The Zen Gateway

The First Patriarch of Zen, Bodhidharma, lays out the two principles for practice in this sermon originally found in the caves of Dunhuang. The manuscript of this sermon was found amongst the documents in the Dunhuang caves and was attributed to Bodhidharma. The manuscript itself was written complied and added to by individuals and groups who looked to Bodhidharma as their guide and inspiration. This ‘adding to’ a text by those who follow in the footsteps of a patriarch was a common enough practice. It was justified by the understanding that having walked the way it was possible to elaborate a teaching in accordance with the spirit of the founder. " Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: Principle and Practice. To enter by Principle means to realise the essence through instruction and to see that all living things share the same true nature, which isn’t apparent because it’s shrouded by sensation and delusion. Those who turn from delusion back to reality, w...

This classic of Chinese literature from the 16th century was a satire on courtly life at the imperial palace as well as a political statement on the rivalries between Taoism and Buddhism. It also contains deep truths about human nature and shows the author's own sincere faith. It happened that when they arrived, all the deities of the Holy Mountain were assembled before Buddha, to receive his instructions. ‘We beg to state that the pilgrims have been to Ch’ang-an, as commanded, have handed over the scriptures and have now returned to report,’ said the Vajrapanis. They then motioned to Tripitaka and the rest to come forward and receive their heavenly rank. ‘Holy priest,’ said the Tathāgata, ‘you in a previous existence were my second disciple and were called Golden Cicada. But because you paid no heed to my teaching and scoffed at my doctrine, I caused you to be reborn in the East. But now by the true devotion you have shown in the fetching of my holy scriptures, you have won great ...

Prajñāpāramitā, is known as the “Mother of all the Buddhas”. She is always portrayed as female whereas Compassion, by contrast, is generally represented in Indian cosmology as male.  Her name is made up of two words; prajñā,  meaning wisdom and referring to the consciousness that can see clearly the true nature of reality,  the seeing of the Awakened One or Buddha. The second word is paramita, often translated as ‘perfection’ with the sense of something being ‘beyond’ the ordinary and mundane. The word itself has the connotation of ‘crossing over’, referring to the Buddha’s parable of the raft, in which a man who is trapped on the shore of samsara makes a raft and then paddles himself over to the shore of nirvana on it The image of ‘crossing over’ or ‘moving beyond’ appears again in the Heart of Great Wisdom Sutra (short version), which is chanted in Mahayana temples and which belongs to the literature collectively known as the Prajñāpāramitā literature .  “ When the...

The Buddhist Wheel of Life is perhaps the most ubiquitous image in Buddhism, after that of the Buddha himself. It can usually be found near the entrance  to a temple or monastery and visitors are often instructed in its meaning by the guest monk.  The details of each image of the Wheel vary from place to place, but the common elements remain the same. . There are concentric wheels within the Wheel; the central one has three animals in it, the boar to represent delusion, the snake to represent anger and aversion and the cockerel to represent greed and the desire to accumulate. There is a wheel surrounding this divided into a light half and a dark half. Here beings circulate up and down,  signifying the turning of the wheel, which is in constant motion. Then there is a wheel whose main body is divided, like a pie, into six realms. On the rim are 12 images portraying the workings of karma and re-birth. This symbol is held by a fearsome being with huge teeth and claws and wit...

Cave 2, Vidhura: a Nāga king asks his daughter to assist him in fulfilling his wife’s craving for the heart of Vidhura, the wise prime minister of the Kuru Empire. The Western Ghāta of the Deccan plateau are bedrocks of ancient history and art. Deep in the Sahyādri range of the Ghāts lies the Indhyādri range, housing the rock-cut caves of Ajantā The Ghāts, characteristic of the Deccan plateau, lent themselves for the excavation of numerous samghārāmas (lodging of the Buddhist community). Even Hindus and Jains selected them for cave dwellings and cave temples. Many samghārāmas have not survived time, which were made with less resilient media like brick, wood, or stone. The Ajantā caves were named after Ajinthā, a nearby village in Aurangabad district of the western state of Maharashtra in India. The caves are located about 62 kms from the nearest railway station at Jalgaon. They are roughly 100 kms from the district headquarters at Aurangabad. This district is home to more rock-cut cave...

Peter Glynne-Jones reviews this different 'take' on the climate problem. Charles Eisenstein uses Thich Nhat Hanh's term 'interbeing' to explore how humankind needs a radically different relationship with the world around us. Charles Eisenstein writes eloquently and delves into the root causes of climate change and of the rapid decline of our ecosystems. He steps beyond blame to illuminate fresh perspectives, giving hope and seeds for change.   The book is a pleasure to read and speaks for a love of the rich and diverse web-of-being of the [natural] world.  I remember Ven. Myokyo-ni saying that one of the things that drew her to Buddhism was questioning what it was that allowed mankind to clearly see the extinction that met the dinosaurs and yet seem to follow a similar course despite our rational and scientific knowledge. Eisenstein does not profess to be a Buddhist, and yet his description of the problems we face has some familiarity.    The prologue draws a pi...

Dr Alan Sidi recounts a moving episode during his trip to Japan when he had insight into the power of the lineage and into the significance of that for each of us as we play a mediating role in the transmission of the Dharma. A few years after Venerable Myokyo-ni died, I was overwhelmed by a feeling that I would never make it to the end of the training.I felt that it, whatever ‘it’ was, was never going to happen. This dragged on for quite some time and I began to think that it was time pack it all in; that I had put in the years; I had sat the sesshins, attended faithfully the evening sittings, the memorial services, the Rohatsu night sittings, the Summer Schools, given many talks and given up many hours which I could have spent with my family, who had grown up in the meantime,and that I had done my bit, so to speak. It was time to take the little I had learnt and retire from the practice once and for all. This continued to nag me for a while, but at the back of my mind a wholly differ...

I N MEMORIAM  Garry Gelade (1946 -2020) Senior dharma teacher and leading light of the Zen Centre and the Buddhist Society in London, Dr. Garry Gelade died on Sunday, July 5th, 2020 at the age of 74. For those friends and students who knew him, his unexpected death is a great sadness. He will long be missed and his swift departure from this life represents an enormous loss to the entire Buddhist community that he supported with unflagging devotion for over forty-five years. For those who didn’t know him, he left a fine legacy of written articles and talks on the Buddha dharma. Yet above all he had a profound impact through his teaching and personal example on the hearts of so many people who have been inspired to follow and continue on the Buddha’s path because of him. Garry had a brilliant mind and a deep, wide-ranging fund of knowledge,  as well as an acerbic, often rapier-like wit. He liked to say that contemporary society has replaced the rationalist philosopher Renée Desc...