Tired
I’m tired. Not all the time, but enough so that I can not depend on not being tired. There are days when it seems relentless, and other hours where I think it is all in my head. The strange thing … Continue reading →
Biography of trainees
When the student is ready the teacher appears
Once there was a Bodhisattva by the name of Dipankara, who was a deep meditator and a very advanced teacher, much loved by people. He lived in India and he traveled around in the Tibetan area with a man to … Continue reading →
Reflections on training
When I am able to respond in a still and open way to the needs of any situation there is a way in which what is good to do can become clear; whereas when I am caught up at any … Continue reading →
A Death and a Life: reflections on the death and funeral of Reverend Master Jiyu
Throughout the ages Buddhism has been practised, taught and passed on by one person to another. Every scripture, statue and example came from a person who, through training, gave their individual life back to its Source, enabling the Truth to … Continue reading →
Recognising Buddha
It is so helpful for our spiritual path to recognise the heart of Buddha in other human beings. When I was a young man, there was a deep longing in me that I could not have put into words then. … Continue reading →
Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett on compassion and benevolence
In the early 1970s my wife Linda and I were fortunate to attend a weekend retreat near Eugene, Oregon, conducted by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett. Not long thereafter, Linda and I were founding members of the newly opened Eugene Buddhist Priory; … Continue reading →
‘A Great Wind Carries Me Across the Sky’
Victor Frankl was a Jewish doctor who survived as an inmate of the Auschwitz death camp … He wrote a book Man’s Search for Meaning which describes his experiences in Auschwitz and also lays out the general principles of logotherapy. … Continue reading →
Turning the Wheel with 12 Steps and Buddhist Training
These past 32 years of recovery from drug/alcohol addiction, combined with 16 years of Buddhist training at Shasta Abbey have provided opportunities for insight into ways of offering myself compassion for particular karmic conditions. Recently I resolved a perceived conflict … Continue reading →
Rev. Master Jiyu, Ryokan and Dogen
In 1971 I heard of an English Zen teacher who had studied and practised Sōtō Zen in Japan. Rev. Master Jiyu had gone to America where she established a Zen training monastery, Shasta Abbey. She came over to England to … Continue reading →
Notes on some of the ways Scripture appears in daily life
I first met the words of Fukanzazengi, or Rules for Meditation while reading them aloud, along with other people, all of whom were strangers, the first Saturday afternoon of my first retreat at Shasta Abbey. Meditation halls, monks with shaven heads, … Continue reading →