Dharma Library

A large collection of articles, from past issues of New Chan Forum and more besides.

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Until Next Time...

Calligraphy for the character Chan

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…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Western Zen Retreat Reports

Chinese Zen Comes West: Finding New Expressions While Preserving Authenticity

Simon Child headshot

This is an edited version of a talk given as part of the Distinguished Buddhist Practitioner Lecture series at Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford California USA May 3rd 2012. It is based an earlier version of the talk given at the Chan Meditation Center in Elmhurst, Queens, New York, USA in October, 2008.

I am going to explore some of the issues which arise in teaching Buddhist practice…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Other Articles , Simon Child

How to do Everyday Buddhism

Ken Jones headshot

Below I have tried to explain my understanding of ”Everyday Buddhism” in a concise paper designed to assist the reader, step by step, to learn what is involved in its practice.  For more, please see my website, www.kenjoneszen.com.

This manual incorporates the essentials learnt from over ten years of leading retreats. It is aimed at any reader  who would like to experience the practice at first…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Ken Jones

Seeing the Mountain

Calligraphy for the character Chan

The following is a practitioner's report of a silent illumination retreat led by Simon Child from November 20-27, 2010. As is the custom, the retreatant's name is not being published. The report was edited for the Chan Magazine by Simon Child.

The first day and a half of the retreat was strangely tumultuous. I have been to retreat many times but this was only the second time this decade that I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2010 , Anon , Silent Illumination Retreat Reports

The Buddhist Legacy of John Crook

Simon Child headshot

One day many years ago, in a short break on a retreat, I was standing outside the Chan Hall in the sun. I noticed a beetle stuck on its back, trying to roll over. I squatted down, flicked it over the right way up, and moved on. Later that day, in interview, John asked me, “How is your beetle?” I hadn’t known that he had observed me, and it seemed such an insignificant act not worthy of comment,…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Other Articles , Simon Child

Hidden Assumptions, Fixed Views

Simon Child headshot

The following Dharma Talk is from a Silent Illumination Retreat, November 2010 at Dharma Drum Retreat Center. It was transcribed by Catherine Burns and edited by Eddy Street. Published in Chan Magazine Spring 2012.

Perception and Sensation 

At each morning service and evening service we chant The Heart Sutra together. In one part it says: 

Form is precisely emptiness 
and emptiness precisely…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Dharma Talks , Simon Child

John's Life

Jake Lyne head and shoulders

John Crook was born in 1930 in Southampton into a moderately well-to-do family. He was educated at Oakmount School, a preparatory school in Southampton, and at Sherborne School, a boarding school in Dorset. At school he studied biology, physiology and physics. He frequently commented on the effect of the environment of “all male, firm discipline, a lot of sports especially Rugby football which I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Other Articles , Jake Lyne

AGM 2012 Teacher’s Address

Simon Child headshot

Thank you all for coming, and for your trust in appointing me as the second Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship. This is of course a significant responsibility, but one that I am happy to undertake.

As well as being our first meeting since John Crook’s passing last year, it is also the third anniversary of the passing of Chan Master Sheng Yen, our Shifu. It is natural that we remember both of…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Other Articles , Simon Child

Daily Menu - A Cook's Retreat

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Sunday

Courgette, coconut and Lemon soup.
Bread rolls
Citrus and poppy seed cake.
Mushroom and Lovage stew
Creamy polenta
Green allotment salad.

The beginning of a Hua-Tou retreat, my first retreat of the year and I feel I really need it. Somehow, I’ve lost focus and cannot see beyond grey clouds. There is a nice group of people, balanced; John and Jake as teachers, which is quite a treat.

I came a…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Other Retreat Reports , Anon

Clarity and Confusion

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I’m not quite sure why it has taken me until now to write this report, nor why I have decided this moment to do it. Maybe it will become clear as I write it.

The retreat was a Silent Illumination retreat at Maenllwyd with John Crook and Fiona Nuttall in July 2010. Today is 5th November 2010. Maybe the lapse of time is portentous? I can see this as I write it.

The weather was totally beautiful…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Anon , Silent Illumination Retreat Reports

Self Ascending

Calligraphy for the character Chan

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…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Poetry , Others

David Fontana - A Memoir

John Crook sitting in front of the altar at Maenllwyd

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).…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Obituaries , John Crook

Chan and Writing the World

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I clamber over the stile, and climb toward the Callow Drove, which runs along the ridge above me. The path follows a farm track across a field. Sheep are grazing on grass still frosted where the winter sun doesn’t reach it. A heavy tractor has left deep grooves, hatched with the marks of coarse tyre treads, in the frozen mud. Leaving the field, the path becomes more rugged as it climbs steeply…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Other Articles , Others

Ode to 'It'

Calligraphy for the character Chan

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…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Poetry , Others

The Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra

Jake Lyne head and shoulders

In April 1997, the Western Chan Fellowship held a retreat in Scotland on Holy Island off Arran. St Molaise was a Christian hermit there in the 7th Century. During the retreat, we celebrated his feast day and held a ceremony in St Molaise's cave hermitage in the Saint's honour. This article is based on a talk that was given on the retreat.

Like a lamp, a cataract,
a star in space, an illusion, a…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Other Articles , Jake Lyne

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