Dharma Library

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…

Sian: I have been very lucky to have a Dharma buddy (kalyana mitta) for quite a few years and then more recently to acquire two more buddies! The relationship with each of them is different, and they bring different aspects of my practice and life to the light, so it has been wonderful to have each of them. With my first buddy we were quite organised in how we worked together at first, each taking…

the guest house by rumi 

This being human is a guest house. 

Every morning a new arrival. 

A joy, a depression, a meanness, 

some momentary awareness comes 

as an unexpected visitor… 

Welcome and entertain them all! 

Be grateful for whoever comes, 

because each has been sent as a 

guide from beyond. 

Communicating in a group via the Internet during a viral pandemic has been an…

Caves are significant features in the sacred geography of the Himalaya. They are often in dramatic locations and form part of a larger mandalic landscape of mountains, lakes, valleys and rivers. Traditionally they are the preferred abode of those seeking contemplative isolation and many are alleged to have been inhabited by renowned tantric adepts such as Padmasambhava or the famous Tibetan yogi…

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. 

– Donald Rumsfeld. Former US Defence Secretary 2002 

I’m thinking about knowing and not knowing. 

It's important to know things, isn’t it. Things like how to drive…

To write about a place which has made such a profound impact on my life, and to do so concisely and effectively, feels like quite a challenge; but one which I feel I must take on – both for myself and as an offering to the community of fellow members, with whom I have shared so many precious hours and days: times which contained the broadest possible range of human emotions – some of which I had…

I was thinking today that I really don’t know anyone who doesn’t like toast. I'm sure they are out there, but they must be few and far between. 

I love toast. 

Because my old trouble plays up now and then, I’m limited to sourdough, but I’ve got the knack of it. A while ago I noticed that I eat it in such a way as to provide the maximum amount of satisfaction. Eating bits I find boring first and…

1994 

I attend my first Western Zen Buddhist retreat at Maenllwyd. The small Welsh farmhouse stands on a hillside at the end of a rough track below a narrow wooded valley, which leads up to a bare horizon. It just sits there, with no electricity, amidst the fields of sheep, aloof and barely visible from the straggly village some way below. The eastern horizon offers wide skies for the sunrise and…

(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…

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…