Dharma Library

Many of us beginners do not really understand the central theme of the Dharma. This is because most of us come into practice for basically therapeutic reasons, seeking freedom from alienation in life or suffering. In fact, the Buddha supplies us with a total worldview upon which to base a personal understanding of the place of our sentient lives in the Universe. This worldview replaces the need…

If you were asked, "What is the most important idea in Buddhism?" What would you say? I would have to answer 'Preceptual Truth'; so, what is 'Preceptual Truth'? It is an expression that I believe comes from Roshi Jiyu Kennet, the founder and first Abbess of Throssel Hole Abbey. As we know, our Chan Lay precepts are: Not to kill; Not to steal; Not to lie; Not to commit harmful sex; Not to become…

We all know the last line of the Heart Sutra because we chant it every day on retreat and probably from time to time on weekly meetings. The Sanskrit is Gaté Gaté Paragaté, Parasamgaté Bodhi Svaha usually translated as "Gone, gone, gone beyond, altogether gone. Wisdom All Hail". It is often taken to be a description of the enlightenment experience known as Kensho in Japanese or Kaiwu in Chinese.…

"Accept the unacceptable - only then will it leave you." So said Jean-Marc Mantel, a wise psychiatrist and savant of spirituality, at the Mindfulness conference in Bristol last summer. It was in response to a question regarding the difficulty of accepting the unexpected death of a loved one.

"Accept the unacceptable - only then will it leave you"

What is the unacceptable? When you explore this,…

From the start of our training we will have been confronted by the classical definition of Chan "A special transmission outside the scriptures, no dependence on words and letters, Direct seeing into the human heart." But if words and reading are not allowed how on earth can one start and indeed continue any practice of Chan as a beginner. Further more, any visit to bookshops reveals a mammoth…

Master Wuzu, he who got stuck in an inn talking too much with three monk companions so that the lights went out on them, left us several outstanding koans. One of them reads:

"It is like a Buffalo passing through a window. Head, horns and all four legs have all passed through. Why does the tail not follow?"

What a curious story! To begin with, what on earth is a buffalo doing trying to get…

Snow is falling. The white flakes drift down from the sky. Coming from the north the gentle blizzard reaches the southern hills. As the snow arrives, so comes the great silence. The track is filling up, no one can come, and no one can go. Stillness lies in the reflection of the cloud brightened snow, white around the bird table. The Bullfinch is stealing the whitened buds, the tits are pecking at…

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…