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 Sarah Kokai Thwaites, 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.
This week Roshi has been featured in the Liverpool Echo with this interview. The founder of one of Liverpool’s most fabled bars is sending a message of acceptance, kindness and compassion in an ever polarised world. David Scott, who founded the original Everyman Bistro with business partner Paddy Byrne, runs the Stonewater Zen Centre, which […]
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Awakenings is a non-fiction hands-on look at the human condition, the causes of suffering, what can be done about them and how to take up help in the pursuit of its resolve. “I wrote the book as a response to the increased suffering I see around me in my life caused by the isolation experienced […]
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I use that word without fully understanding what it means. A seeker? Spiritual quester? Searcher of Truth – and finder of it too? My mum has just published a book called Diaries of a Young Mystic, which reveals her to be all of the above. She recently rediscovered her diaries from the 70s, having landed […]
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Witnessing a tokudo ceremony gets me every time. At the Spring sesshin this year I heard Roshi say that receiving the homeless vows implies, among other things, being at home everywhere. An attractive suggestion. And a difficult task. It brings up memories of long flights, of giving in at last (after idle movie-watching and desiccated […]
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This time last year I was in Thailand, embarking on a two-month stint that became everything I didn’t know I was looking for. I kept diaries of my reflections, particularly throughout a stay in a Vipassana temple, and started to write up a piece on my return which I eventually abandoned. It feels personally apt […]
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Notebooks of a Wandering Monk by Matthieu Ricard, (Translated by Jesse Browner. 2023. 702pp. Hardback £28.00) This is a giant, magnificent book in weight and its import, depth, and unique and extraordinary viewpoint. Matthieu Ricard gives us an intimate insider’s perception of the world of Tibetan Buddhism over its last half-century journey and beyond. This […]
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The title of this is a question I was asked online about a year ago, and I’ve just stumbled across my answer to it. We touch on the idea of ritual, ceremony and ‘the form’ from time to time in Northampton, especially when people come to their first sit with a service! Usually, I answer […]
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Dear sangha member, I am a researcher at the University of Northampton, UK, and as you might know, I am also a Zen practitioner in the StoneWater Sangha. I received tokudo in 2011, and was made ‘Hoshi’ last year by Keizan Roshi, who’s graciously permitted me to send out this call for help with my new research project, which […]
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On Wednesday 20th March there will be a change to the regular schedule. After one period of meditation, Alan Lessik, an author and Zen student in the Shunryu Suzuki Roshi Soto Zen linage, will be reading from his new Zen novel, Make the Dark Night Shine. Inspired by his Aunt Nina Uchida´s family story, Make […]
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East Barn Zendo exists so that people may come together to practise zazen (meditation) in the Zen Buddhist tradition promulgated by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi (1931-1995). For this reason, the zendo (meditation room) has a Buddhist altar as its focus, towards which we bow and chant. Some people are disconcerted by the idea that in […]
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