Dharma Library

The essence of mind is tranquil, spacious, illumined by joy,
unattached to thoughts or the thoughtless.
When it appears you may fill with a gratitude that slowly turns to bliss.
If a thought of others emerges there may be love.
Love is embracing all and being embraced by all.
Love passes: tranquillity resumes: the spaciousness sustains itself.
The thought of 'me' is absent.
Self-concern is no longer…

A talk by Chan Master Shengyen, Excerpted from Chan Magazine and lightly edited.

Outwardly like a complete fool,
Inwardly mind is empty and real.

Often, it is a monk who appears slow and some-what dumb who is the great practitioner; and the monk who appears to be extremely sharp and knowledgeable is the one who often needs to practice more diligently. Do not concern yourself with or waste time…

This conference was run by women for women. and was visited by 1220 women of whom 700 took part in the whole conference. It originated from several previous meetings concerned with similar themes

In 1983 women from North America ran the first conference whose main theme was about women in Buddhism. In 1987 the first international conference concerning Buddhist nuns was held and, on that occasion,…

In the yard, after the rain, every step makes mud. Why do I hate the squelching?

Mixed-up youth, far-out experiences. I first read about Zen, as a 15-year-old in 1966, in Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen". I was immediately attracted by the sense of the Zen masters knowing something that was wonderful yet ordinary in that it was always present. From that time, for perhaps 7 years, I read much about…

Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of Bodhisattva Ksitigarbharaja seated upon the offering table in the Chan hall. As usual his serene countenance glows quietly there. I take a closer look. His expression of peace and tranquillity begins to enter and then to flood my mind. Time becomes motionless yet the soft wind gently moves the branches beyond the window, the distant rustle of the…

On retreat with Shifu many people have had encounters with him that must have surprised them. Shifu, too, encounters people who surprise him! The outcome of such meetings is often valuable. Sometimes when you meet a Buddha on the road it might be worthwhile seeing what he has to say before you kill him! At the beginning of a new Millennium let us see what happens when you bump into a Master. Of…

What is it about haiku that imparts that mysterious little whiff of insight, so difficult to describe and yet so strangely satisfying? I would like to offer some pointers from my experience as a long term Zen Buddhist for whom the Way of haiku has become a valued part of my practice.

Characteristically we endeavour to secure and console our fragile self-identity by processing, shaping and…

As a philosophy which is in effect a way of life. Zen has offered insights into most aspects of human activity from the martial arts to motorcycle maintenance. Here. Adrian Cairns, formerly associate principal of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, analyses the ways in which, despite their widely different origins, development, and purposes, the tenets of an Eastern philosophy actually…

Since the beginning of history mankind has been searching for the ultimate truth about our existence and the nature of the universe; theologians in the spiritual world and scientists in the physical world. However, because of the separation of time and space, different religions and scientific theories evolved. As with everything else in this world, they are never static through the passage of…

I am not normally a consumer of biographies but this is one I wanted to read. One of the first things I did when I began the Buddhist path was to buy a copy of Suzuki’s ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind’. I can still recall standing in a bookshop in London, wondering which book for beginners to buy. I choose the thinnest, what seemed to be the simplest and the one with a picture of the nice man on the…