Dharma Library

Teacher: Tell me who you are?
Participant: I am the answer.
Teacher: What is the question?
Participant: Moment to moment.
Teacher: What do you feel?

Participant: Space with no boundary or pressure. (THIS SPACE DID NOT FEEL VAST OR LARGE OR IN ANY WAY OVERWHELMING, YET ONE SENSED IT HAD NO END, WAS TIMELESS, AND HAD EXISTED BEFORE THE BIG BANG, WHICH WAS EXTENDING INTO IT.)

Teacher: What do you hear?
…

Physically, I did not find the retreat too difficult. Having regularly practised the one hour meditation sessions traditional in vipassana, sitting for half an hour at a time is not much of a problem for me. And the exercises offered during the breaks between sessions were enough to get the stiffness out of my limbs. Alternating between sitting cross legged and kneeling also helped me avoid any…

I have just returned home, and it seems sensible to write the report before the memories of the retreat begin to slip away. Yet even by writing about it, the events seem so strange and wonderful that words alone cannot express the sheer depth and vast space that has at times punctuated the practise; the clarity of perception, the long silences that can only be likened to the desert, not a silence…

The retreat was an opportunity to practice. But it was also a rare event, for when does a Chan Master such as Master Sheng Yen ever come to a remote Welsh cottage to lead a retreat? Those of us who were able to participate were indeed fortunate.

Last December in New York, Shifu advised me to rest before my next retreat. Having suffered greatly in New York, I made sure I took his advice. I told…

There is no beginning and no end to it, the Sesshin Soto Chan style began on my 49th birthday and ended on my 59th; ten years of ordinary living in one week. So much tension and pain has left my mind-body, and is still leaving me, falling away after another three days. There is much silent stillness now and longer periods of being without thinking, just not habitual and unnecessary stirring this…

I was fortunate to be able to collect Shifu, Guo Yen Hse and Paul Kennedy from the airport. We broke our journey to Wales in Bristol in order to see my family for lunch. As we were leaving and my wife was wishing us well for the retreat, Shifu said, in reference to the retreat, "It's a trick!"

"Yes," my wife replied, "But it's a very good one, and a very necessary one," looking pointedly in my…

The silence becomes very palpable, solid. The quality of experience has been turned up. My koan becomes very distant. What first seemed like a fence, close and restricting, now, has moved to the horizon and eventually disappeared.

Everything seems wrapped in a profound silence which becomes as interesting as the sounds from the distant hills. Things become soft, fine and gentle. They all happen…

This was my first Chan retreat and I was so excited. My life felt calm and stable and I hoped to be able to work through whatever the Universe presented. I also hoped I would learn greater concentration in sitting to deepen my novice practice. On a previous retreat I had perceived the futility of living solely under the influence of my ego states and it seemed pointless not to search further for…

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…

Lurching up the steep approach road to the Maenllwyd, I liked the feel of a cottage tucked up in the hillside - a Zen mountain temple. Perhaps, not so surprisingly, I instantly recognized one of the participants as an old war-horse from other sesshins. John appeared and made me feel immediately at home. He had a sort of swashbuckling pirate look about him which I rather liked, and an immediate…