Dharma Library

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

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The Path To Enlightenment: As Revealed by a Simple Mathematical Equation: A Merging of Science and Religions

Graph #1

Since the beginning of history mankind has been searching for the ultimate truth about our existence and the nature of the universe; theologians in the spiritual world and scientists in the physical world. However, because of the separation of time and space, different religions and scientific theories evolved. As with everything else in this world, they are never static through the passage of…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 2000 , Other Articles , Others

A Shining Silence

Drawing of barn in landscape, as jpg

Not many of us have to endure for years the disappearance of a loved one. To discover that the loss was due to horrendous murder is even rarer. Yet, in places like Kosovo or Kurdistan this experience is something of a commonplace. The anger, indeed fury, can reach out to strike down whoever or whatever is deemed responsible. Justice is not always easy to be done. Killing is easier. So the cycle…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Highlighted , 1999 , Other Articles , Others

Identity: Lost, Found and Lost Again

Calligraphy for the character Chan

The day is clear and with the crispness of early winter in South Australia. Honeyeaters hawk for insects outside my window, supplementing the meagre supply of nectar at this time of year. Across the valley, well-wooded slopes of blue-green eucalypt rise gently to a low mountain range - quite unlike the bare hills of my birthplace in a South Wales coal valley.

I left Wales at a tender age, only…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Other Articles , Others

Obituary: Barry Palmer

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Among the many who have come to the Maenllwyd over the years we count a number of social work professionals of the highest distinction. What brings them to the heart of Wales often seems mysterious. It is as if in these caring professions there is no adequate sharing among the professionals themselves. In a sort of loneliness they have to seek elsewhere and it is to the hills that they come. Barry…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Obituaries , Others

On the Path of Dharma: Bill Pickard's letters to Eric Johns 1984-1987

Calligraphy for the character Chan

In NCF 18 Eric Johns described how he set out to discover the Buddha Way by visiting Bill Pickard at Mousehole in Cornwall where there was a small group living under his instruction in Soto Zen. During the subsequent years of Eric's training as a monk (Sik Hin Lic) in Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, Bill sustained a flow of letters to him, acting very much as an older spiritual counsellor to a young…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Highlighted , 1999 , Other Articles , Others

Visiting Tibet: From Dharamsala to Lhasa (1962-1998)

Didi Crook with Tibetan Refugee Boys

Being in my mid-sixties, I am no longer young. I often reflect on my past life, the people I have met, and the experiences I have had. So far, I feel I have had a lucky and happy life. A child in World War II, I was alerted early on to the fact that humanity can be evil and cruel, just as it is also kind and loving. I used to have childish dreams of going to Hitler and asking him to change his…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1999 , Other Articles , Others

From a Meditator's Practice

Calligraphy for the character Chan

John Senior has sent us two short contributions arising from his practice. The first is "an attempt to extract the essence of the Diamond Sutra in a form which I can read back to myself before meditation. I find its reference to familiar things like gifts, teachings, happiness, particles of dust and the universe give it perhaps more richness than the profound but often abstract Heart Sutra." The…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Highlighted , 1999 , Other Articles , Others

Life at Po Lam Chan Monastery, Hong Kong

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Shortly before my fifteenth birthday I parted company with school. At seventeen I took karate lessons and at the end of each lesson we would practise zazen. I enjoyed this so much that I asked for more. The instructor suggested I go find myself a Buddhist group and I was prompt to act upon this advice.

When I was 20 I came across The Secrets of Chinese Meditation, a book by Charles Luk. It…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Highlighted , 1998 , Other Articles , Others

Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World by Lama Surya Das

Pamela Hopkinson (now Butler)

Book review by Pamela Hopkinson

Not living very close to a local group, I place great store by the books I read on Buddhism. I picked this one up because Surya Das has constructed the book following the Eight-Fold Path, and I'd been meditating on parts of this for a long time.

Inside I found one of the liveliest and most enjoyable books on Buddhism that I have read for a long time. With the aim…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Book Reviews , Others

Intoxication and the Precepts

Calligraphy for the character Chan

At the culmination of retreats led by Shi-Fu the opportunity is usually given to participants to take the Precepts. Retreatants are told that they may take all the precepts, or they may choose to take only some. I think without exception participants unhesitatingly recite their intention to keep all the Precepts until the recitation reaches the Precept that states the intention to "refrain from…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Highlighted , 1998 , Other Articles , Others

Sitting in No-sense

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Eric Rommeluere (b 1960) has practised Zen since 1978. He is the author of a collection of major Zen texts entitled 'Les Fleurs du Vide' (Paris, Grasset 1995), which he translated directly from the Chinese or Japanese. Recently he published 'Guide du Zen' (Paris, Hachette 1997) detailing all the Zen groups currently active worldwide. John Crook met and stayed with Eric in May 1997 at the first…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Other Articles , Others

The Bright Field Ploughed

Calligraphy for the character Chan

'Ploughing the Bright Field' was the title of an exhibition of contemporary Buddhist art, held at the Create Centre, Bristol, in November 1997.

The exhibition attracted around 500 visitors during a fortnight. It showed the work of 20 artists from all over the country. Most were professional artists whose work is either partly or wholly inspired by Buddhist practice. A few were artists whose work…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Other Articles , Others

Shifting Shit

Calligraphy for the character Chan

There seems to be a question: 'Can I be enlightened if I'm not a monk/nun?' Possibly not often for lay people, but can Buddhist teachings and practice improve the quality of our lives - the answer is a resounding 'Yes'.

A lay practitioner is constantly faced with personal obstacles, disagreements, tensions and difficulties which can lead to days and weeks of self analysis or can be ridden over…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: For Newcomers , 1998 , Other Articles , Others

My Father's Hands

Calligraphy for the character Chan

I had always loved my father's hands. They seemed to be the only part of him I could love in safety.

I could love them in secret and in silence and my mother would never know. I could look at them when she was out of the room, cooking in the kitchen, banging the pots and pans as she worked.

She was an angry woman who had been forced to marry my father when she was only twenty years old because…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: Highlighted , 1998 , Other Articles , Others

Hi There

Calligraphy for the character Chan

Who are you?
You pretend to not know.
Of course you know who you are!
It is you, holding the page
reading the marks on this piece of paper.

It is you, reading my mind
with the sound of your voice.

And who am I?
I am you.
Sharing thought.
E V E R Y T H I N G .

You, in manifestation,
are on the frontier
of your/self.

You will see yourself,
out there,
in the world,
doing so many things.

Make them all…

Western Chan Fellowship CIO

Categories: 1998 , Poetry , Others

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