‘The Buddhist Scriptures tell us that when Gotama was twenty-nine years old, he saw for the first time an Old man, a Sick Man, a
Tag: japan
The Difference Between Gong-an and Ko-an Practice
It is bizarre to consider that as Japan descended into fascism and racism prior to WWII – the distorted, nationalistic Zen Buddhism of that time was popular in the West amongst intellectuals, despite a number of its masters expressing openly hostile attitudes toward the Western people. It is even more bizarre to consider that after WWII – many of these very same masters remained popular as they quietly pushed their formerly racist rhetoric into the background, and applied a more ‘neutral’ policy toward the acquisition of Enlightenment.
Camelford Ch’an Week Retreat (North Cornwall)
Numbers vary dramatically, but as we are not a commercial enterprise, this is of no interest. There is always a strong inner core that keeps the teachings of Master Xu Yun (1840-1959) alive in the UK. We have been asked to Hong Kong and China in recent years, and these are invitations we intend to honour in the near future. Our last Ch’an Week Retreat (in the Sai Kung area) of Hong Kong, attracted over 50 participants in 1999, and we had to abandon the building and sit in the beautiful countryside.
Living in Stillness – Japan’s Minimalist Design and Eastern Zen
(Translated by Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD) A Zen-style room is deliberately simple, and is the product of both strict attentiveness and concentrated insight. Such a state
US Imperialism and the Atomic Bombs Dropped on Japan
The message of US imperialism is clear – the lives of (white) Europeans are inherently more important than those of non-Europeans, an openly racist motif that continues to form the ideological underpinnings of US aggression around the world today, and serves to explain its unflinching support for the terrorist state of modern Israel and its fascist philosophy of Zionism.
The Western Obsession with a ‘Greater Ukraine’
Following Hitler’s rise to power in the early 1930’s, his book of rightwing delirium entitled Mein Kampf (My Struggle) was extensively published throughout Europe and the world. Hitler, however, made sure that each edition was carefully edited and altered to suit the mentality of its intended audience. This policy was deliberately designed to minimise the offense it would cause if the intended audience really understood what Hitler thought about them, and the inferior place they would occupy when his racialised utopia was eventually established in Europe and the rest of the world.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 