new chan forum BUDDHIST JOURNAL OF THE WESTERN CHAN FELLOWSHIP SPRING 2012 NO.45 £4.00 JOHN CROOK MEMORIAL EDITION Editor’s Introduction 1 everything is as it is – this in itself is remarkable John Crook 1 john’s life Jake Lyne 3 letter from dharma drum retreat centre Guo Xing 10 in memory of john crook – a great friend Yiu Yan Nang 11 john – the explorer & poet James Crowden 14 john the yogin James Low 19 everyday joy John Crook 21 some of the bardo records of master chuan deng jing di john crook Members of the Western Chan Fellowship 24 john crook: ethologist John Lazarus 29 snowfall John Crook 30 john as a lover of truth Peter Reason 32 the buddhist legacy of john crook Simon Child 38 TEACHER: DR. SIMON CHILD • EDITOR: EDDY STREET DESIGN www.robbowden.com ISSN 2047-9514 PRINT • ISSN 2047-9522 ONLINE © 2012 WESTERN CHAN FELLOWSHIP LARGE COVER CALLIGRAPHY: ‘FU – BUDDHA’ BY MASTER SHENG-YEN INSPIRING WORDS FROM THE TEACHER John Crook No guru, no church, no dependency. Beyond the farmyard the wind in the trees. The fool by the signless signpost Stands pointing out the way. Here on the mountain where the path stops You go on into the snow alone. Hell’s gate is open and Heaven shimmers in the mirage. The Great Sky is totally devoid of cloud. EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION BY EDDY STREET It is with a great sense of honour that I take up the role of editor of the New Chan Forum but with an equally great sense of sadness and loss that I do this following John’s death. This issue is therefore a memorial for John and his life. Included are some contributions that were made at his funeral, some remembrances and memories. But for us to truly appreciate John’s contribution he needs to speak for himself, so there are some selected Teishos which had appeared on the website as well as some poems which were previously unpublished. It is pleasing to include his words which directly point to the teaching he offered. Enjoy the words and investigate the teaching. eddy street new chan forum no. 45 spring 2012 1 EVERYTHING IS AS IT IS – THIS IN ITSELF IS REMARKABLE John Crook, 1990 If one is attempting to go into Zen deeply, to understand the relationship between one’s mind and the universe, then it becomes important to turn over and over again, going backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, many times over, the same refrain, the same theme. Not with the analytical intellect, nor with the mind of one who seeks explanation, but within the context of zazen, wherein intuitive insight can arise. We begin with the thought that everything is just as it is, and that this in itself is totally remarkable, completely astounding, a condition of extraordinary improbability. Spring is coming, summer follows. Just now, this morning for the first time, everyone is arriving; the black-caps, the chiff-chaffs, the willow- warblers, the cuckoo. Summer follows and the days grow shorter. Autumn comes and then the season of ice and snow. Once more with the warming of the days, everyone returns. Think how extraordinary this is. How it depends entirely on the way the planet revolves. This spinning globe, this planet in space turning at a certain rate determines the timing of the day and night. Darkness and light, facing the sun, facing away from the sun. And each respective season, tilting sunwards and then away from the sun, so that the heat of the sun on the surface of the globe swings now north, now south, bringing the seasons. Bringing everyone north and taking everyone south, winging their way across the deserts. An extraordinary precision of spin and oscillation. Consider how it might be different. A little faster in revolution and days would change their duration. Spring and Summer would flash past with a faster oscillation. We could have five years in one or five hundred days in one year. Who set the pattern spinning? Inappropriate question! How did it get fixed at this rate? Quite arbitrary, maybe, or according to the laws which govern the speed of spinning globes spun off from a distant far off sun in ages long past. Everything is just as it is and everything is connected. The unfolding of the universe, and the setting of speeds, the law of interdependent origination and the laws of the universe. Emptiness taking form, form congealing out of space. Timed, shaped, processing itself through time. Emerging from being. Returning once more to being. Form to emptiness, emptiness to form. The oscillation, the manifestation of the Law, Tao, the ultimate logos, whatever. Everything is as it is – and how extraordinary! Looking at the hillside as the flowers bloom, know this. There is nothing else. The hillside is It. Standing in the silent church looking at the altar, the altar and the atmosphere of the building, the silence, is It. On top of the cliff watching the swirling sea, is It. Futile to look elsewhere, God is not different from That. Buddha-nature is immediately before your eyes, there is no need to go anywhere. There is no need to go anywhere else. Everything is as it is and that is It. Do not seek elsewhere for that which is right now, before your eyes. Go very deeply into this. Penetrate the obscurities of wanting something else. So much of our dilemma lies in seeking elsewhere that which lies within the palms of our hands. So much dissatisfaction. So much wanting. So much seeking – God is 2 new chan forum no. 45 spring 2012 always in somebody else's garden – The Buddha-mind is always in some other state of meditation – Paradise is in the heavens which are not here. Always this quest. It becomes necessary to STOP. To go into it to recognise everything is as it is. Extraordinary! Everything before one’s eyes is It. You are in It. Sometimes when the mind is so busy, so preoccupied, when samsara is spinning with the struggle of life, relationships, fear of death, the multitude dissatisfactions of industrial society, it is difficult simply to know that everything is as it is. Very difficult to know, because everything seems to be undesirable. What is wanted is the very opposite condition from that which is right in front of one’s eyes. You haven't penetrated to the quality which brings out insight. Instead there is just noise and confusion. What to do? Begin with gratitude. Notice simple things for which you can be thankful, anything. Each person is different. Notice the small things, the smile on a friend’s face, a beautiful person walking in the street, birds overhead, flowers blooming, even the energy of roaring traffic in great cities, the pulsation, the force the drive. Feel wherever it may be, the gratitude for being there. After all there might be nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. You might never have been here to witness it. The uniqueness of this moment is extraordinary. If you are not grateful, the opposites have arisen and you are lost. In the quietness of the mind’s eye make gasho. Bow down in gratitude for the universe. Homage to the Buddhas in all worlds. Homage to the Bodhisattvas in all worlds. Homage to the scripture of Great Wisdom. new chan forum no. 45 spring 2012 3 JOHN’S LIFE Dr Jake Lyne, Chair of the Western Chan Fellowship John Crook was born in 1930 in Southampton into a moderately well-to-do family. He was educated at Oakmount School, a preparatory school in Southampton, and at Sherborne School, a boarding school in Dorset. At school he studied biology, physiology and physics. He frequently commented on the effect of the environment of “all male, firm discipline, a lot of sports especially Rugby football which I came to love, good academic class work and military training.” 1 He then went to University College, Southampton, where he studied zoology. His undergraduate study of gulls led to his first publication in 1953, which helped him to gain a PhD place at Jesus College, Cambridge. As a teenager he spent the war years evacuated to the New Forest with his mother and sister and it was here that he had for him a pivotal experience. As the war gradually went our way, I explored the beautiful forest and the moorlands around our home. I had become a small but ardent bird watcher. Since I had no binoculars, I had to move very quietly among the trees and undergrowth. I learnt solitary field craft the hard way and an ability to still the mind in focussed attention undoubtedly developed at that time. One day I saw a squirrel pop out of a hole in a great beech tree. It looked at me from a few yards away and we gazed, motionless, at each other. Suddenly I was overcome by an extraordinary joy, all my concerns seemed to disappear and I found myself fallen to the ground uttering words of thanks to Jesus, tears falling from my face. That experience became a turning moment for my whole life: I had come across something that was altogether “other”. 2 His academic studies were interrupted by National Service and the Korean War. He was stationed in Hong Kong, where he was a Second Lieutenant artillery officer specialising in radar. On the sea voyage over to Hong Kong, he read Christmas Humphrey’s book Buddhism and found that some of its themes could not be countered by the reductionist scepticism of his scientific training.