Copyright 1994 by Bristol Chan Group, UK, 
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NEW

CH'AN

FORUM

No.9 Winter 1994

Dharma Adviser

The Venerable
Chan Master
Dr. Sheng -Yen

Teacher

Dr. John Crook
(Ch'uan-Teng
Chien-Ti)

Editors

Hilary Richards
Peter Howard

Drawings

Ann Brown


TRANSMITTING THE LAMP

This is a very special edition of New Chan Forum. Those of 
you who have received a copy of the Maenllwyd retreat 
programme for the Corning year will already know that John 
has been greatly honoured by Master Sheng-yen and is now a 
lineage holder in the Chan tradition with the Dharma name 
Ch'uan-Teng Chien-Ti ['Transmitting the Lamp - Seeing the 
Truth]. On behalf of his trainees, friends and associates, we 
offer John our heart-felt congratulations for this recognition of 
his life's work. In this copy, we have a transcription of the 
ceremony including a response from John on its meaning for 
him.

For the rest of us, we can only begin to imagine the 
consequences and responsibilities deriving from such an 
accolade. It is a measure of John's personal stature and depth of 
understanding that he continues to be an ordinary man, albeit 
with some extra-ordinary skills. We respect him deeply for 
that.

Like the Roman god Janus, this copy of the New Chan Forum 
looks both forwards and backwards. Since the Maenllwyd 
epitomises John's devotion to transmission of the Dharma, we 
thought that we would break with tradition and start this 
special edition of NCF with a scene dear to the hearts of all 
those who have followed the Welsh bit of the Path. Elsewhere, 
we have a Western interpretation of re-incarnation and a 
selection of personal retreat experiences and other articles. The 
final page lists other information; retreats and work-shops 
available at the Maenllwyd and elsewhere, addresses for the 
submission of articles, poetry, drawings, photographs and 
slides for inclusion in future issues, subscription details.

Finally, we wish all our friends health and happiness in 1994.

JOHN BECOMES A DHARMA HEIR

After the seven day intensive Chan retreat in New York in 
May 1993 Master Sheng-yen held a brief ceremony in which 
he transmitted the Dharma to John Crook making him a holder 
of the lineage in the Chinese Linji sect of Chan Buddhism 
with the name Ch'uan-Teng Chien-Ti, meaning "Transmitting 
the Lamp - Seeing the Truth". To some, such an honour may 
seem strange. To pass the Dharma to a European Westerner, a 
layman without the training of a monk, a man without rank in 
the Dharma, living far from either of the Chan centres in New 
York or Taiwan may appear premature, if not unwise. None the 
less during the ceremony Shifu gave a very clear account of 
his reasons for his radical action and dwelt at some length on 
the meaning and responsibilities of transmission.

The event was tape recorded and the account we publish here 
is directly based on this tape. Shifu spoke in Mandarin and 
was interpreted on the spot by Ming Yee Wang. Our text is a 
slightly edited version of Ming Yee's translation.

Shifu speaks to the assembly:

John Crook has studied with me in Chan retreat some five 
times in New York and twice in Britain but prior to that he 
studied and cultivated his understanding in many traditions for 
over twenty years. Today lam giving him recognition as my 
Dharma descendant This is only the second time that I have 
recognised a descendant. lam very happy to be passing this 
Dharma lineage downwards.

So far as John Crook is concerned this is a great honour and 
also a great responsibility. It is something very important to 
him, the great responsibility of carrying the task of the 
Tathagata. So from now on, based in the merit of the lineage of 
Linji, he is empowered to spread the Buddhadharma, spread 
the Chan teaching, engage in personal practise himself and, to 
the best of his ability, have concern for others and help them 
spread the Dharma.

In the past history of the Chan sect there were masters and 
patriarchs who, when they had established a single Dharma 
descendent, were ready to die. Their task had been done. I 
have not died yet, but at least I can feel a sense of lessened 
responsibility, particularly with regard to the West and 
especially in Europe. There is now somebody else who can 
take on and relieve me of that part of my responsibility. In this 
sense John Crook will be representing me while I will continue 
to represent Sakyamuni Buddha in the teaching.

Years ago when I myself received the lineage of  Linji from 
my own master, only a few people were present; my Shifu, his 
attendant and a friend who had accompanied me to meet this 
elderly master. What I felt at that time was both joy and 
happiness. Joy in that my Shifu now recognised that I had the 
ability to teach the Dharma, the Chan Dharma, and happiness 
because the burden of Shakyamuni Buddha was now on my 
own shoulders. I felt happiness also because now that the 
burden of Shakyamuni Buddha was on my own shoulders, if I 
did not do a good job, it would be my own responsibility and I 
would not be able to face the Buddha nor the historical 
patriarchs. Today, therefore, I am sharing my own feelings of 
that time with John.

(Turning to John ) Congratulations to you!

John. May I say something?

Shi-fit. Yes, say some words now. Please.

John. I am deeply touched and honoured by what Shifu hi has 
said this morning. My heart is almost too full to express what 
this event means to me. I always knew that Shifu was going to 
give me a lot of trouble! Certainly this morning he is giving me 
both trouble and joy. Trouble because, as he has said, this is a 
great responsibility and one which I do and will take very 
seriously. Yet it is also a matter of great joy because I find it 
remarkable that such faith should be placed in myself. I am 
only too aware of my defects and the negative qualities in my 
nature. There is plenty of work to be done on my vexations and 
this I shall continue.

I'm very grateful to Shifu for having helped me establish a 
small group of Chan practitioners in England. Indeed I send 
thanks to that group because without them of course there 
would be no work. I have a small house in the countryside in 
Wales where we do regular retreats. Some of these are Chan 
retreats and some are retreats that can be preparatory to 
undertaking the hill Chan seven days. When Shifu came to 
this little house he likened it to the pin head upon which the 
Buddhas dance. In England we often say "Small is beautiful" 
and in this little centre I hope to work in a small way but with a 
quality that is very high. We may create a tiny Bodhimandala 
from which the influence of the Dharma can spread.

Thank you very much, Shifu, from the bottom of my heart.

I also thank all you people here who have been with me and 
helped in the last week, putting up with my streaming cold and 
cough all through this valuable and important time. Thank you 
all.

Shih-Fu .We should all be very joyful that this morning we had 
the opportunity to share in the giving of the Dharma lineage to 
John Crook. We should also be joyful because we can witness 
that Buddhadharma is something alive. Despite these changing 
times it is not something that has died, but continues and with 
vigour. When such Dharma lineage might be passed to any one 
of us - that nobody knows. As practitioners we do not seek to 
attain or gain anything. We do not seek to get the affirmation 
of others.

As for myself, receiving the Dharma lineage took a very long 
time. When I was 28 years old through the help of my Shifu, 
Master Ling Yuen, I had an experience which he affirmed as 
"seeing the nature" Yet receiving such affirmation of 
experience and receiving the Dharma lineage are really two 
separate things Even if someone has received the affirmation 
that he or she has "seen the nature" whether or not he or she 
will receive the Dharma lineage is something completely 
different.

A lot of conditions are necessary. Firstly, you must have the 
correct understanding of the principles of the Dharma. 
Secondly, you must have your own experience of practice. 
Thirdly, the right conditions must exist in space and time. That 
is to say that the circumstances must be appropriate. Fourthly, 
help must be given to all people wishing to learn. Without all 
of these conditions being fulfilled, then even if the lineage were 
to be passed on to you, the transmission would not be fruitful.

In the case of John Crook the transmission is not something 
accidental. I have been to England twice and have seen and 
worked with groups in the farmhouse he has provided for 
retreats. I have also experienced his personal abilities; firstly, 
in terms of Dharma understanding and his own development 
and, secondly, in the helping of others. Because he meets all 
the conditions that I outlined earlier, I decided to pass the 
lineage down to him.

Indeed, John has helped many people. Some of the people in 
his group are practitioners of high quality. When I was last in 
Wales I was happy to give one of them the affirmation of his 
experience. Could he also receive the Dharma lineage? No, 
not yet, but at the very least he should be well able to assist 
John in his retreat activities.

And so we now reach the end of the retreat. Some of us may be 
tired and need rest. After you have completed your morning 
tasks you are welcome to depart. If you are planning to stay a 
little while longer, you are most welcome to do so. If you wish 
to stay to lunch, until the evening, overnight, for a few days or 
intend to live here for the rest of your days - please let the 
Centre know!

EVERYDAY JOY

AN EDITORIAL FROM THE CH'AN HALL

In this edition I share with you my joy and trepidation at 
receiving from Shih-hi the authority of becoming one of Ms 
Dharma heirs. This is indeed a great honour and a major 
responsibility. Part of me wants to disappear into the 
mountains and keep quiet, taking stock of what has happened. 
We know from the story of Hui-neng, who was a layman at the 
time of receiving the robe, that such a compassionate gift is 
commonly seen by others with jealous or even scornful eyes. 
What's this? A layman, a European, an Englishman, a 
Westerner, of dubious morality and uncertain practice! Can't 
even speak Chinese! What's he got that I haven't? What 
nonsense! Shifu must be out of his mind!

Yet it is also necessary to rejoice in the sheer radicality of 
Shih- Fu's action, the adventurousness, the probing into 
cultures not his own, the awareness of the needs of the West, 
the compassionate acceptance of inadequacies balanced 
against hope and faith, the risk taking, the courage, and the 
challenge. My gratitude to Shifu is far reaching for his faith in 
me can bring out what maybe has been hidden even from 
myself. Let us see what can be done and honour the gift he has 
given us.

I say us deliberately because in his speech to the assembly in 
New York, Shifu said clearly that without the Bristol Chan 
group, without a body of people working in the Dharma and 
without a place of retreat the conditions for transmission would 
not have been fulfilled. His action is therefore one of trust in 
our work, our practice, our group and by no means just me and 
mine. This is not said to inflate our group egoism but to give us 
confidence and joy in where we stand.

Two years ago, when Shi--fu acknowledged my account of 
certain experiences as "seeing the nature" and allowed me to 
run orthodox Chan retreats, I had some correspondence with 
him. He told me then that there is nothing to be proud about in 
such things. There are always great inadequacies and vexations 
and any pride would constitute a downfall. Furthermore, at any 
previous period in the history of Chan when there were great 
teachers around and profound practitioners, I would not have 
received any recognition at all. Only in the present era, when in 
spite of superficial brilliance, the darkness of mind is so thick, 
is it possible for those with attainments as thin as my own to be 
considered valuable and essential as teachers. So we must all 
see clearly where we stand! Nothing here to shout about and a 
great deal of work to be done.

But I do thank the Chan group for their support. 
encouragement and patient forbearance of my enthusiasms. Let 
us all proceed together helping one another.

I have recently completed a short solitary retreat at the 
Maenllwyd. I learnt much and will repeat the process. While 
there, I wrote the following which I now offer to you for your 
reflection.


In the practice of the Dharma it becomes essential to 
understand that within the everyday lies the Great Joy. It is not 
that Joy is elsewhere nor that it has to be laboriously worked 
for. It is not that one is worthless, undeserving, wicked and 
hence unable to discover it Dharma Joy itself lies within the 
everyday.

Why then are we so normally cast down, anxious, restless or 
depressed, entertaining the notion that the practice of 
Buddhism is either out of reach, requires more than one has to 
offer or downright incomprehensible?

The answer lies in the fact that we have to wake up to that 
which underlies our negative preoccupations, doubts and 
failures. We see the state of the world and want to help, to 
bring about some positive change. Yet, in these days when 
there is no prevailing idealism except material advancement 
on offer, when Marxism and Socialism, the great creeds, have 
failed, when all external paths are seen as fraudulent, we often 
do not know in what direction to turn. The multiple 
alternatives of this age of post-modern relativism all seem 
relatively cheap, sentimental or superstitious, lacking 
anchorage in a firm sea-bed.

Abandoning all we might rush off to Somalia, Angola, Sarajevo 
Calcutta or even Belfast, filled with a zeal for do-gooding. And 
indeed those who rescue the afflicted in Bosnia or prevent the 
slaughter of a whale do achieve something. Activism is truly 
important. Yet afterwards nothing pivotal has changed. It all 
goes on again. Where next? Are politicians really as powerless 
and as characterless as they seem? And the junkmail of endless 
appeals from charities lacking the aid of any official 
compassion continue to pour through our letter boxes as if we 
personally were responsible. And indeed, collectively, perhaps 
we are - because who else can be?

No wonder we are cast down. The problem lies in the fact that 
all of us are sleepwalking within the materialist ethos and 
individual isolationism of our time. There are precious few 
alert enough to awaken us. We have to do it for ourselves.

For the moment then leave the world as it is; its cares as they 
are. When you are awake you will find out what to do. Only 
wake up. First things first. The actions of a sleepwalker rarely 
achieve anything.

What then is this awakening? Words will not do it for you. 
Direct investigation can.

Dharma Joy lies within our own mind's heart in the extent to 
which we can set aside wanting something else, something 
other We want something else out of a feeling that we are 
incomplete; like a shadow seeking its substance or a lonely 
ghost in quest of a companion on an uninhabited planet In our 
ghost towns there is nobody there. There is the endless ache for 
a love that will fill the hole in the centre of being. Yet those 
who themselves lack the surety of inner love cannot fill the 
holes in others. illusory romance only discloses the 
unsatisfactoriness of a companion which equals ones own for 
him or her. There is no inner completion, there is the ache 
after it.

Are you a ghost or a vibrant embodied being, a sentience? Do 
you feel your presence in
the world now, here from moment to moment, a validated 
reality, a presence - or an absence? Presence in the world is 
not knowing about the world, having one's mind in the office 
already as one drives to work, absenting oneself from the Now. 
Presence in the world begins with presence in the body.

The Buddha himself had to make this discovery and he put it 
forward as a prime method. Mindfulness of the body as the 
body, in the direct apprehension of embodiedness as being the 
body is the start. Mindfulness means investigation not 
passivity: asking what is my experience of this body now and 
taking time to go into it, to bring it into a moment by moment 
continuing presence.

The method of watching the breath takes one into the body and 
in this practice you go on to investigate the arising of 
sensations, perceptions, cognitions and the prejudiced 
attitudes of the mind in just the same way. In the end you 
investigate consciousness itself and find it tainted by all that 
has gone before, the sensations, cognitions, prejudices. 
Consciousness is coloured by what goes on in these processes 
for we identify it as the basis that sustains them in awareness.

The practise of mindfulness acts by focusing attention on these 
realms, shifting it away from the anxious split between what 
you are and what you might be, where you are in life and 
where you might be, whether you are good or bad, beautiful or 
ugly, the endless dualities, and brings you to where you quite 
undeniably are. In the body there is no duality but rather the 
immediacy of actual unsplit being.

And strangely where you find yourself to be lies within an 
experiential continuum that has no boundaries because there 
are no horizons to the space within which the body, the 
sensations, the cognitions become objects of awareness. The 
bare consciousness within which you are aware, indeed which 
is itself awareness, contains all that which is present yet is in 
itself boundless and untrapped. As you relax your hold on the 
body, the sensation, or a thought, and slip into this experiential 
space you find a felt vastness which like a mirror contains all 
and yet stands itself in a different dimension. Indeed this 
awareness remains an inference for the mirror cannot know 
itself except within the conscious act of reflection - for this is 
indeed all that it is. Yet the basis of mind, this Rigpa of the 
Tibetans is more than a mirror. This awareness is a dynamic 
vastness, a depth and not a mere surface. As Hui-neng said 
,"There is no mirror bright / Upon what can the dust alight ?"

Indeed the dust of our thoughts and preoccupations simply 
float in this inner vastness like clouds in the sky. The essential 
thing is to place one's sentience in the sky itself and experience 
the clouds from there -and not the other way about. Being sky-
borne the view is vast and clouds evaporate and reform as 
situations change. The vastness goes on for ever. If you look at 
a thought from within this vastness the thought evaporates - its 
apparent thing-ness just disappears, it self liberates into inner 
space. As they say in Dzogchen; a thought is like writing on 
water - as soon as the sign is made it spreads out into nothing. 
This is self liberation like evaporating clouds or melting 
snowmen.

If you let the meditative attention widen to include the 
presence of the room, the town, the countryside, the sounds of 
everyday, these too are at first reflected and then self-liberate 
into vastness. Here then is freedom. The prison cell becomes 
the liberating cell of the hermit And because there is freedom 
from any wanting, all being complete, a joy arises, an 
untrammelled joyousness which shines like a lamp in ones 
being.

After meditation you return to the tasks of everyday life, 
willingly operating dualistically as you and yours in the world 
of them and theirs. This is the natural mode of samsara, of 
becoming, the mode whereby needs are met, needs for warmth, 
food, adequacies of comfort and relationship. It is the mode of 
activism.

The Chan practitioner who trains with persistence can find 
within this everyday dualism the inner freedom that meditation 
discloses. It remains then as a basis, a unity, that divides only 
functionally not essentially. To get things done there is land 
mine and you and yours. Outside and inside of that there is the 
experiential continuum, the vastness, the matrix of self 
liberation.

Our pain stems mightily from the illusion that the split mind is 
natural, that it has no other depth, that it is an inevitable 
condition of being bound by time and impermanence. This is 
not so. A mind lost in duality is drugged, ignorant, asleep, 
unaware of its basic continuum. The task is to awaken again 
and again to the joyous spaciousness that lies within.

In the habitual dualism of the illusory everyday you may well 
feel scepticism and doubt. The Buddha understood that and did 
not make an assertion precluding your consent. Try it for 
yourself was always his message. And this must be ours too 
whenever we are quizzed about these goings on. The 
uncovering of vastness is in itself enlightening for this is the 
light of the -mind. Do not waste time for the world is waiting.

John Crook
Ch'uan-Teng Chien-Ti
2.11.93


NOT KNOWING IS KNOWING

A talk by Master Sheng-yen.1

Knowing dharmas is not knowing
Not knowing is knowing the 
essential...

The highest principle cannot be 
explained:
It is neither free nor bound
Lively and attuned to everything
It is always right before you.2

The Chan sect does not rely on language. if you understand 
Buddhadharma only with your intellect, then you do not 
understand it at all. Some people study koans and try to solve 
them intellectually. They think they have the correct answers, 
but it is impossible to solve koans in this way. Any effective 
Chan master will detect the trace of intellect in the answer. 
You can indeed examine the concepts and principles of 
Buddhadharma intellectually but this is only one type of 
understanding. Enlightenment is another matter, not stemming 
from mere academic knowledge. So far as enlightenment is 
concerned, thinking that you know is ignorance!

Those who have studied sutras may think that they know 
Buddhadharma, but this is as if they were looking at the world 
through a narrow pipe, a tunnel vision. what they see is limited, 
channelled. Their understanding is partial. The essence of 
Buddhist teaching is wisdom and compassion.

Of course Buddhist practitioners know they should be 
compassionate but inevitably someone irritates them. It is 
impossible for ordinary people to be compassionate all the 
time with everyone. Their wisdom is shallow and limited. 
Indeed I know a monk who is nice to everyone but he has a 
habit of tearing up his clothes and books. He confessed to me 
"Since I cannot show my anger to others, I release it in this 
way". This isn't too bad. At least he doesn't beat himself up. 
Still, his wisdom and compassion are not deep.

Being human we get angry. If you want to deal better with your 
anger, do this: whenever you feel angry, relax your stomach, 
then say to yourself, "OK, now be angry!" Its more difficult to 
be angry once you are relaxed. When one is angry the stomach 
tightens.

To progress on the Path it is essential to realise that you are 
ignorant. The more worldly knowledge one possesses, the more 
vexations accumulate. Knowledge is acquired through 
learning, but knowledge has its limitations. One cannot know 
everything. If you know the details but not the underlying 
principles, then you become lost in a sea of facts.

In Sakyamuni Buddha's time there was a Brahman who thought 
he knew everything. Hearing that the Buddha was a man of 
great knowledge he challenged him to a contest. First he tied 
his head and stomach with copper bands. Sakyamuni asked 
him what the bands were for. He said "I have so much 
knowledge I must bind my head and stomach so that they do 
not explode!" Then he challenged the Buddha "If you ask a 
question and I cannot answer, I will be your disciple. if you 
lose, then you be my disciple."

The Buddha said, "There's nothing I cannot debate, but I have 
no suggestions for a topic".

The Brahman said "How can we debate if we do not have a 
topic?"

The Buddha replied, "As long as there is something, that 
something can be refuted. I have nothing and therefore you 
cannot defeat me. You, on the other hand, have so many things 
in your head and stomach it will be easy to defeat you."

Those who have no understanding of Buddhadharma may 
begin by studying its concepts and principles but those with 
some intellectual understanding should be encouraged to 
practise. when you are successful on the path you will realise 
there is no such thing as Buddhadharma. You might speak 
about it but that is only a response to those who do not know 
about it.

It is good to nurture faith as you practise. Try not to analyse 
everything or speculate endlessly. Refrain from asking so many 
questions. Knowledge is bad for practise because it is not a 
genuine understanding based on personal insight. when I 
practised in Japan I had just received my doctorate. The master 
knew this and took particular delight in giving me trouble! 
Turning to books for guidance instead of working with a 
master means one will remain experientially ignorant. This is 
what the first line above implies.

"Not knowing is knowing the essential" can be illustrated by a 
story. A boss once interviewed ten people for a job. Nine were 
very good at exams and boasted to him of their qualifications. 
The tenth said he knew nothing but he was willing to learn, ask 
questions on the job and check with the boss when he was in 
difficulty. He was hired. Similarly it is best that you come on 
retreat without previous knowledge. Begin as if you had no 
past. Those who think they know everything cannot move 
forward. Those who have wisdom may appear stupid because 
"knowing everything" is as if they know nothing. Their 
stomachs are infinitely large, without boundaries. Having 
limitless stomachs one cannot say they eat. Knowing 
"everything" one cannot say they know.

Academic knowledge is limited. Not knowing is true knowing. 
One knows truly only when one has the wisdom of emptiness. 
Wisdom is then limitless.

Once a woman rang me from California. She said she wanted 
to attend retreat because she had read my books and the 
information in them was in accord with what she knew. The 
person who thinks she knows, doesn't know. If she thinks she 
doesn't know she has a mind to learn. This is the correct mind 
for practice. The greatest obstacle is looking at Buddhadharma 
with eyes full of past experiences and book learning.

Not knowing, one can begin to know. A blank sheet of paper 
can be used but once scribbled upon it is useless. Be like a 
blank sheet, cut yourself off from previous thought, stay with 
the present. On retreat, clean off the blackboard.

Not knowing is important. When a thought arises, say "I don't 
know you. I don't recognise you !" Working on a koan it is 
useless to think or speculate. Once a participant on retreat 
came to me after only two hours of working on a koan and told 
me he now knew that "wu" was Buddha nature. I asked him 
how he had realised that and he told me that the Buddha's 
teaching said so. But he was perplexed because he did not feel 
any different. I told him that any "enlightenment" that came so 
easily and in such a manner was just a joke. I asked him to 
keep such answers for examination papers, not for Chan 
retreats.

If at all times on retreat you are in a state of not knowing, then 
you will not know what you are eating, where you are walking, 
what you are doing, yet you will feel comfortable and light and 
experience power in your practice. At such a time you can truly 
work on a koan. Great doubt will arise quickly and you will 
benefit. if your head is loaded with knowledge then using a 
koan is a waste of time. My Zen master in Japan had good 
reason to scold me. My mind had been loaded with knowledge.

1A lecture given on retreat at the Meditation Centre, New York, 
reprinted by kind permission from the Chan Magazine Fall 1993 p19 
and slightly edited for this presentation.

2From the Song of Mind by Niu-t'ou Fa-Jung C594-657 AD). in: The 
Poetry of En Enlightenment Master Sheng-yen: Dharma Drum. New 
York p33.


GO GENTLE:

Who knows when we are going to bump into a Bodhisattva, 
someone who illuminates for us in whatever manner some 
feature of living the life we had not seen or understood before; 
on a bus, waiting on a railway platform, a fellow passenger on 
a long continental flight or some accidental encounter 
anywhere, anytime; or could it be the one who has been one's 
companion for years but rarely understood? Whoever, 
whenever, the world is full of Bodhisattvas. Sometimes perhaps 
you are one of them yourself Anyway this courageous self 
revealing piece from David Shaw is about finding Bodhisattvas 
in an unlikely circumstance - or was it so unlikely after all? 
(Eds)

It was with rising apprehension that I drove with my wife Jane 
along the coastal road of Sussex to the town where, in the 
company of so many others, my parents had chosen to retire. 
My anxiety was mostly centred around the anticipation of what 
might have to be faced. My father had not seemed to be 
particularly unwell but the premonition that he was about to 
die had been so strong that I had asked the nurses on the ward 
of the hospital where I worked for a "laying out" set. I had 
tucked it away into the boot of the car.

My father had become ill in December, nothing specific, just a 
tiredness in a fully alert 85 year old man in a failing body. He 
had a heavy frame, worthy of a peasant farmer although, 
strangely it was only some years after his death, that I realised I 
had never seen him as physically large. He had his hang-ups 
and anxieties, but mostly he moved through life so quietly that 
his presence occupied little space.

We were going to take over from my sisters, Joy and Rona, 
who had gone down a week before to help our mother. We 
were planning to leave early on Christmas Day to re-open our 
house for the arrival of four offspring from divers corners of 
the kingdom. if help were still needed, Joy and Rona would 
return.

On entering the bungalow the atmosphere was one of 
unacknowledged tension to which I was a most generous 
contributor - almost to the point of immobility. Joy and Rona 
left soon after, Jane organised the food, went out and bought 
my father some new pyjamas, made him comfortable and soon 
got my mother and I into some sort of routine - it was just like 
a retreat!

For six days it went on. The patient remained tired and weak, 
spent all the time in bed, but was not in any marked 
discomfort. On the afternoon of December 23rd things changed 
rapidly. He had increased pain in the chest and it seemed likely 
he was having a heart attack.

I phoned the GP who, from the background noises, was in the 
middle of an office party. He refused to come and I rang off in 
a whirl of fury and disbelief. None of us even considered 
calling an ambulance; it just seemed right to keep him at home 
and solve this ourselves. There was an iron fist in me 
controlling emotions and maintaining a forced icy calm.

It was nearly closing time for the shops, but I made myself 
drive off deliberately but with a sense of unreality and doubt. I 
had the unlikely hope of finding a pharmacist who would 
accept the minimal medical credentials I carried and who 
would agree to supply the powerful analgesic drug needed for 
severe cardiac pain. An old fashioned, seasonally festooned 
and shopper packed chemist looked inviting. An elderly 
pharmacist appeared, heard my story, looked me up and down 
and disappeared without a word. He came back again in a few 
minutes with a generously filled box of ampoules plus 
syringes, needles, the lot. He might have received a hug had 
not the counter separated us. Disbelief accompanied me home 
with wonder at the depth of his trust.

The pain killer worked like magic. Father became comfortable 
and slept for a while. On waking he said he wanted to go to the 
toilet down the corridor but was too weak to do so. My father 
was a very private person and it was an embarrassment to him 
for the three of us to struggle to get him onto a commode. He 
said "I've had a good motion and I'm comfortable now" as 
though he was leaving everything and that was alright.

The incident did something irrevocable to my mother. Perhaps 
it was the final undeniable message to her that he was dying. 
She became very quiet, left the room and refused to return.

Father slept for a while and awoke a little after midnight to say 
he was thirsty. Jane plied him repeatedly with cups of tea 
which he drank with childlike enjoyment. The hours drifted by 
as we talked the night away, musing over what everyone was 
doing, about happy times, difficult times and funny times - just 
remembering. His mother had been just like this when she was 
dying, "talking over old times".

As first light tinged the bedroom, he lapsed into coma for about 
half an hour. Jane spoke to my mother trying to persuade her to 
come and see him but it was getting too difficult for her; she 
was having a struggle coping with herself and her feelings and 
declined. Jane popped out from time to time to try to help her, 
and gave her little tots of brandy as well.

As the morning of Christmas Eve was advancing Jane began to 
feel the need to return home and greet her offspring for 
Christmas. She suggested I should stay until my sisters 
returned. From somewhere inside me came the intuition that all 
would be alright, that he would die quite soon, mindfully and 
without fuss at a time which would allow us to return to Wales 
for the festival. Jane agreed to remain and I was grateful to her 
for staying. She had been the lynch-pin throughout, and I 
needed her to be with me.

About an hour later he became alert again. He had referred to 
his approaching death only once, about a week before, when he 
had asked my elder sister, Joy, to look after my mother when 
he had gone. This reticence was probably because he knew 
how difficult it was going to be for his wife, as indeed it was 
proving to be.

As he surfaced into what was to be his last period of 
consciousness, he looked around the. room slowly and said that 
his only regret was that he would not be around in a month's 
time to see how we were all getting along. Then he became 
unconscious and about an hour later simply stopped breathing.

We had warned Joy and Rona but when they came, failing to 
register our quiet prompts, they tried several times to speak to 
him. Jane and I changed the bed and washed him. As Jane 
washed the body she spoke softly to him all the time saying 
what she was doing and what she was going to do. It was 
beautiful and very moving.

My mother was in a state of confused distress. She was 
rummaging through the cupboards trying to find the records of 
her family tree which stretched back to the beginning of parish 
records. It was as if this was the only way she could begin to 
find any personal identity as her world for over half a century 
crumbled. It was bizarre and painful as she produced the large 
sheets and began to talk of her origins.

Sadness, pain, confusion and then abruptly black comedy and 
the ridiculous appeared uninvited. The GP came to sign the 
death certificate to be met by a tight lipped 'son of the 
deceased' who had regressed to a thinly disguised but furious 
five year old. The GP made the mistake of asking for the 
virtually full box of ampoules. The angry five year old was 
saying "Shan't give them up, shan't give them up" - even though 
he had no possible use for them. The GP was on foreign 
territory and retired stiffly and empty handed from the field of 
verbal combat.

Then came the two gravediggers. The first knocked on the door 
and asked if he had come to the right house. Two slightly off-
focussed eyes and an aromatic breath suffusing the cold 
December air spoke of diligent Christmas celebration. 
Gravedigger two was in a worse state. He could just about 
drive the small glass sided hearse forwards but backing it up 
the drive was beyond his present capacities. Three times into 
the rose beds and after the last effort came the comment: "This 
will be the death of me!" The hearse remained at a crazy angle 
with half of its rear canted over the neatly pruned hybrids.

Joy came into the bedroom to - "see what happens". The 
undertakers put a stretcher on the floor, covered it with a sheet 
of heavy duty plastic and prepared to transfer the body. No I 
took the head and No 2 the feet. Father was not a small man, as 
I have said, and the men were 'oiled' enough to make beginners' 
mistakes. They allowed the body to bend double. There was a 
loud fart. Joy's face turned a funny colour. "He's still alive !" 
she gasped.

The naked body was transferred onto the stretcher and wrapped 
in the transparent sheeting . Joy's colour went through further 
transformations. "They're not driving him through the town like 
that - are they?" She added weakly. No 1 coughed politely, 
produced a large purple cloth to cover the stretcher, "making 
things decent".

We followed the undertakers as they manoeuvred the stretcher 
out of the bungalow and started down the drive. The reputation 
and honour of the firm were now at stake as they emerged 
under the watchful and potentially critical gaze of any 
twitching curtain in sight. There had to be at least a semblance 
of dignity. It was not to be. Approaching the hearse, signs of 
alarm appeared on No l's face." Crikey Gov", he muttered. 
"We've forgotten to unlock the hearse." Decorum fled, there 
was to be no seamless movement deftly transferring the body 
to its place in the back of the vehicle. We all had to come to a 
halt with both gravediggers clinging on to the ends of the heavy 
stretcher while I rummaged in the leader's pockets searching 
for the key. At last it was found. They relaxed and, although 
lacking in panache, the body was successfully installed. 
Suddenly they were in a hurry to be off.

And so were we.

Jane tidied the bedroom. We threw our things in the holdalls, 
left my mother in the hands of Joy and Rona and said our 
farewells. Soon we were wending our way westwards to find 
our house beautifully prepared for the festival by our children. 
Driving away was a special gift - having been with someone 
who had "gone gentle into that good night".

And so why do I write of this - twelve years later? Perhaps it 
was something to do with having had a pivotal experience. 
During that week I had been emotionally frozen for much of 
the time and had behaved accordingly. Somehow or other it 
had taken 12 years for the experience to complete its 
fermentation.

When asked about this I found myself on the edge of tears 
throughout the following day. what was that about? Was it to 
do with delayed mourning? Was it about sadness at my 
mother's lostness and perhaps, by extension, similar features in 
myself? Was it about the mutual isolation which had been a 
feature of our family life? None of these explanations were 
even remotely near the mark. Certainly there was some idea of 
writing a tribute, but that was not enough.

A number of elements stand out in my mind. Foremost - my 
father. We had not spoken much during our lives partly 
because of the weakening of family bonding following long 
periods of separation during my middle childhood. But now 
something subtle and independent of any previous failure to 
communicate had happened for us all. Here had been someone 
so centred as to die in calm quietness, and with mindfulness of 
those around him. He did not even ask where my mother was 
from the final evening, through that night and into the morning. 
He seemed to know and accept that that's how it would be for 
her. And as he approached the time of dying he shared himself 
and his total equanimity with Jane and myself.

My mother and I had been just hanging on and understandably 
she was in danger of falling off. Not so Jane and my father. 
They just were and did and responded minute by minute in a 
way that was a source of wonder both then and now; two 
people engaged in a slow and graceful minuet and for that 
short time it had been a privilege to join them.

As for my mother; what was being said there? The son she bore 
stumbled from childhood with a profound sense of un-ease at 
times verging on is-ease. During that week both of us had 
shown the meagreness of our resources and an inability to live 
in the moment. when my father had returned from the 
commode it was as if he had dropped everything and at some 
level the symbolism was not lost on my mother. She turned 
away, a painful mirror to my own chaotic inner life with its 
tendency to avoidance. But then there had been the sheer farce 
of life and death, gravediggers like Shakespearean inebriates, 
the pompous GP and my sisters' amazements . What a gift that 
had been!

Yes - there is a wish to pay a tribute, needing to write and cry 
with gratitude. These were painful, sad, wonderful, poignantly 
incongruous teachings - writing in gratitude to my father and 
all who had been present that week - like Bodhisattvas who 
appear in hell.

David Shaw



NO MIND - MIND ONLY

We are presenting here an important article sent us by Dr 
Simon Child. Based in his personal practice of meditation it 
clarifies a way of looking at the Buddhist concept of rebirth 
which is often a stumbling block for many a Westerner. In 
conversation, Shifu once commented that for a Buddhist the 
idea of rebirth might be taken as myth but that to be a 
Buddhist, a concern with the continuity of time was essential. 
Without such concern why should we wish to develop 
Bodhicitta and take the Bodhisattva vow? Simon's article is a 
valuable meditation on this theme which we believe will be 
helpful to many. (Eds)

REBIRTH AND KARMA - A MEDITATIONAL 
VIEWPOINT

To Westerners one of the most troublesome traditional 
Buddhist doctrines is that of rebirth and karma. Rebirth, in 
particular, does not belong to our cultural set of ideas and 
karma does not make much sense without a notion of rebirth. 
We can, of course, rationalise a way around this, for example 
by considering rebirth and karma as applying only to moment 
to moment recurrence in this life only, or perhaps we could 
follow the Buddha's advice expressed by Roshi Jiyu Kennett as 
putting it on the "back burner" and reserve judgement - an 
agnostic view. Yet there is another way: to penetrate the issue 
through meditational practice and thus gain insight into the 
whole matter.

Unless we come to a clearer understanding of rebirth and 
karma we are cut off from an important part of Buddhist 
teaching. We are faced here essentially by a paradoxical 
question, a koan, a rationally unprovable notion which yet has 
the weight of tradition behind it. Surprisingly, I have come to a 
resolution which does not contradict tradition and yet makes 
sense to my Western perspective, albeit within the Chan 
practice of meditation. In this article I hope I can offer a 
viewpoint that makes karma and rebirth more acceptable to a 
Westerner without asking for acceptance of what may appear 
to be superstition. Even so, if we are to share an understanding, 
a common background of practice is important. This is because 
the whole nature of meditational insight is such that it cannot 
be adequately explained in everyday terms yet becomes quite 
acceptable within its own context. I offer this then in the spirit 
of the Buddha - for consideration on the back burner until it 
seems right for you.

In meditational experience the perception of time and space 
can change in such a way that our consciousness comes to 
embrace everything and, as time collapses into the continuous 
present of the Eternal, we become one with all beings of the 
three times. At such a moment we already exist in the past, 
present and future so that rebirth loses its mystique and karma 
is understandable. Coming back out of meditation, from this 
nirvanic unity, we are reborn into the suffering world with a 
very different perspective.

But what can be meant by rebirth if, as the Buddha clearly 
stated, there is no individual self? Surely rebirth implies a 
continuation of the self, perhaps for ever. We may come to the 
idea that karma means that our actions in present moments 
have effects in future moments in this life. Rebirth is then 
moment to moment. This is certainly so but it is not the whole 
story. We are avoiding here the question of the effects of our 
actions in the future after our deaths. It implies we do not 
regard the time after our death as important or perhaps not as a 
rebirth of ourselves but merely as our future influence on 
others. But here there is a danger of philosophical argument 
rather than a direct understanding of the Ultimate. Actually if 
there is no rebirth how can what happens in the future be of 
any concern to us?

Practitioners discover in meditation that there can be an 
experience of oneness, of loss of self, of immersion in what is 
and a cessation of the feeling of separation - and that all of 
these are aspects and differing depths of the same experience. 
Regular meditators may experience a calming of the mind in 
which there can be an opening of awareness to one's 
surroundings through a release from the constant inward 
chatter which distracts us. This is very different from the 
outward awareness concerned with protecting one's own 
interests and ambitions. We have here an uncontrolled 
awareness which is simply open. It can be a fleeting glimpse or 
a steady state in which one comes to be more frequently or 
even continuously open. At this stage there is still a sense of 
self which is aware and so a division between self and the 
objects of awareness is sustained.

A further stage can be described in which through sensing one's 
surroundings one seems to expand until one contains or 
reaches out to the whole room. Considering this state, a 
question arises: What is the difference between the thoughts 
that pass through your awareness and the sounds and visual 
impressions entering consciousness, such as a person walking 
through the room for example? All these events come to have a 
similar status in consciousness. Are people walking through 
me? If my awareness of their walking through the room is no 
different from my awareness of a thought passing through my 
mind, it seems they are indeed doing so.

As we become accustomed to such altered states of awareness 
we do not resist them but begin to see the possibility of 
accepting other's activities and concerns as part of our own life 
flow. How can I reject them if they are occurring to me in the 
same way and with the same sort of status in my consciousness 
as my own thoughts and interests?

When wandering thoughts and the sense of a separate self 
return we feel cut off from this expansion of our mental 
horizons. We feel a loss of something and so continue to 
practise. Yet it is not that we have lost something. It is that we 
have regained a sense of self after its absence and this 
"selfishness" cuts us off from others. Practice helps me to lose 
this sense of self and to regain contact with the world.

Such an expanded consciousness can go beyond one's 
immediate surroundings and go on enlarging until it seems to 
have no bounds. I am not talking here of telepathy or 
supernatural phenomena but a sense of limitlessness to one's 
expanding awareness. When it becomes limitless and infinite 
what is the difference between saying that I do not exist as a 
separate self and saying that I have become everything?

If I contain everything then there is nothing other than me and 
so there is no difference between regarding everything as self 
and sensing there is no self other than everything. Whichever 
way you look at it, it comes to the same thing. No separate self. 
Thus Matsu could at one time teach that Buddha is Mind-only 
and later that Buddha is No-mind. The opposites merge and 
there is only a continuum.

What I am writing about here is Emptiness and no amount of 
describing or reading can bring one to the same understanding 
as directly experiencing it for oneself. But I hope I have made 
clear how an appreciation of Emptiness leads to a sense of 
concern for all beings. It is from this position that the feeling of 
the importance of one's actions towards others arises. There is 
a sort of "selfishness" in which one finds that there is a felt 
sense in which others are m fact oneself. The Bodhisattva vow 
to deliver all sentient beings is not an external imposition but a 
sort of selfishness on a grand scale.

How can one feel a connection between oneself now and some 
other person, another me, in the future? The answer for me is 
in the experience, simultaneously with the above, of another 
well described meditational experience, that of insight into the 
nature of time.

When the mind is calm in meditation not only does one's 
awareness of surroundings expand but the awareness of time 
contracts. As I am not thinking about past and future events, 
they do not exist for me at that moment. I am only aware of 
what is now. Indeed it is precisely the cutting off of memories 
and fantasies of past and future which allows one to experience 
that which is real now - the immediate environment.

This enhanced sense of Now leads to a lessening of the sense 
of past and future and ultimately to the merging of all time into 
a continuous present. This must be experienced for oneself but 
perhaps these words can convey how time can be felt as a 
continuous unbroken flow, past and future being extensions of 
the now just as the centre of a piece of string is not separate 
from the rest of the string.

When past and future fuse into a continuous Now, there is the 
sense that all time is present now, just as there is no doubt at 
all that all space is present now. Even though one is only at one 
particular point in space one does not doubt that all dimensions 
of space exist in the now. Time is like another dimension of 
space. If the now is continuous how could past and future not 
in some sense already exist? if they were yet to be created, or 
had already perished there would not be a sense of continuity 
but a sequence of discrete moments and the possibility of 
noticing gaps or joins between these moments. Yet in 
experience the flow is perfect. Dogen talks about this view of 
time in his famous sermon "Uji", his essay on Being-Time. At 
the moment of his Enlightenment the Buddha said "I was, am 
and shall be, enlightened simultaneously with the Universe".

When all of space is oneself and all of time is present now and 
everything in all time in that space matters to you, suddenly it 
is clear that all past and future lives are in a real sense one's 
own lives and one's actions affect not only one's present life but 
also all of one's future lives. The futility of complaining about 
one's present karma becomes clear - there is no-one to blame 
for it other than oneself. It must be accepted as part of the flow 
of life, just as one must take responsibility for the results in the 
future of one's present actions. There is no-one else to blame 
and whilst this may seem cold comfort, just consider the 
freedom it opens up when it is fully accepted-liberation is in 
ones hands right this minute-now.

How could love and compassion not automatically arise when 
one senses this unity with all beings in space and time 
throughout eternity? How could there be any fear when there is 
no separate self to be threatened and the knowledge that 
whatever happens in one's Self has already happened before 
and will happen again in beginningless endless time? 
Simultaneously nothing matters - for there is no self to whom it 
could matter - and so there are no hindrances - yet everything 
matters - one is in direct confluity with everything - and so one 
takes the opportunity to do whatever one can unfettered by 
personal concerns and unconcerned because one cannot do 
everything because nothing matters anyway! How can there not 
be great joy when one is open uncomplainingly to all the 
delights of the Universe and, whilst feeling compassion 
towards all suffering beings, there is no fear of any ill befalling 
oneself!

Returning from meditation one re-enters the conventional 
world where there is self and other. This is the rebirth into 
Samsara. But now, knowing the illusory nature of self and the 
relativity of suffering, one may have a different perspective. 
One practices not to get away from suffering and back into 
Nirvana but because one sees how greed, hatred and ignorance 
cause suffering in the wider world which is Self. Not to 
practise is to cause more suffering.

Rather than clinging to Nirvana and returning unwillingly to 
the world the Bodhisattva comes back willingly because there 
is work to be done. There is no regret at leaving Nirvana 
because after all it is only a point of view. The world-self is as 
it is wherever he/she happens to be.

This then is my meditational understanding or rebirth which I 
feel is both consistent with tradition yet needs no superstitions 
for Westerners to accept. Although I have no self to be reborn 
literally, I have a personal interest in events after my death 
without needing to postulate a soul or reincarnation.

This view requires a basis in meditational practice which 
accepts the insights of all time being present in the now and of 
self giving way to selflessness to such an extent that there is no 
self and so everything is Self Today, with our expanding 
knowledge of the cosmos and of the basis of matter, when the 
big and the small seem increasingly the same, Westerners may 
not find such concepts difficult to accept although not so easy 
to experience. They point to an understanding of rebirth and 
karma which is not threatening to rationality and which 
encourages meditative realisation. Yes - there are paradoxes 
here but then Chan is well known for that!

Simon Child


RETREAT REPORTS

We are grateful to retreat participants for writing so freely 
about their experiences on retreat This gives us valuable help 
in understanding the retreat process and guides us in our 
efforts. The reports also provide others with an insight into the 
difficulties and benefits of attending a retreat We continue to 
publish these accounts anonymously, selecting reports from 
both genders. We regret that we cannot publish everything that 
we receive. Eds.


MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE UNIVERSE

Chan Retreat Report. April 1993

I began my second Chan retreat at the Maenllwyd with the 
method of counting the breath but soon, stimulated by the 
phrases" Nothing to do. Nowhere to go", I changed to pure 
breath observation, a relief in its simplicity.

Quite early on I became aware of how my whole body liked to 
turn very slowly and deliberately around to my left like a 
spring gradually winding itself up. It was as though I was 
turning away from something - namely the Universe. But I also 
noticed there was a counter turning back to the right, a series of 
jerks which brought with it a tremendous sense of relief as 
though at last I was facing what I had spent a life time evading.

My life has been spent running away from something that does 
not exist, a monster called "myself. Now the fight was on and 
the wall in front of me became the scene of countless bloody 
massacres as the Rinzai warrior got to work simply keeping my 
spirit alive and not allowing it to be dragged down into states 
of fear, evil and self pity. Yet, as the retreat progressed I began 
opening up, making friends with the Universe. This opening 
was not without resistance, however, as to be truly one with the 
universe there is no ego and often I could hear a faint pathetic 
voice whine "what about me?"

On day four, as I was going though the Buddha Room there 
was a fellow meditator bowing on his knees and, as I too 
started bowing to the Buddha, I realised that actually I was 
bowing to this prostrate form in front of me. I cried as I 
realised how much I have separated myself from others 
through pride and greed.

About halfway through the retreat there began what I can only 
describe as a war in my face. I became aware of two 
contrasting expressions on my outer face - the one I put on for 
the world. The right side felt the innocent, wide eyed wonder 
of a small child while the left felt a cruel, condescending sneer. 
Jeckel and Hyde! For two and a half days my face felt as 
though it was burning alive with red hot pokers inside my eyes. 
I wanted to rip off this outer dualistic face. Then, during one 
early morning sitting (day 5), I experienced a face behind these 
worldly masks. It was nothing - a faceless observer. By the end 
of that day the facial war had subsided.

I became aware that my breathing was doing itself and it felt as 
though I was riding a winged horse on the wind - riding it 
without trying to control it. During some of the outside 
sessions I got a sense of looking at a picture and then, for a 
moment, I was in the picture merging with the hills.

Once I had a sense of my shadow on the wall gradually 
pervading the "me" on the cushion and I saw a door in space 
beyond which was a feeling of intense joy and light. I was 
going to jump through when the bell went. In another sitting 
the silence became louder and louder until I thought my head 
would explode but again, before it could do so, the bell went.
a
My task as a table layer became very interesting and I 
constantly used the phrase no self; just hands doing a job; jobs 
getting done" and everything seemed to flow. During one table 
laying, I was turning around to my right to pick up something 
when I turned back to my left and seemed to be re-entering the 
zone of time having been momentarily in a state of no-time. It 
was as if I was walking back into my mind having been out of 
it. In the timeless zone there was no mind. At once I started to 
get excited, desiring another similar experience but I used the 
phrase  "ordinary mind" and soon the craving faded.

Once I was sitting by the stream and the sound of it bubbling 
and splashing got louder and louder until it was inside me and 
my whole being was itself the stream. The I as I know myself 
had disappeared. There were fleeting moments of a force of 
energy, life force, spirit energy, to my right with again that 
intense joy and light and I had the sense that this force of 
energy was urging me to come out of the depths of darkness 
and into light and life.

On day five I became aware of a feeling of complacency and 
arrogance as though I had nothing else to learn. "I know how to 
do retreats!" but soon recognised this to be a huge lie. I went 
slower in my actions and isolated myself more from my fellow 
meditators so that once again I felt as though I was at the 
beginning of the retreat.

I decided not to say anything during the discussions on the last 
couple of evenings. Instead I listened to others speaking about 
their practice. I was stunned by the urge in me that wanted to 
stick my oar in and be the centre of attention - "Me! Me! Me! 
Listen to me!" - the ego was crying, but instead I listened to the 
silence of nature focusing my eyes on the flickering candle and 
gradually the crying evaporated.

I slept well on the retreat but on the last night I woke up 
gradually out of, and with, the most intense evil force I have 
ever felt. It was sitting right in the middle of my being - 
terrifying and yet fascinating. The fact that I had touched it and 
let myself be touched by it felt a tremendous relief. I had 
acknowledged something that as a little girl I had been too 
terrified to face and so had decided to be a "good person" - 
thereby growing up to be a patronizing hypercritical adult. 
These illusory monsters of myself are gradually evaporating 
into nothingness.

Six days after the retreat I feel as though I have been set free 
from a self-imposed prison and am standing on the threshold of 
that door into space. I haven't jumped yet but when I do it will 
be into a state that is beyond an "I" that knows it. Maybe that is 
why the figure of the nun on the altar is smiling. She's jumped.

SO WONDERFUL

Chan Retreat Report. April 1993.

How different my life would have been had I never attended 
retreats at Maenllwyd I cannot say, but without a doubt my life 
has changed phenomenally over the last four years. Until then, 
when I had the good fortune to come on my first Western Zen 
Retreat, I had been motivated almost entirely by fear and self-
doubt. I had a deep rooted sense of worthlesness, critical of self 
and others. I was either shy or aggressive, unable to get in 
touch with gentleness, tenderness, courage, joy or pain. Mostly 
there was a deep rooted sense of resentment. I had known great 
spiritual joy and a sort of transcendental love of life as a child 
and as a young woman but in marriage and motherhood I had 
buried this somewhat uncontrolled passion for living and 
loving and dutifully followed my parental model.

All this came to a head during my journey to Ladakh in 1992 
when I simply woke up to the brilliant joy of being alive. 
Following my return from India the psychological pain that I 
then experienced was almost unbearable. In my family we do 
not face difficulties, we turn away and deny their existence. I 
had no choice but to know the agony of real pain for I had 
experienced a taste of real joy. For six months, almost on a 
daily basis, waves of sorrow and pain flowed over me .1 have 
sat with it and held it and each time I wanted to run away. 
Despairingly I knew there was nowhere to run to, so I just sat 
with the Buddha and hung on.

When I arrived at the Maenllwyd just over a week ago I was at 
rock bottom. Emotionally I was spent, physically I was 
exhausted. I was dubious whether to come at all but my quest 
is to open the heart to help all beings no matter what.

So it was with a sort of battle weariness that I began the retreat. 
Too exhausted to engage in my usual thinking and rationalising 
I just followed the daily schedule in a sort of mindless misery. 
The fired mind calmed quickly and I saw exactly how the 
agitated mind creates its own pain by attaching to things. 
Within the misery there was a peace and like a zombie I 
carried on not thinking very much, just doing, just being. The 
evening talks were so helpful and felt exactly relevant to my 
situation as were the interviews which affirmed me, 
encouraged and reassured me.

Yet the fog of misery continued with lots of bodily aches and 
pains. After three nights of poor sleep I awoke on the fourth 
night, after half an hour, with horrific pains in my back and 
legs. This was no ordinary pain. It was like deep contractions 
of the muscles, like labour pains in fact. Being "in labour" 
while locked into a sleeping bag was torture. I had no further 
sleep and began the day at 4 am feeling barely able to hold 
myself together.

After resting and sleeping I awoke feeling very different. 
Something had shifted although I did not know what. As the 
retreat progressed I had a deepening sense of something or 
someone emerging out of the ashes of my life's experiences. 
There was a gradual acknowledgment of strength, of courage 
,of good and bad, of pain and joy, of love and judgements, an 
ability to let things go, a confidence, a deep sense of 
worthiness, of compassion to the self - the heart it seemed was 
beginning to open.

I had a vision of two lovers seeking each others lips in the 
darkness and being unable to find their goal, both were 
searching with equal fervour. I knew that when I seek the 
Ultimate Truth with pure effort then the Ultimate Truth seeks 
me. I knew there was nothing outside of myself, that I am the 
Universe unfolding, always changing. I saw into the 
impermanence of all things and that each time I awaken I 
awake into a state of not knowing. I suddenly saw that I don't 
know and that's all right. I can only know where I have been - 
not where I am now.

This realisation brought up so much joy and gratitude. As the 
retreat drew to an end and I compared the being who had 
arrived to the one who was leaving I understood that I had 
arrived all in pieces, dragging along the remnants of an old life 
together with fears of a new one. who was it that was leaving? 
Well - it was an integrated self, confident, strong, fearful too; 
someone who knows she has got it all and is no longer afraid of 
her own power and potential; someone who has got an ever-
deepening quiet inner space which is becoming more secretive 
and more unsayable; someone whose heart is opening.

On arriving home I was sinking into a deep hot bath, probably 
the most indescribable experience oft he whole retreat, and I 
was contemplating this integrated self when suddenly I saw 
that there is no self! All phenomena IS. I am the awareness that 
perceives or experiences phenomena arising, being and passing 
away, moment by moment. The Universe experienced directly 
through awareness instead of through the veil of the imagined 
self is clear and sparkling - IS.

Suddenly Zen teachings made perfect sense and I saw my mind 
as the unruly Ox, stamping and snorting in a clearing in the 
forest, as yet untamed. I have had three experiences in the past 
when my mind suddenly" fell" empty but I really did not know 
what I had experienced. Now I know - and I know that the self 
is an illusion. Even though I am still very much attached to it, I 
am without a shadow of doubt. This is wonderful, wonderful 
joy and freedom, this is where training begins, where 
meditation starts. I bow down in gratitude.

This is all so wonderful. It is also completely unimportant and 
that too is wonderful.


WHO IS SETTING THIS OLD CORPSE ASIDE?

Retreat Report. New York. May June 1993.

This time I went to New York with a clear plan. I wanted to 
investigate the difference between thoughts that conferred an 
ego and those that tended towards compassion and wisdom. 
The background to this lay in a year of distress and concern 
arising from my mother's painful death. I had been wrestling 
with the sadness of impermanence but had realised that certain 
thoughts triggered such sadness through conferring a focus on 
myself rather than on others. One day, walking through a 
shopping complex, I had seen that each and every person, 
children old people, mothers, fathers, beggars and shop 
attendants were all in the same boat, travelling the routes of 
their own demise. Instead of sadness there was compassion and 
a curious love. I felt free and easy, wondering at the transient 
beauty of the world. I realised that this happened when my 
thought went outwards to others rather than inward on myself. 
In the retreat I planned to watch these changes in slow motion 
as it were.

And sure enough I was given every opportunity! On the first 
day I realised I had a sore throat and very quickly a quite 
severe cold developed. I thought I could stop it with Vitamin C 
but no, it continued to develop in florid form; snivelling nose, 
and gradually an irritating and uncontrollable tickling cough. 
Apart from fighting to control these symptoms so that I would 
be able to sit the retreat, I was also depressed by the thought 
that I was certainly infecting others. And of this there was soon 
ample evidence, first my room mate and at the end probably 
Shifu himself. I felt very guilty at causing all this trouble, 
coughing so as to disturb others and breathing germs all over 
the place.

The struggle with my health was most exhausting but it 
certainly focused on thoughts that conferred an ego. I learnt to 
be patient, not to condemn myself so harshly, to let matters 
take their time and to sit, sit, sit whatever arose. As an 
endurance test it was quite something. The main practice was 
patience and forbearance. I was blest in one regard - my body, 
now well trained in sitting, offered no resistance. I had no 
backache or leg trouble throughout the retreat. What a 
blessing!

Shifu focused on the Hua-tou and for the first time I adopted 
this method fully. My normal practice is Shikantaza so the 
contrast was most noticeable and set up conflicts. I corrected 
some misunderstandings about the method and applied myself 
fiercely to generating the great doubt. I found myself in a 
deeply locked-in space where the question revolved 
relentlessly. After two days it became obsessive and, although 
the question moved in a deep stillness , it felt as if I was in 
prison.

The Hua-tou I had chosen to work with was "Who is setting 
this old corpse aside?" I conducted a sort of preliminary survey 
of this question. It arose from my pilgrimage last year to Mount 
Kalaish in Tibet. The pilgrims believe they leave their past 
karma, their "selves" at a certain high point on the Dolma Pass 
and, as they return down the eastern side, they have only the 
residual effects of karma to determine the remaining course of 
life. This belief became a sort of inner reality for me. If I did 
not generate more karma then I had only to resolve the after-
effects of my past. This idea had been with me all year. But the 
question moved more deeply. I am now 62 and the body-mind 
from time to time shows signs of wear. I am indeed having to 
let go of my old corpse whatever happens. Then again when I 
die who is it that lets go of existence itself? The question 
shortened itself in meditation simply to "who is this?" or even 
just "Who ? " but the import of the full Hua-tou was always 
present.

One thing was clear: the "Who" was to be found neither in the 
body nor in the thinking mind. Shifu described the method as 
an interaction between two parts of oneself; the questioner and 
a respondent who is not allowed to speak. One centres in a non 
responding observation, alertly probing in the quest that 
constitutes the doubt, a kind of gazing into a gap that opens up 
between mind and body. Gradually the process clarified and 
the prison walls expanded. There was more space around the 
question. Suddenly, after three days, the walls disappeared, the 
question simply revolved in an open spaciousness. It was as if 
stars had appeared after cloud. And that space was serenely 
illuminating. I realised there is a place where the two methods 
of Hua-tou and Serene Illumination become one, indeed evoke 
one another. The question did not disappear but its taste had 
altered. Meditation became profoundly peaceful and one-
pointed for the rest of the retreat.

Shifu told me that I would have to work out the relationship 
of these methods within my own practice. I feel that on retreat 
I made a satisfactory beginning. Limitless approaches!

After the retreat I was very exhausted. The battle with the cold 
had ensured that and I did not experience at first the clarity 
which is for me the usual result of retreat attendance. Alter two 
days at home however I revived. Going into town I found 
myself free, open to the world and joyful. Dharma joy is a 
wonderful gift.

This was my seventh retreat with Shifu. Although I had 
experienced some anxiety on coming to the retreat, aware of its 
very demanding nature, I soon found that my attitude to retreat 
had changed. I was no longer greatly expecting some 
miraculous insight. There had been, as it were, enough of that. 
This was an occasion for deepening practice and I knew what 
benefits that could bring. After illumination comes cultivation 
and the ever present need to deepen practice and view. The 
letting go of the old corpse will inevitably continue.


PILGRIMAGE TO PHUGTAL

A walk to a remote monastery in Zangskar, Himalayas.

Poem in two voices

James Crowden	John Crook

In the summer of 1993 John Crook with James Crowden led a 
tour party on trek in the Indian Himalayas, the most recent of several 
such guided journeys to Ladakh arranged in collaboration with The 
Open Gate. The purpose of these journeys is to allow participants to 
share an inner experience of journeying to remote third world 
locations of spiritual importance. The 1993 journey was especially 
difficult in that airline strikes forced repeated changes in the itinerary 
and there was a lot of illness in the party. None the less we won 
through and trust the experience has proved beneficial. James and 
John wrote these verses in Kargil on the afternoon of the return from 
Zangskar and the piece was read to the group that evening. It was also 
presented at the meeting of the international Association for Ladakh 
Studies in Leh later that summer.

Early morning beneath Nun Kim The sound of boys 
driving sheep and cattle, The first light hits the mountain.

Acres of flowers,
The stream, the rocks,
Old carvings of ibex
Willow trees beneath steep snow.
The double rainbow
A corona, circling the peaks.
At Rangdom, old dogs,
Prayers for the monks
Chanting above the water's shingle.
Choughs dive,
The sound of a horsebell.
The glacier gaping wide and beckoning
A slow liturgy of ice
Moving forward, downward
Till the sound of water
Careers through the mind.

The smell of yak dung burning in the dusk
Frozen peaks, sharp and hanging
Above the echo of silence.

The shade of poplar trees
The holy monastery at Sani
The blue poppy beside the stream

Blue flowers at the window 
Our bus careers into Zangskar 
Inside 
Improbably juxtaposed
The would be inner travellers.

Village grove, slight breeze-
Curious
flow silently the sunlight 
Makes the sparrows chirp.
At Rangdom Gompa 
l am glad to see 
the monks still sustain
the revolutions of the Universe.

Since I was here
Yeshe Monlam, fine monk. has died.
For me, remembering him, they chant
The aspirations of the blessed
Dust keeps falling from the Buddha's nose.

Tea with an old friend
At Chushigzhal
Sonam Wangchuk, the Karsha Lhonpo
Surrounded by memories

Old paintings, the moon rising
Such friendship, 
Such friendship.

The valley spreads out below 
Our path steep and narrow.

		And in this foreign monastery 
		hoping to bribe the villagers
		They think naive,
		Invading Christian zealots handout
		The powerful drugs
		Of Western decadence.
		
		without thanks the pills 
		Are grabbed and stowed away. 
		Later, some of them sewn into hats.
		
		Next week,
		The yogins' turn.

How hot the valley 
Heat pounding in the head, 
Road blasting in front of Bardan monastery.

Old chortens and dog roses
Mani walls and fresh streams,
Our path forever hanging
Just there - above the river.

Mahakala puja, old masks in the gonkhang1 
The smell of rancid butter.

			Over the valley
			Black mountain peers 
			Am I menaced or protected? 
			I am not sure.
			'Juno Dunlak'.
			Oh do not say this name 
			Something like darkness
			touches my mind

			Khataqs and incense 
			Offerings to the tha-
			Nobody knows 
			What precautions we took.

			Do not ask the Gods 
			For favours here 
			Evoking our own powers
			Alone we tread this precipice.
			With no intentions 
			The river merely waits.
			Have you got what it takes?


Opposite Pipcha
Water swirling, churning, twisting
Gliding, pummelling its way down,
Carving the rock, dividing the mountain,
The valley's pulse, the "Black Breath"
Lungnag, a thin ribbon of silted water
Linking village with village,
The glacier's melt sharpening its wits
On the water's edge, each bridge
Crossing the eye of the water,
The turbulent pull
Shifting this way and that.

The cloud of dust, as horses
Are gathered in the first light
Driven down the mountain
Ready for the day's work.

Again the smell of dung fires
Creeps along the valley
Slowly mingles from both shores
Drifts and hangs
In the mountain's shadow.

Water swirling, churning , twisting
Gliding, pummelling its way down.

			Silently communing with the Gods
			Roar of water, clarity of space
			Air cooled by tumbling rivers
			Blesses the desert with emeralds.

			fire dances in a blinding sun
			Space cuts out my mind 
			Only these feet move
			Elemental reverie.
			
			Closed tents, 
			The sick and weary rest.
			Outside, the spirits of the mountain 
			Dance.

			Above my steeping bag
			The slowly churning stars.
			Where the planet's rim turns down
			Day begins.

			Powered by farts
			My morning stroll
			In my guts
			Disturbing immanence

At Purne two rivers join
In spate, two colours merge
The Lingti and the Tsarap Chu.
One from the south and one from the north
One way to India, the other to Rupchu and Changtang.

Choughs at Phugtal
Gliding, twisting and turning
Jive and plummet between prayer flags
And lamas' incantations,
The cave hollowed out with emptiness.

A glance from Drepung
The old geshe2 in his cell
Prayer wheel surrounded
By texts and photographs
His flight from Tibet with His Holiness
Engraved on his memory.

The smile of offering
A deep resonance.
Beneath the juniper tree
The spring of cold dear water.
		
			Water seeps from the cavern's floor
			Refreshment for tired travellers 
			No witchcraft here.
			Sky drunk monks hide 
			In the deep recesses of the hills.

			Old geshe with fading mind 
			Probably no longer
			Remembers philosophy.
			Beyond his window 
			Choughs whirl and stall 
			In distant cells his brother monks
			Intone their liturgies.
			With lowered eyelids
			Over shining eyes

			For seventy six years 
			He's seen it move.

And in the evening down the valley
The songs and laughter, horsemen
From Kuru, Tablay and Kargiakh.

At Purne the wedding house
Waiting on the hill
The warm night crowded with faces
The valley full of chang
Acres of women crammed tightly together
Leaning in their shawls half drunk
Swaying this way and that.
In the half darkness raucous laughter
Keeps pace with the drumming.

			from sperm to tsa-tsa 3
			Momentary vision-

Lets hope they enjoyed it

			Milarepa
			Holds his hand to an ear
			What does he hear?
			What does he hear?
			
			Great guru with blazing eyes 
                        What does he see? 
                        What does he see?

                        Sombre scholar with learned gaze
                        What does he know?
                        What does he know?

                        Touching the earth
                        The Buddha's hand
                        E-he -  Whose fingers ?

And then the reluctant return
Each caravan steady in its pace
Like a ship gliding and surging
Through the mountains.
Horses and mules follow one another
Sacks of atta4 lashed down on wooden saddles
Sullen muleteers thinking of Manali.

And then the festival at Sani
The dance with monastic music
Echoing through the courtyard
Monks clad in silk and black hats
Veiled beneath the snow-laden mountains
Stepping this way and that
Chancing, glancing
Backing and advancing
Twisting and gyrating
The spirit's pulse transferred
The tantric colours circling
In a vortex
Hypnotic and shamanic
The exorcism, the handling of dark forces
The triangle of unwanted energy
Thrown out, thrown out
And the year's evil
Assuaged before the harvest.
	
			Sunfire blazes
			Crackling figures circle
			Surge like flames
			Cymbals crash, drums boom 
			Black hat wizardry 
			Kills the dark and evil thing
			Pinioned beneath the tall flag. 
			Bright night of the Long knives. 
			Before harvest, hearts are cleansed

The blue glitter of perags
And white khatags5
The sense of giving
Reaching far into the mountains
The flat pasture laden with horses
The freedom of the steppe.
			
			Sigh above the swirling river
			What do they see
			One lammergeier
			And two eagles?

Dry, dusty dry, fierce Central Asian dry 
The wind pummels the valley.

			Pulling out, the old bus 
			Lumbers over ruts and rivulets.
			Tired strangers
			Wave to smiling villagers.
			"One pen- one pen - kaka -Julay!" 
			What have they learned 
			These slumped and jerking figures 
			Dozing on the long way?

Arid the desert's pulse, the raven's beak.
Think of the ibex and the wolf trap
The sound of the conch shell.

Footnotes:	

1.  The shrine room of the protective deities of the monastery.
2.  Doctor of Buddhist philosophy. 
3.  Moulded figures prepared from the ashes of corpses. 
4.  Wheat flour. 
5.  Woman's head-dress and offering scarf.


LIVING OUT THE LIFE.

One day this summer, standing in one of the temples of Phugtal 
Gompa hidden deep in the Zangskar mountains of the 
Himalaya, I asked my companion, Nathaniel Tarn, American 
poet and participant on my cultural tour to Ladakh, whether he 
was a Buddhist. Nathaniel was inspecting the extraordinary 
12th century paintings on the walls, paintings he had laboured 
hard and with difficulties over the hills to see, and said ,"Its the 
nearest to what I believe to be true. For me it's just a matter of 
living out the life".

And so I was made to recall this subtle Zen phrase which then 
hung around, haunting my imagination, for the rest of the 
summer.

We had major problems on trek this year: many participants 
were sick, some had come without adequate physical or mental 
preparation and airline strikes forced us into repeated changes 
of itinerary. James Crowden and I felt much relieved after we 
said goodbye to them and then spent two days with the yogins 
on a short retreat. Our troubles were not over however. It took 
us three days of early morning journeys to the airport and many 
attempts at bribery and corruption to get on the plane from Leh 
to Delhi. In Delhi too more airline trouble meant we had to 
change flights and do a slow return via Karachi, Cairo, and 
Paris, missing one more connection and losing our luggage 
temporarily on the way. What should have taken two days took 
seven.

Had I been alone, such a journey would have been very testing. 
I would have felt alone, morose, claustrophobic, neglected and 
anxious, fussing about details and challenging myself every 
inch of the way. Having the staunch companionship of James 
made it almost pleasurable and we saw some interesting things 
at Karachi, at the worst moments doing a silly Doug and Pete 
act to maintain our morale. But the point of all this is that the 
phrase "living out the life" came back to me as a repeated 
meditative refrain.

Wasting time in offices, having our wait-listed tickets rejected, 
enduring the total chaos of the Air India reservation system, 
waiting for our luggage to fail to arrive in Paris; every time I 
thought "Hey - this is just living out the life. Let it pass." It 
became a valuable refrain, a mantra refocusing experience into 
the exact moment, peoples faces, the turmoil of ad hoc 
travelling, the explosive little rows that came and went in 
office corners. It all passed by, living out the life. Time passed, 
mini-event followed mini-event, plane trip after plane trip, 
Homage to Allah on Air Pakistan, hindi music in India, the 
clipped tones of the BA captain nonchalantly cruising the 
business men into Heathrow on our last leg. Ml the same 
somehow. The same taste, as the yogins say. Just life passing. 
One thing after another, nothing to get up-tight about, different 
companions, attitudes, air hostesses, ways of serving soup, no 
alcohol on Islamic flights, holier than thou, and the lovely 
French lass who gave us Air France bus tickets to get from Orly 
to Charles de Gaulle - when she shouldn't have. Un peu 
mechant, n'est-ce pas?

All the same; the practice of not good, not bad, evenness. Shin 
fu watching the train move with his luggage still on the 
platform. It all works through. Life passes, time passes, day 
follows day. Sometime it will all stop.

There's a melancholy here perhaps. What of the splendours of 
passionate commitment? The urge to succeed? The vital elan 
that wins a race? Well, that's part of it too. No one said that 
living out the life should be done without commitment and 
passion. Mother Theresa picking up the dying in Calcutta's 
streets, night after night, living out the life.

There's a secret here. To use Shifu's phrase, the mind "goes 
down" when it becomes self-centered. Sometimes as I watch 
the days or hours passing I am filled with a sense of fear, life's 
sands are not unlimited like those of the Ganges. They are few 
and flowing down the hourglass rapidly. I get a sense of panic, 
of things not achieved, of nostalgia for past faces, past times. 
But this is all a referral to self, to my mortality, a self pity 
before the face of oncoming death.

Put that aside - instant sunshine, wherever, whenever. The 
dullest moment becomes alive in its own actuality. Driving 
back to the Karachi hotel fatigued by traffic noise and fumes, 
how wonderfully the painted buses glow. At Cairo airport a 
passenger slept through the stop instead of disembarking. What 
a joke. What does a two hour additional delay matter? Another 
opportunity for contemplation.

And it works. You can meditate in a seat on a plane. Just let 
the mind go. Things go on around one, nothing to do. The 
breath settles, tranquillity comes. Why worry - you get there 
sometime, this year next year, sometime, never. And why not? 
Is it OK to end it now? In the silence of the mind, why not? 
Everything's the same, just living out the life.

How does a Zen master live out his life? In the clarity of 
sameness he goes his way with helping hands, offering all he 
has for the well-being of others. In this there need be no time, 
no nostalgia, no worry about the future. He or she does what 
must be done in the moment of its arising. The action, coming 
from the empty heart of clarity and relying totally on a natural 
insight, just comes into being, goes its course and travels
on.

The master is beyond premeditation. His or her mind is attuned 
to a silent readiness which becomes possible only when it is 
unclogged by predispositions, prejudice, defences, biases. That 
is why such action is an expression of the human truth that the 
root of the mind is undramatic love. Outward looking, seeing 
the needs in the face before one, living out the life. Nothing 
special.

When we reflect on such matters we perceive our need for 
training because the need for it has become clear. Far from the 
idealisations and false comfort of New Age spirituality we 
attempt to stand clear of the ego and see the sameness, the 
unmoving similarity of every moment. From here we can see 
the pain of others and compassion arises in our offering. Where 
there are blocks, there must the work be done.

John Crook 25.9.93 In Memoriam GMC


PRESS REPORT

Parts of Wales were struck by a freak winds late yesterday that 
exceeded 120 mph in some areas, causing extensive structural 
and environmental damage. Several casualties were also 
reported. Daily Telegraph, 14 May 1993.


NO DAKINIS, BUT FLYING SHEEP AT PANT-Y-DWR: THE POWER OF MEDITATION?

Our Mid-Wales correspondent writes:

A bizarre incident took place earlier this week near the 
meditational power-house of the Bristol Chan Group. It is not 
known who exactly was in residence at the time, but events 
suggest that the group present may have unwittingly developed 
some strange and possibly uncontrolled tantric devices.

Early one evening, during a period of otherwise normal 
torrential rain, a terrible tornado roared across and down the 
sleepy little valley of Pant-y-Dwr. Strong winds, funnelling 
through and around the hills got into a complex spin and, 
allegedly encouraged by the tantric trainees, sucked a flock of 
sleeping sheep high into the air and scattered them up to a mile 
away across hedges, a river and five fields. A purple-robed 
figure had earlier been noticed in the hills imitating the distant 
wind farm.

Six of the luckless sentients are dead. Twenty sought shelter in 
other flocks and have yet to report on their experiences. The 
owner of the local pub said that everything from corrugated 
sheets to branches and birds were being pulled into the air by 
the whirlwind and went flying off. Cars and caravans were 
over-turned. The house of Gwynvor and his Dad had its roof 
ripped off, the barn wrecked and the Land-rover rolled across 
the yard. Gwynvor's comments were apparently in Welsh.

The Maenllwyd residents, tucked away in their hillside cwm, 
heard the roar in the valley below. But, being confined to the 
Meditation Hall, they thought that it was probably another low-
flying exercise from the local RAF base. In either case, they 
reported no damage to the property other than the usual shower 
of slates from the neighbouring barn.

Whilst admitting no responsibility for the cause of the wind, 
[other than their vegetarian diet], the members of the Chan 
Group are planning to hold Mind Calming sessions for the 
sheep and locals in the very near future.

END