A Record Of Awakening

A Question of Dharma

Dharma Mind Worldly Mind

I often wondered before the publication of this my first book whether the story of my spiritual awakening in Sri Lanka in 1981 would be of much use to the reader. I’ve found, however, to my joy and deep satisfaction that many who have read ‘A Record of Awakening’ found it gave them new strength and inspiration to deepen their own established practice. I know also that it has brought people to the practice of the Dharma and even brought some back from the brink of abandoning their practice altogether.

My story tells of not only the unfolding of insight once our inner nature has been re-discovered but also graphically describes the struggles, fears and suffering that have to be endured if we are to break the bonds of ignorance. The second half of the book is a question and answer session that allows me to expand on many of the points within the main text. The book opens with a preface written by Urgyen Sangharakshita the founder of The Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. He describes the work as ‘a remarkable document’ and ‘a treasure.’ Here are a couple of extracts from his preface.

' As I went through the draft of his booklet, that autumn day in 1997, I was irresistibly reminded of the Platform Scripture, the reading of which had played such an important part in my own ‘awakening’ (to use David Smith’s language) nearly fifty years ago. Like Hui Neng, David Smith was no scholar. In his own words, he was ‘just an ordinary working class chap with average intelligence and an ordinary education’, and one who carried around moreover, ‘as much ‘’baggage’’ as most Western people do’. Like Hui Neng he was consistent and uncompromising in his commitment to the Dharma, and like Hui Neng he had only a limited acquaintance with the Buddhist scriptures.' (p2)

'Nevertheless, I was struck by the essential orthodoxy of his position. Even though some of his expressions might not have been in accordance with the strict letter of Buddhist tradition. I was also struck by his insistence that, after what he called awakening, the everyday, deluded mind continues to exist, alongside the Awakened Mind, and that from the first bumi to the last there was a great struggle, or ‘holy war’, between these minds, as the former sought to transform, and free itself from the latter.' (p3)

Click here if you wish to read extracts from the main text.