Dharma Library

This library provides a database of articles, some from past issues of New Chan Forum and some available only from the website.

  • Search by keywords, using the search box, and the corresponding articles will be listed below the search box (followed by recently published articles).
  • To select articles by various categories such as topic or author or date click on the section menus ( below the listed articles on a mobile view, or to the right on a desktop view), and the corresponding articles will be listed below the searchbox.


Chronological List of articles:

Life at Po Lam Chan Monastery, Hong Kong

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Shortly before my fifteenth birthday I parted company with school. At seventeen I took karate lessons and at the end of each lesson we would practise zazen. I enjoyed this so much that I asked for more. The instructor suggested I go find myself a Buddhist group and I was prompt to act upon this advice.

When I was 20 I came across The Secrets of Chinese Meditation, a book by Charles Luk. It…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others , Highlighted

Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World by Lama Surya Das

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

Not living very close to a local group, I place great store by the books I read on Buddhism. I picked this one up because Surya Das has constructed the book following the Eight-Fold Path, and I'd been meditating on parts of this for a long time.

Inside I found one of the liveliest and most enjoyable books on Buddhism that I have read for a long time. With the aim of providing Westerners with a…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Book Reviews , Others

Intoxication and the Precepts

Calligraphy for the character Chan

At the culmination of retreats led by Shi-Fu the opportunity is usually given to participants to take the Precepts. Retreatants are told that they may take all the precepts, or they may choose to take only some. I think without exception participants unhesitatingly recite their intention to keep all the Precepts until the recitation reaches the Precept that states the intention to "refrain from…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Highlighted , Others

Sitting in No-sense

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Eric Rommeluere (b 1960) has practised Zen since 1978. He is the author of a collection of major Zen texts entitled 'Les Fleurs du Vide' (Paris, Grasset 1995), which he translated directly from the Chinese or Japanese. Recently he published 'Guide du Zen' (Paris, Hachette 1997) detailing all the Zen groups currently active worldwide. John Crook met and stayed with Eric in May 1997 at the first…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others

The Bright Field Ploughed

Calligraphy for the character Chan

'Ploughing the Bright Field' was the title of an exhibition of contemporary Buddhist art, held at the Create Centre, Bristol, in November 1997.

The exhibition attracted around 500 visitors during a fortnight. It showed the work of 20 artists from all over the country. Most were professional artists whose work is either partly or wholly inspired by Buddhist practice. A few were artists whose work…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others

Shifting Shit

Calligraphy for the character Chan

There seems to be a question: 'Can I be enlightened if I'm not a monk/nun?' Possibly not often for lay people, but can Buddhist teachings and practice improve the quality of our lives - the answer is a resounding 'Yes'.

A lay practitioner is constantly faced with personal obstacles, disagreements, tensions and difficulties which can lead to days and weeks of self analysis or can be ridden over…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others , For Newcomers

My Father's Hands

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I had always loved my father's hands. They seemed to be the only part of him I could love in safety.

I could love them in secret and in silence and my mother would never know. I could look at them when she was out of the room, cooking in the kitchen, banging the pots and pans as she worked.

She was an angry woman who had been forced to marry my father when she was only twenty years old because…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others , Highlighted

Hi There

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Who are you?
You pretend to not know.
Of course you know who you are!
It is you, holding the page
reading the marks on this piece of paper.

It is you, reading my mind
with the sound of your voice.

And who am I?
I am you.
Sharing thought.
E V E R Y T H I N G .

You, in manifestation,
are on the frontier
of your/self.

You will see yourself,
out there,
in the world,
doing so many things.

Make them all…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Poetry , Others

Beyond

Calligraphy for the character Chan

beyond words
sometimes too numerous
at other times not enough
beyond time
beyond its dynamics,
divisibility
into what was
into what is.
beyond forgetfulness
beyond the danger
of taking the past for the present
illusion for reality.
beyond the mind
feeding on words, concepts,
beyond imagination
pulsating with images, dreams,
beyond emotion, uncertain, fecund
beyond escape,
beyond departure
beyond everything
there is…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Poetry , Others

Greek Flavoured Chan

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Some years ago, when I was younger and cleverer than I am now, I would have known exactly what to write when invited to contribute an article on Chan.

As it is, I thought to write of counselling and psychotherapy, for there is no doubt that the Buddha dispensed a powerful medicine, strong enough to quench the fever in this world and the next; to examine the nature of what arises, moment by…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Others

The Goose is Out

Calligraphy for the character Chan

"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…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1997 , Book Reviews , Others

A Eucharist on the Ganges

Calligraphy for the character Chan

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…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1997 , Others

Indian Pilgrimage 1996

Mount Kailash

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…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1996 , John Crook , Others

Mind in Agriculture

Calligraphy for the character Chan

To work the land or to gain one's living from the land is 99% hard work and, in the history of Man, the shift from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture was perhaps the most important change in our whole structure and way of thinking.

Without agriculture where would the monasteries be? To sustain such a complex there must be a stable local economy or at least a trade route nearby. The very…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1996 , Others , Highlighted

Silent Illumination

Calligraphy for the character Chan

The following poem was written by Martin Tebbs during the Chan retreat with Master Sheng Yen at Maenllwyd in June 1995. The last line refers the woolly socks given to Shifu by two Polish students who attended the retreat (Eds.)

 

 Today everything is different,
  Everything the same.
 
  How is it different?
  In a cloudless sky the swallows glide
  effortlessly, leaving no trace;
  Young lambs call and…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1995 , Poetry , Others

Cookie Extension Logo