about
Poetry offers an alternative way of communicating; a way that is more about impression and suggestion than statement. It is also a means that proceeds from the base of the affective mind or heart, while making use of imagery, sound, spaces, and allusions – the language of the heart. It is centred on, or tries to return to, the experience we have before we can formulate it into our prescribed world-view. As such it can take us past our world-view, and by reminding us that it is a view rather than a fixed reality, serve to continually moderate that world. Something transformative can occur.
‘Dhamma’ is the word that the Buddha used to describe his teachings, his way of aligning the mind to truth. What it advocates are morality, meditation and wisdom, practices that also continually hold the world in a questioning and moderating way. The ways of communicating those teachings and practices are varied and often attuned to the disposition of the learner: lecture, ritual, pilgrimage, and sitting in silence are all means that are used to bring across this life-changing Dhamma. Some of the most moving teachings and realisations of the Buddha and his disciples are expressed in poetic form. Some Dhamma has to be learnt through working, or by being with others.
In this site, we offer a channel for those who attune to poetry. Here we present expressions from the minds and hearts of people who are practising Dhamma. These are not instructions on how to meditate or on the value of ethical living (although they may invite such reflections) but practice-notes on the joys, struggles, humour and pain of the journey towards truth and freedom.
If the discourses of the Buddha and the teachings of his realised disciples can rightly be likened to a great sun giving its light and radiance, this site presents a moon-lit glow. A touch of mystery, a glimpse of something ineffable at a quiet time. A Dhamma Moon.
contact: dhamma moon c/o Aruna Ratanagiri Harnham Buddhist Monastery Harnham, Belsay Northumberland NE20 0HF editors: Ajahn Sucitto Ajahn Abhinando Graham Brown
(consultant editor) photos: chinch gryniewicz design: Aruna Publications development and implementation: The copyright for the poems and translations on this website lies with the respective authors, translators and/or their publishers. Please contact them to obtain their permission if you want to publish any of their materials appearing on this website. Where no translator is mentioned, the translations have been provided by the author. © photos: chinch gryniewicz
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