New Chan Forum 63

Welcome to the autumn/winter issue of New Chan Forum. You may notice we haven’t yet caught up with our normal mail-out schedule, but we’re doing our best!

I hope you’ll enjoy the rich variety of the articles and poetry in this issue. It is particularly exciting to be able to include two reports from the first retreats at our new Peak District retreat centre, Shawbottom Farm. It feels like the beginning of a new era for the Fellowship, and I’m sure we’re all grateful to Simon Child for all the work he’s put into creating this centre, particularly given the difficulties created by Covid and lockdown.

I’m really grateful to all the contributors in this issue for giving their time and energy to producing material for it. And now I need more! As you’ll see, there is a great variety of subjects covered, reflecting the variety of readers’ experience and insight. So do please consider writing for future issues. Prose or poetry; personal experiences or understanding gained from reading the sutras – or, indeed, more modern writers. All (or most!) is grist to the Forum mill.

• Investigating the Precepts, Simon Child
• Laywomen In Buddhism’s Earliest Years, Jeanine Woodward
• My Sheltered Place: A Haibun, Andy Henderson
• Right Livelihood, Clive Richards
• Retreat Reports Retreat Report,
  • Koan Retreat September 2022, a poem
  • Retreat Report – Silent Illumination July 2022
• Book Review: The Angel’s Wound, Eddy Street