New Chan Forum 3

On the Way...

The Bristol Chan Group is now two years old, and perhaps, like a toddler, we are beginning to find our feet, with good times, bad times and the occasional tantrum! At a meeting in the spring of this year views were expressed about the function and running of our group. We recognize four functions of value to the group and these are:-

• The need for Practice
• The need for Outward Instruction
• The need for Inward Instruction
• The need for Togetherness

We hope that this newsletter will help to affirm these aims.

Each term we meet weekly to sit together and John runs a short series of talks. This term he is giving us three lectures on "Aspects of the Eightfold Path". We have run occasional day sittings and weekend retreats at the Mendip Painting Centre and continue to support the programme of retreats at the Maenllwyd in Mid-Wales. We publish some reports from these retreats in this newsletter and wish to express our thanks to the contributors.

From time to time we have news from the Cardiff Group, run by Eddy Street and we are pleased to report that a new group has started in Brixham, South Devon, organised by Ken Robinson. We continue to maintain strong connections with the Centre in New York. We hope to be able to invite Richard Hunn from Lancaster to lead a weekend retreat for us in the Autumn. Further information about these is at the end of the newsletter.

On the literary front "Catching a Feather on a Fan: A Zen Retreat with Chan Master Sheng-yen" by John Crook was published by Element Press in February this year. Also available from Element, is "Space in Mind: East-West Psychology and Contemporary Buddhism" edited by John Crook and David Fontana. It contains several chapters referring to Chan and Western Zen retreats as well as other methods of practice.Finally we are delighted to learn that Shifu plans to visit us again, probably over Easter 1992. We will keep everyone informed.

• New Chan Forum issue 3