Dharma Library

I arrived at my first Western Zen retreat with no expectations and was looking forward to spending five days meditating in the beautiful Welsh countryside. When I arrived I felt immediately at home in the old converted farmhouse and the fact that there was no electricity supply only added to the atmosphere.

I had been on many retreats previously but this was my first retreat combining both…

The WZR was my first retreat with the WCF. Before that I had been practicing Zen in the Soto tradition for about eight years. I participated in about half a dozen sesshins with Roshis from Japan, and sitting one period of forty minutes daily at home.

What brought me to the WCF were two things: firstly at his age Roshi had became too fragile to come to Europe to hold sesshins; secondly and more…

The retreat gave me a space and context to deal with a situation that seemed overwhelming and allowed me to feel grief and sadness freely, without any preconditions or parameters but just simply for what they were. It helped me to reconnect with my feelings and allow them to flow through me or out of me. The support of the group and everybody working together on their inner world within the…

As I neared Maenllwyd I could see where I needed to get to as I recognised it from the pictures but I wasn’t sure which way to go. One way had a closed gate and appeared to go further away from where I wanted to be, and the other way was an open gate and appeared to head more in the direction of where I was trying to get to. I decided to take the route which seemed to go towards where I wanted to…

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…

I must have met David Fontana at a psychological conference where several of us decided to form a small discussion group to have a look at the then growing interest in Meditation and Zen. We worked closely together to set up an international conference on “Psychology: East and West” in Cardiff and David and I edited and contributed to the book that followed “ Space in Mind” (Element Press, 1990).…

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…

The world was deeply shocked by the terrible catastrophe in Japan. We send our condolences to all who have lost loved ones and are still suffering there at this time. When I think of a 30 foot wave striking the Somerset coast, I see the land lost to the sea all the way from Weston super Mare to the Dorset hills, lapping up the valleys below Winterhead Hill and leaving Glastonbury Tor as a lonely…

In Chan Comes West, Master Sheng Yen’s five lay Dharma heirs share their stories on the path, including how they came to the practice, their inner struggles along the path, and what receiving Dharma transmission has meant for them. It is hoped that readers will find these stories inspiring and be encouraged to make great vows in their own practice. Here is John Crook’s chapter from that book,…

Some of us keep a Buddha image in the place where we like to meditate. Maybe we also light a candle and incense stick before entering zazen, or do some chanting. Why do we do these things?

Maybe it is simply out of respect for the memory of the Buddha or a habitual gesture of the Sangha to which we belong. Maybe the Buddha represents for us the aspiration that underlies our practice. Yet, we also…