Dharma Library

A Talk by to the Swindon Buddhist Meditation Group on 26th May 1997

(The first minute or so of the talk never made it onto the tape. But it went something like this...)

('What is driving the mind?' The key question in Buddhism is "What is driving the mind right now?' What underlying drive pre-occupies us? On my way here this evening, looking at the countryside - la, la, la, very nice - maybe…

In the last few months old hands at the Maenllwyd have lost two much loved retreat companions. Don Ball and Jane Turner had been coming to the Maenllwyd ever since we started retreats there. They both knew the days when accommodation consisted of a barn with a much holed roof through which snow might drift or an owl come in to share the shelter. They both knew the crowded retreats we used to have…

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 sunshine.
D…

"a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were telling a story" Jean-Paul Sartre

I have always been fascinated by the art of story telling and this short book was my first "taste of Zen" through the medium of the story. It is a compilation of a series…

During our recent trip to India we spent one whole day in a rowing boat being taken down river to Banares.

We had an early morning start from a sandy beach clutching our picnic boxes and water bottles to sustain us through the day. Blazing sunshine mellowed and warmed the coolness of the morning as we embarked to the amusement of the village onlookers.

The river Ganga or Ganges is for Indians…

A particular attraction of this retreat was for me the possibility of examining the stages of meditation as it deepened. In order that the process of moving towards a reasonably quiet and spacious state could become rather less haphazard, I had been trying to identify progression in my own meditation. I found the Mahamudra immensely helpful in this respect, clarifying the exact point where it is…

The "Grand Tour of Buddhist India", a major contribution to our pilgrimage programme, visited nearly all the major sites of Buddhist history and archaeology in India: Elephanta, Kanheri, Bhaja, Karla, Nasik, Ajanta, Ellora, Sanchi, Sarnath, Bodhgaya, Rajgriha, Kusinagara and Lumbini, just over the border in Nepal. Along the way we wrote notes and poetry some of which we record here. Julia has…

Edited version of a talk given at the symposium "American Buddhism Today" to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Rochester Zen Center, Rochester, New York, June 22, 1996.

Something I've noticed over the years is how, although we may start out at a young age rebelling against Christianity or our Jewishness and then finding in Buddhism a vindication for our rebelliousness, as we grow older, we…

                          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,
                    …

In the Lotus Sutra the Buddha predicted a future Buddhahood for most of his followers yet both his cousin and personal attendant, Ananda, and his son, Rahula, had to wait until after the others before the Buddha made predictions concerning them. In his "A Guide to the Threefold Lotus Sutra," Nikkyo Niwano interprets this as indicating the difficulty inherent in teaching those close to oneself.…