Dharma Library

A large collection of articles, from past issues of New Chan Forum and more besides.

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Two Poems: Quiet Mind; Day Retreat in York March 2015

David Valentine-Hagart

Quiet Mind

When the quiet mind comes
I am moving up steadily
Hold after hold
Rock is under my hands
Under my feet
Sky above
Earth below 

When the quiet mind comes
I am in the midst of music
Note following note
Hands, steel and timber
All one
As each song unfolds 

When the quiet mind comes
I am ocean floating
On a glassy board
Waiting for the only wave
That will carry me
To shore

When the quiet mind comes
I am…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Poetry , Others

Five Haiku

Jos Hadfield sitting on garden bench

Standing in the yard,
my face turned up to the sky;
soft blessings of rain.

Shimmering orange
of the tree’s pyrotechnics;
the dark bracken rests.

Backlit by a flame
I see my projection,
watchfully waiting.

I look down to see
two old hands resting on my lap;
winter is coming.

I was thinking of
the purity of lotus blossoms,
and slipped in the mud.

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Poetry , Others

Mindful Running as a Way to Greater Joy and Equanimity

Stuart McLeod running in RUNZEN shirt

Over the last five years, I have been offering workshops that blend a range of mindfulness-based practices with running and explore what it means to bring a mind orientated towards present moment awareness into physical activity.

My work in this area in fact began in 2017 when I co-created and supported a five-day WCF retreat led by Jake Lyne, which we called Zen Meditation & Running. Based at…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Other Articles , Others

The Diamond Sutra

Edd Phillips

The Diamond Sutra is one of the most well-known of the Prajnaparamita sutras (perfection of wisdom texts) of Mahayana Buddhism and takes the form of a discourse between the Buddha and one of his elder disciples, Subhuti, before a large assembly of monks. In this encounter, the Buddha strips away one by one his disciple’s misconceptions and doubts, each time refining the questions posed. Throughout…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Other Articles , Others

Book Review: Illumination by Rebecca Li

Cover of Illumination by Rebecca Li

A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method

This book feels familiar, like a homecoming, with its frequent references to Masters Sheng Yen, John Crook and Simon Child – Rebecca Li’s three teachers to whom she dedicates it. It is also simultaneously very challenging.

Rebecca’s background, born in Hong Kong and then studying in America while being the regular translator for Master Sheng Yen over…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2024 , Book Reviews , Others

Laywomen in Buddhism’s earliest years: Clues to their significance in the Pali Canon

Calligraphy for the character Chan

In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Mara reminds the Buddha, now approaching death, of his earlier words: ‘I shall not come to my final passing away, Evil One, until my bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, laymen and laywomen, have come to be true disciples – wise, well disciplined, apt and learned, preservers of the Dhamma …’ 1 The role of each element of this Fourfold Assembly in preserving and propagating the…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Other Articles , Others

Right Livelihood

Calligraphy for the character Chan

When I was asked several years ago to write a personal perspective on my career as a doctor in relation to right livelihood, I thought it would be easy. It is a huge privilege to work as a doctor with a livelihood dedicated to alleviating the effects of illness – we try and help people when they are vulnerable and are often admitted to their most private life events. The most useful advice I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Other Articles , Others

My Sheltered Place: a Haibun

Calligraphy for the character Chan

The fresh crisp morning air assails my senses as I quietly close the kitchen door behind me. The gravel crunches under my feet, yet all is silent.

I turn the corner of the street and the south-west wind rushes across my face.

I hear the sea before I see the sea, for all is still dark at this early hour.

The smell of wet briny beach is strong as I descend the steps to the beachside path and turn…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2022 , Poetry , Others

Book Review: The World Could Be Otherwise by Norman Fischer

Cover of the World could be Otherwise

This book had been winking at me since the beginning of the year. For several years, Norman Fischer’s writing in Tricycle and elsewhere has been a source of pleasure to me. He writes lucidly and with a poet’s eye and phrase. Eventually, a couple of months after it was published, I gave in, bought this book, devoured it and then just reread it straight away. That’s rare for me. 

Its subtitle,…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2019 , Book Reviews , Others

An Activist Awakens

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I was initially drawn to Chan out of a sense of loneliness. Two acquaintances were already participants in the Bristol Chan group: Sarah Bird, whom I knew from yoga practice, and Sally Masheder, a neighbour and fellow GP. I liked them a lot and I wanted to get to know them better. I had started meditation but was searching for a method that suited me. I also wanted to protect the planet and people…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2018 , Other Articles , Others

A Visit to the Doctor

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Most people who are familiar with Buddhism know of the metaphor of the Buddha as a doctor for the world’s ills. I’m going to update this metaphor to the 21st century to describe and explain the Three Characteristics of Impermanence, Dissatisfaction, and No Self.

Let’s say the Buddha is a doctor and he has his office in any town or village for that matter. He has a nice expansive clean office. I…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2013 , Other Articles , Others

Consolations: Preparations for Dying

Alysun Jones

David Childs (1946 - 2011): A Tribute

And so, full of his life, came
not to the falls, the whirlpool or the cliff
but to the brim
and held a moment above it
seeing everything.

From ‘Notes’ by David Childs (2010)

How do we, or indeed, do we, prepare, or think about our own deaths, as Buddhists? Having a life threatening illness may trigger thoughts about dying. But we all face death at some point.…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2012 , Other Articles , Others

Self Ascending

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Searching for the way 
Gate on gate until 
A fenced enclosure of the self 
Spiky membrane of a mutating cell. 
This single Centre with two nuclei 
One old and dark, a sort of hell 
One new and lit, yet secretive.

Old dark labyrinth of the nightmare mind 
Tomb of hanging beams and creeping things 
Hidden ghouls and swinging bells 
Dull black axes over torture fires 
Eyeless skulls and human bones
Devil’s…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Poetry , Others

Chan and Writing the World

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I clamber over the stile, and climb toward the Callow Drove, which runs along the ridge above me. The path follows a farm track across a field. Sheep are grazing on grass still frosted where the winter sun doesn’t reach it. A heavy tractor has left deep grooves, hatched with the marks of coarse tyre treads, in the frozen mud. Leaving the field, the path becomes more rugged as it climbs steeply…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Other Articles , Others

Ode to 'It'

Calligraphy for the character Chan

October days of sunshine, nights of frost,
The chestnut leaves fan golden by the gate
With early mists, when all below is lost
Save field-tree tops. To us, the sun seems late,
Or is it just we rise and have a pee
And venture out in still dark air
To taste the day and feel the ground a while,
Before damp sheep begin to stir?
All standing, waves of movement, like the sea,
Then fingers curling round a mug of…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2011 , Poetry , Others

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