Dharma Library

Book review by Pamela Hopkinson

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…

I've been throwing basketballs for almost as long as I have been sitting. At about the same time that I began to sit regularly I started attending a Keep Fit evening class where basketball is the staple diet. So most Thursday evenings will see me along with a group of similarly middle aged and slightly overweight (?) men running up and down a gym trying to throw a ball into a suspended basket.

So…

"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…

The question of lay Zen may appear difficult but it has a blindingly simple answer.

Pay attention!

Paying Attention is part of every practice that I know of, whether watching the breath, repeating the Buddha's name or practising bare awareness or mindfulness. My own practice is little more than just paying attention, greatly illuminated, especially in the early years, by John's magic…

This was the first occasion I had been at the Maenllwyd and from the start it had a magical feel to it - like entering a different time and space. Coming up the track to the house and its surroundings was just like entering a live jewel. At this time of year the place was brimful of bird sound, lambs, insects and wind in the trees. All these and the environment were, as I was to discover, to take…

On the first evening John told us that he was going to teach silent illumination. This is a method that I have felt affinity for, and have begun to use on previous retreats. I have had glimpses of serenity and silence but I have found it difficult to sustain and use at home. Should I stick to my plan of "raising the doubt" as I had set out to do? I decided that the only thing to do was to go along…

I cannot write in hindsight, yet three days after the Retreat ending I am still in it, with a deep sense of calm and sitting sessions that pass seemingly fast. Vast silence is dearly perceived. This is perhaps the benefit of 'not meditating". This was the second Retreat¹ I had attended within a month so I settled in easily. The sittings were clear the first morning, but after lunch tiredness set…

The editors of this book Dr John Crook, Reader in Ethology at Bristol University and Buddhist Scholar and teacher, and Dr David Fontana, Reader in Educational Psychology at Cardiff University, author and therapist, have brought together seventeen essays, most of which are based upon papers presented at a conference on 'Eastern Approaches to Self and Mind' sponsored by the British Psychological…

It felt such a privilege to be attending the retreat with Shifu. I couldn't make the effort to go to New York, but he had come here! And yet a retreat is just a retreat. Really it was like a solitary retreat, as I just isolated myself from the environment and continued my practice.

I came to the retreat feeling that I wanted to be there, and John wanted me to be there in particular to confirm my…

When the plane began to descend on Heathrow I was wondering how I should explain to the immigration officer the purpose of my trip to the UK. Would he feel it strange that a Chinese living in Hong Kong should have come to the UK for a Chan retreat? Would he be suspicious of my words?

For several years I have been looking for an opportunity to receive authentic training in Chan meditation which I…