Dharma Library

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…

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…

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…

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…

Žarko Andricevic is the Teacher of Dharmaloka – the Chan Buddhist Community, Croatia.

Our incapability to live in harmony with others, the environment and ourselves is a consequence of deep ignorance of our nature and the nature of existence in general. All human suffering, misery and discontent, be it personal or collective, arises out of a fundamental ignorance that is called avidya…

Talk by Devin Ashwood delivered 29th October 2011 at the WCF conference: "Western Buddhism: Engaged Buddhism?"

My name is Devin Ashwood and I work as a Buddhist Chaplain in the Prison Service.

I have been asked to talk a little about Buddhist Chaplaincy in Prisons and while I had very little idea of what I would talk about, I agreed. At first, I thought I could say all there was to say in about…

When I arrived in Hong Kong (1953) on my National Service during the Korean War, I soon set about trying to meet Chinese people. I wanted to follow up my reading of Buddhism carried out during the several weeks' voyage on the troop ship from Southampton. Through contacts with the HK university I met Professor Ma Meng who introduced me to a Mr Yen Shi liang, a Buddhist merchant with an embroidery…

Last year Bruce Stevenson took himself off to Japan for a period of practice in a Zen monastery. This was not Bruce's first such expedition but it is the first he has written about for us. Let us continue this issue then with a further account of experiences in the distant East. Bruce tells us Sogenji is, as far as he knows, the only monastery in Japan full of Westerners - well this includes a…

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

T.S. Eliot - The Rock

The open door of the shabby little Hotel de la Gare. The municipal street washer has just clattered over the cobbles, freshening the air before the sun gets up. On their way to work, the locals drop in for a  petit noir or a shot of something stronger. Hands are briefly shaken…