Dharma Library

The day is clear and with the crispness of early winter in South Australia. Honeyeaters hawk for insects outside my window, supplementing the meagre supply of nectar at this time of year. Across the valley, well-wooded slopes of blue-green eucalypt rise gently to a low mountain range - quite unlike the bare hills of my birthplace in a South Wales coal valley.

I left Wales at a tender age, only…

Twenty-four of us talked about ourselves, why we had come and our hopes for the coming week. 'Coming home' was a theme for many. My struggles on three previous Shifu-led retreats made it feel more like school camp. My hopes were to learn more about off-cushion practice and the second stage of Silent Illumination, to avoid my usual frustration and despair ... and to lose some weight.

My first sit…

Among the many who have come to the Maenllwyd over the years we count a number of social work professionals of the highest distinction. What brings them to the heart of Wales often seems mysterious. It is as if in these caring professions there is no adequate sharing among the professionals themselves. In a sort of loneliness they have to seek elsewhere and it is to the hills that they come. Barry…

I felt an immense sense of fear and trepidation when I sent my cheque in for my first WZR. Previous to this my record at sitting was about 12 minutes, during which I would usually get terribly restless and my ankles would hurt due to the amount of sport I have played. On the other side I had spent years devouring books on Buddhism and quite a few other ‘isms’ too. My father had always been…

In NCF 18 Eric Johns described how he set out to discover the Buddha Way by visiting Bill Pickard at Mousehole in Cornwall where there was a small group living under his instruction in Soto Zen. During the subsequent years of Eric's training as a monk (Sik Hin Lic) in Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, Bill sustained a flow of letters to him, acting very much as an older spiritual counsellor to a young…

What is the place of Zen in contemporary thought, the relation of Buddhist metaphysics to philosophy and the value of ancient texts to thinking people today? These and related questions form the subject matter of this intelligent, subtle and provoking book. Dale S. Wright, Professor of Religious Studies, Occidental College, Los Angeles, provides a thought provoking read especially for those of us…

Being in my mid-sixties, I am no longer young. I often reflect on my past life, the people I have met, and the experiences I have had. So far, I feel I have had a lucky and happy life. A child in World War II, I was alerted early on to the fact that humanity can be evil and cruel, just as it is also kind and loving. I used to have childish dreams of going to Hitler and asking him to change his…

John Senior has sent us two short contributions arising from his practice. The first is "an attempt to extract the essence of the Diamond Sutra in a form which I can read back to myself before meditation. I find its reference to familiar things like gifts, teachings, happiness, particles of dust and the universe give it perhaps more richness than the profound but often abstract Heart Sutra." The…

Mahamudra Retreat February 1999, my Retreat Report

My practice at home had been going well. I had read 'The Yogins of Ladakh' shortly after it was published and had enjoyed it very much. I particularly found Tipun's Notebook revealing. Often I have found the words we use not useful for me in working out where I am in terms of practice (a karmic problem). But somehow the Notebook approached the…

I arrived at Maenllwyd, in the deepest despair I have ever known - the 'dark night of my soul'. Having been to an Introductory Chan Retreat a few months previously, I had some dim awareness that this was a place where I could safely be, that is, be allowed to be, in that dark night.

And indeed, I was in a place, and with people, who accepted my existence well before I could.

I had spoken to…