This is where we invite you, the Sangha members, to contribute your short articles on your experiences, ideas
or readings that you feel will interest others. Send these direct to the webmaster, Andy Scott, or via the
contact page. Posts will be linked and publicised in general mailings, Facebook and Twitter. Comments may
be made on the StoneWater Zen Facebook page or via Sarah Thwaites if you don't use social media.
It had been 10 years since my last sesshin at Fell End. In the intervening years I had continued my practice ploughing a lone furrow but with regular contact with Suigen Sensei, my teacher. Like many Sangha members, I experienced immense support through sitting via Zoom from pandemic times onward. My world had changed during […]
Jeremy Ryokan Sensei was given dharma transmission by Fr Patrick Eastman Kundo Roshi, founder of the Wild Goose Sangha in 2016. In April 2023 Ryokan received Shukke Tokudo from Keizan Roshi and joined Stonewater Zen Sangha. The inner life and the mystery of life fascinated and spoke to Jeremy from his teenage years. It emerged […]
I was very happy to be able to give the precepts to Sheila Seijo (Active Samadhi) Hoare, Roisin Seiryu (Becoming like Willow) Barry, Mark Sekishin (Sincere Heart) Thynne and Ted Joshin (Pure Heart) Allpress at the zendo of Tim Zenki Steel, on 14 January 2023. Sheila is a long term Zen student with StoneWater Zen […]
(Statue of Shariputra from Mahamevnawa Amawatura Monastery in Kandy, Sri Lanka) Just some reflections on a Saturday morning… I was watching a video about Shariputra – a fascinating video that explores what we know about the man himself, who he studied with before meeting the Buddha, his role in the Buddhist sangha, his enlightenment… and […]
Why and how do we read about Zen, Buddhism and Buddhist practice? Indeed, is reading a good thing, or will this detract from the focus on an experience-based practice? Francis Dojun Cook in How to Raise an Ox makes the point that reading and talking about texts is not necessarily a different activity from washing […]
At Jukai, people who are receiving the precepts are given a lineage chart (kechimyaku) which shows their new dharma name at a long end of a blood line going back to the historical Buddha. Look closer and the line is actually a loop with no end and no beginning. One of the children attending our […]
What is a lineage? It has a name, denoting a tradition, a teacher’s efforts and experience, a particular slant on the teachings, a version of form, a certain way of doing things and expressing the dharma. At a personal level I find that a lineage speaks to who I am, or rather, how I want […]
Stonewater Zen Sangha and Keizan Scott Roshi Stonewater Zen Sangha is led by David Keizan Scott Roshi, a Dharma successor within the lineage of the founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles, the Venerable Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995). Keizan Sensei is the UK and European representative to the White Plum Sangha, the international network […]
The beginnings of the lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995) in the UK date back to the early 1980s, when Colin Fuko and Sumi Ryoko Barber set up the Zen Practice Centre in their home in Dulwich, in south-east London. Both had trained with Maezumi Roshi in the USA and Sumi says that Colin’s dream […]
“In each eon there are at least a few individuals who understand what man’s (or woman’s) real task consists of and keep its traditions for future generations and a time when insight has reached a deeper and more general level. First the way of a few will be changed and in a few generations there […]