many people come to ask me for guidance. This makes…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1991 , Others , Highlighted

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