Dharma Library

Hughie Carroll’s public début as a poet began on social media during the first national lockdown in May 2020. The variety of direct, colloquial, honest, and tender poems were immediately engaging: pared to the core and punchy. I joined with the many who encouraged what rapidly became two books of poetic memoir: Yarn and Sunshine and Shadow. 

The early poems take us to the perilous edges of being…

Hughie Carroll presents the story of his pilgrimage to Ladakh in 2005.

Leaving

It is April 2005 when I hand back the keys to the landlord. The nest my wife and I had made was hard to leave. We have a last hug and I say goodbye to this woman who doesn’t want to be my wife any more. Most of my stuff is sold or given away and the tech job is over. I get in the car that my mate is going to drive to…

A few years ago, I was approached by the Headteacher in my school to ask if I would be interested in teaching Mindfulness to our students. I am a science teacher but was already known as a regular meditator and had ‘come out’ as a Buddhist at work by leading a Chapel service about Buddhism, so my Head felt I was best placed to lead this initiative in the school. When I replied that I didn’t really…

This book had been winking at me since the beginning of the year. For several years, Norman Fischer’s writing in Tricycle and elsewhere has been a source of pleasure to me. He writes lucidly and with a poet’s eye and phrase. Eventually, a couple of months after it was published, I gave in, bought this book, devoured it and then just reread it straight away. That’s rare for me. 

Its subtitle,…

I was initially drawn to Chan out of a sense of loneliness. Two acquaintances were already participants in the Bristol Chan group: Sarah Bird, whom I knew from yoga practice, and Sally Masheder, a neighbour and fellow GP. I liked them a lot and I wanted to get to know them better. I had started meditation but was searching for a method that suited me. I also wanted to protect the planet and people…

Most people who are familiar with Buddhism know of the metaphor of the Buddha as a doctor for the world’s ills. I’m going to update this metaphor to the 21st century to describe and explain the Three Characteristics of Impermanence, Dissatisfaction, and No Self.

Let’s say the Buddha is a doctor and he has his office in any town or village for that matter. He has a nice expansive clean office. I…

Traditional koan study under a fierce Japanese Roshi is tough.

…each session had its own special terror. Novice monks were repeatedly whacked with a kyosaku that looked more like a long baseball bat. Monitors patrolled the room menacingly, taunting and poking with the stick to see if your attention would wander from Mu. But zendo drama paled in comparison to meeting Mu in the dokusan room. “What…

David Childs (1946 - 2011): A Tribute

And so, full of his life, came
not to the falls, the whirlpool or the cliff
but to the brim
and held a moment above it
seeing everything.

From ‘Notes’ by David Childs (2010)

How do we, or indeed, do we, prepare, or think about our own deaths, as Buddhists? Having a life threatening illness may trigger thoughts about dying. But we all face death at some point.…

Searching for the way 
Gate on gate until 
A fenced enclosure of the self 
Spiky membrane of a mutating cell. 
This single Centre with two nuclei 
One old and dark, a sort of hell 
One new and lit, yet secretive.

Old dark labyrinth of the nightmare mind 
Tomb of hanging beams and creeping things 
Hidden ghouls and swinging bells 
Dull black axes over torture fires 
Eyeless skulls and human bones
Devil’s…

October days of sunshine, nights of frost,
The chestnut leaves fan golden by the gate
With early mists, when all below is lost
Save field-tree tops. To us, the sun seems late,
Or is it just we rise and have a pee
And venture out in still dark air
To taste the day and feel the ground a while,
Before damp sheep begin to stir?
All standing, waves of movement, like the sea,
Then fingers curling round a mug of…