Highlighted Articles
This page links to a selection of articles that are particularly worth reading and come recommended by past readers. First-time visitors may prefer to start with the shorter list on the First Reading and Selected Articles pages.
We list these articles by category, so please scroll down and browse the lists - we have Dharma Talks, Retreat Reports, Poetry, and other articles.
Dharma Talks
Most issues of our journal New Chan Forum include transcribed Dharma Talks, and here are some that may be worth reading first.
- Guarding the One
- Everything is as it is
- The Essentials of Chan Practice
- Life in a Chan Monastery
- Chan and Psychoanalysis
- The Importance of Buddhadharma in the Modern World
- Commentary on the Heart Sutra
- Not Knowing is Knowing
- Everyday Joy
- Thus Come, Thus Gone
- Always Harmonise with Living Beings
- Authenticity and the Practice of Zen
- A Mind like Snow
- Reading Sutras as a Spiritual Practice
- Prerequisites for Chan Practice
- Methods of Practice in the Chan Hall
- What is Chan?
Retreat Reports
An important feature of New Chan Forum is the inclusion of Retreat Reports. These are written by participants soon after they have attended retreat and are published (usually anonymously, and only with the consent of the author) to enable the reader to glimpse a taste of the retreat experience. This may be helpful to you in deciding whether to book a place on retreat for yourself.
Most of the reports are of positive experiences, but sometimes participants can find difficulties on retreat and we also publish reports of these experiences so as to give a balanced view. Here follows a selection from our archive of retreat reports.
- Maenllwyd, May 1990
- A Guestmaster's View
- Where's the Trick
- Seeing the Nature
- Mind in Flow
- Wind and Silence
- A Ting of the Bell
- Working with a Master
- A Shining Silence
- Learning to be a Zen Cook
Other Articles
- Hermit at Stallion's Rock
- No Mind - Mind Only
- Mind in Agriculture
- Paying Attention
- Enjoying Dying
- The Birth of the Western Chan Fellowship
- My Father's Hands
- Shifting Shit
- Shaping the Future
- Intoxication and the Precepts
- From a Meditator's Practice
- Life at Po Lam Monastery
- On the Path of Dharma
Poems
- Chan Attitudes
- Meditation on the Seven-Twelve
- Dharma Hunger
- Taliesin, at the Court of Maenllwyd
- Winter Buddha
- Maenllwyd - Three Poems
- In Chinese Mode: Thinking of a Friend
- Retreat Poems
- Welsh Winter
- Comet Above the Yard
- The Fenceless Gate
- Welsh Mandala
© Western Chan Fellowship, UK, 2005. May not be quoted for commercial purposes. Anyone wishing to quote for non-commercial purposes may seek permission from the WCF Secretary.