The DharmaMind Teacher

I was born in Oxford, England, in 1946, and I've been a practicing Buddhist for 35 years. I began training with Zen, practicing with the Venerable Myokyo-ni, a teacher from the Rinzai school, at the Buddhist Society in London. This was my practice for more than six years, before travelling to Sri Lanka in 1980. Here I lived for three years as a Theravada monk. It was while I was in Sri Lanka that my spiritual breakthrough took place, and it is this that forms the framework of my first book, A Record of Awakening, published in 1999.

Since my return from Sri Lanka I practiced the path on my own for a number of years, although I managed to retain my links with the Theravada tradition. In recent years I have by invitation led retreats at several retreat centres of the Triratna Community in Britain and abroad. This association came to an end in 2006.

My second book, Dharma Mind Worldly Mind, was published in 2002.
My third book, A Question of Dharma, was published in 2008.
My fourth book, The Five Pillars of Transformation, was also published in 2008, with a second edition in 2009.

I'm at present completing my fifth book Blue Sky, White Cloud. I anticipate publication in late winter / early spring 2012.

DharmaMind Buddhist Group

As well as being a guest leader of retreats at various Buddhist centres around the country and abroad, I have also been leading my own Dharma group for several years, whose practice framework is within the all-embracing spirit of Mahayana Buddhism, and focuses primarily on the formless approach to practice known as "silent illumination" of the immanent model. This independent Western Mahayana Buddhist group first started in London in 1997, and is now located  in Birmingham, where I have lived since 2001. We moved to our current meeting venue located at the Friends Meeting House in Kings Heath, in January 2007. A superb facility ideally suited to our needs.

The name 'DharmaMind' is my term to denote the type of mind that it is crucial to cultivate in order to aspire to freedom from self and enjoy happiness of heart. The heart and spirit of our training is closely allied to Chan, Zen and Dzogchen - a practice of 'no-practice' that embraces all of life, which is practiced in the body through direct experience, before thinking. It is a practice whose spirit nurtures the ability to live life without the burden of spiritual ambition and goals, and which has the delicious taste of freedom from attachment.

The group has now grown beyond the weekly and monthly meetings that had been its limits over the early years. Retreats are now scheduled at various locations and local groups are being set up as an ongoing development. For more information on these activities go to the Group page.

Āloka David Smith.