The other day my spouse Jan and I watched the PBS “American Masters” segment, “Becoming Helen Keller.” It was a real tread. And even more so for me as I saw Jan’s name scroll by in the credits among a bunch of people marked out for “thanks.” A really good summary of […]

      It was today, the 27th of October in 312 that the general and would be emperor Constantine, later called the Great, claimed to have a vision of a cross in the sky and heard the words “With this sign, conquer.” I’ve commented on this moment in the past. In 2011 I titled […]

      It was on this day, the 26th of October in 1892 that Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases was published. It is extremely hard to overstate the importance of this book and of Ms Wells, herself. From when I first learned of her, I’ve tried to note this […]

      TRUE HEART RISING Jesus & Ikkyu, Scrooge & Tiny Tim Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer Joseph Priestley Zen Sangha and Empty Moon Zen I was preparing a dharma talk the other day that touched upon the Zen priest and poet Ikkyu Sojun, that antinomian character who, were he Chinese, might well have been referred […]

      And I saw heaven opened, and behold a pale horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Dreams. John’s Apocalypse, the Book of Revelations, that hallucinatory revisioning of Nero’s Rome is a lot of things. Among them a fevered […]

      Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on this day, October 21st, in 1772. He was a member of the Lake Poets, and considered a co-founder with William Wordsworth of the English Romantic Movement. Coleridge is often credited for introducing German Idealism to the English speaking world. Obviously an overstatement. But he is very important. […]

  One year ago today, the 20th of October, 2020, the Amazing Randi died. A loss for us all. I wrote about him some years ago. And I use that reflection as the basis for this remembrance. Randall James Hamilton Zwinge was born in Toronto, Ontario, on the 7th of August, 1928. In later years […]

    On Sunday evening on the 16th of October, 1859, John Brown, American visionary and terrorist, led a small band of men in an assault on Harper’s Ferry. “John Brown was John the Baptist for the Christ we are to see” sang those who saw his Quixotic raid on Harper’s Ferry as the beginning […]

      Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada died in a moment when time ceased to be. It was in 1582 exactly as the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian. And with it ten days vanished, the 5th through the 15th. In this negative time, so did Teresa. We know her as Teresa […]

      Sixty-five years ago, today, the 14th of October, 1965, Dr B. R. Ambedkar shook India when he converted to Buddhism. I try to note the major events of his life. Partially because he deserves to be celebrated. But, also to let people who might not otherwise be aware of him, to know […]

        On the 13th of October, in 1282 the Japanese Buddhist priest, controversialist, and founder, Nichiren died. In 1253 by our common reckoning Nichiren had his realization that the Lotus Sutra was the epitome of all Buddhist teachings. This was a commonly held view. But, he took it one step further, saying […]

      Aleister Crowley was born on this day, October 12th, in 1875. He is one of those figures I visit in this blog from time to time. The last time looks to be five years ago. What follows is an updated version of that last entry. I believe the first time I became […]

    SECOND THURSDAYS WITH JAMES at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles   October through June, 2021, we will be exploring the religions and other related topics that have particularly caught our consulting minister Rev. James Ishmael Ford’s imagination over the years. These conversations are not meant to be comprehensive, but lightly touching […]

      景教 Nestorian Christianity A Survey of materials and scholarship concerning Nestorianism / East-Syriac Christianity in China From the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (shared here with permission of the author) Jeffrey Kotyk (I have a long fascination with the Nestorian mission to China. And the hybridization of that tradition with indigenous Chinese culture […]

    Thor Heyerdahl was born today, the 6th of October, in 1914. it isn’t going to be easy to convey to a current generation just how much his grand adventure could set young hearts beating in the 1950s. In 1947 he and his crew aboard the raft Kon Tiki made it to the reefs […]

  A ZEN MEDITATION ON THE FOUR ABODES James Ishmael Ford When it is stripped to its essentials, I find the good of the Christian religion boils down to one thing. Love. It attempts to bridge the gap between humanity and the pain of humanity and some mysterious force that calls everything together. And that […]

        Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name. Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings […]

        The Dharma Gate of Nonduality Chapter Nine of THE VIMALAKIRTI SUTRA Translated by John R McRae From the Chinese (Taisho Volume 14, Number 475) The Vimalakirti Sutra was composed in Sanskrit possibly sometime in the first century of our common era, certainly by the third century. It records the expositions of […]

          The Indian spiritual and political leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on this day, the 2nd of October, in 1869 in Porbander, a town in present day Gujarat. Later he would universally come to be called Mahatma, or Great Soul. Interestingly, the title originally bestowed by the poet Rabindranath Tagore. […]

      Jalaladin Muhammad Balkhi, the wondrous Jalaladin Rumi was born on this day, the 30th of September, in 1207. I write about him every once in a while. Here, for instance, I devoted a whole dharma talk to him, for instance. In 2007 he got a lot of press as “America’s most beloved […]

  Miguel Serveto, Michael Servetus, was born in the Kingdom of Aragon today, the 29th of September, in 1509. Or, perhaps 1511. His father was from the minor nobility and worked as a notary. He earned both Batchelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Zaragoza. Later he studied law at the University of Toulouse. […]

    Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra was born today, the 29th of September,  in 1547. Or, at least people concerned with these matters, are pretty sure that’s the date. Actually we’re not even certain that was his name. Maybe it was Cerbantes. Maybe he was a New Christian. Or, possibly not. His father was a […]

        I’ve been thinking a lot about religious calendars and the need for a universalist version. People have been working on these for a quite a while. Some are good. Most are not. Reconciling lunar and solar calendars only begins to note the problems. And. One date that definitely would belong is […]

      LEAVING HOME, COMING HOME A Meditation on the Bodhisattva Way James Ishmael Ford Shishuang Chuyuan was once asked by Senior Monastic Quanming, “When does a single hair pierce innumerable holes?” Shishuang said, “Ten thousand years later.” Quanming said, “What will happen ten thousand years later?”Shishuang said, “It is you who will pass […]

  In the churches of the Anglican communion, including the Episcopal church calendar today, the 24th of September is the feast of Our Lady of Walsingham. It commemorates an apparition of Mary, Jesus’ mother, to an English noblewoman at the dawn of the eleventh century. Today they even have a YouTube channel. Me, I’ve always […]

    I’ve been thinking a lot about Traditionalism in religion. Traditionalism is a word with many definitions. It usually speaks to some form of conservativism. It sometimes is associated with right wing political perspectives, and probably always is marked with a privileging of revelation over reason. There is also a spiritual Traditionalist school which […]

      The Three Pillars of Zen is one of those books that mark the establishment of Zen in the West. It was first published in 1965 and has never gone out of print. Three Pillars has now been translated into a dozen languages. And it remains an important part of the canon of […]

      While Edward Bouverie Pusey died on the 16th of September in 1882, and that day is observed as a feast throughout much of the Anglican communion, the feast itself in observed here in America on this day, the 18th of September. I noted this about six years ago. And what follows was […]

          I’m deeply moved by the Serenity Prayer which most of us know through the work of Alcoholics Anonymous. Its deep origins are probably the collective insight of the human condition. The sentiment appears first in English, best we can tell, as a seventeenth century Mother Goose Nursery rhyme. For every […]

      Once upon a time the world honored one was at Vulture Peak. Before a vast crowd of lay practitioners, nuns, and monks, angelic creatures, and even gods, he held up a single flower and twirled it. Of the assembled crowd only the disciple Mahakashyapa, responded, breaking into a wide grin. The Buddha, lord of wisdom, […]

The Ten Ox Herding Pictures (Chinese: shíniú 十牛 , Japanese: jūgyū 十牛図 , korean: sipwoo 십우) are a map of the spiritual journey within the Zen schools. The earliest use of a bull or cow or ox as the self in practice seems to date to the Nikayas, the earliest strata of Buddhist teachings, and […]

      Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioningIf I lack’d anything.“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;Love said, “You shall be he.”“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my […]

      Twenty years.  Hard to imagine. A life time, or certainly near to it. Men and women not yet born have fought and some have died in the conflicts that followed that terrible morning. I remember. The Sunday that followed 9/11 I was expected to preach. Casting about to find something that might […]

    It was on this day, the 8th of September, 1966, that the very first episode of Star Trek, “the Man Trap,” premiered. I came a tad late to the Star Trek thing. I missed pretty much the whole first season. This was the sixties, and my young adulthood, after all. So I wasn’t […]

    I recall reading the introduction to Madam Alexandria David-Neel’s “Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects,” where she was advised by one of her teachers that there was no problem in publishing the secrets. They remain secret unless someone is ready to hear them. Sort of the truth about such things. With that, […]

    How do we throw ourselves whole heartedly into the way? How do we honor that vow? When our very lives are tangled, how do we make our way? When there are people who depend on us, how do we make our way? Another image comes to mind. I was talking with a clerk […]

    In the Episcopal Church today, the 5th of September is marked as a feast day for Bishop Gregorio Aglipay. I’ve always loved that they have a feast day for a Filipino revolutionary, dissident Roman Catholic priest, Independent Catholic bishop, and Unitarian. As those who know me might suspect, he’s just a favorite spiritual […]

    I’ve noticed no one has a “good reason” for embarking on the spiritual quest, whether Zen or any other. Our motives for taking up any spiritual practice are always clouded. After all, in most cases, certainly in our human hearts, motivations are almost always multiply caused. And, sometimes, well, that presenting thing feels […]

    BURNING, BURNING, BURNING, BURNING Zen at the End of a World A Dharma talk at the August 28, 2021 Empty Moon Zen Zazenkai Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer. Guiding teacher at the Joseph Priestley Zen Sangha Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The public works department has been busy here in East Buffalo Township. For reasons that are beyond […]

    In Facebook land I found myself drawn into a conversation about the foundations of the Methodist church. It’s one of those historical tidbits that I find as tempting as much as a cat catching a wiff of catnip. As it happens there is a controversy over whether the Methodist founder John Wesley sought, […]

  THE WORK OF CHANGEA Zen Reflection August 22, 2021 Delivered at theFirst Unitarian Church of Los Angeles James Ishmael Ford I’ve been thinking a lot about changes. And with that the nature of change itself. In the literature of Chinese Buddhism there’s a lovely little story that hints at some of how we can […]

    The scholar Miriam Levering’s article “The Dragon Girl and the Abbess of Mo-Shan: Gender and status in the Ch’an Buddhist tradition” (Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 5, I ( 1982): 19-35) tells us about a recurring theme in the teaching of the Chan master Dahui Zonggao. It is hard to overstate […]

    SONG OF AWAKENING (In traditional Chinese: 證道歌; in simplified Chinese 证道歌; pinyin: Zhèngdào gē; Wade–Giles: Cheng-dao ke; Japanese: Shōdōka; Korean: 증도가; “prove Way song”) The Song is a collection of 64 verses. The article on the Song in Wikipedia describes it as a “Chan discourse written some time in the first half of the 8th […]

  Conspiracy, Trust, and other Faith Stories A dharma talk byDr Chris Hoffat Empty Moon Zen Here we are in Los Angeles as, unfortunately, the pandemic continues to rage on. New mask mandates, rising hospitalizations, and new variants are all in the mix now. I recently heard this new wave described as a “pandemic of […]

  WRAPPED IN SILENCE Mo Myokan Weinhardt Senior Dharma Teacher Empty Moon Zen Last night I begged the Wise One to tell me The secret of the world. Gently, gently he whispered, “Be quiet, The secret cannot be spoken, It is wrapped in silence.” Here we are together, a day and a half deep into […]

  THE EMPTY & THE OPEN Jan Seymour-Ford Senior Dharma Teacher, Empty Moon Zen I’ve been in a very quiet, dark, empty-handed place for a while in my practice, and in my life. So here’s what I’ve been thinking this past week: Oh, crap! I’m supposed to give this dharma talk, and I’ve got nothing. […]

What is Zen? A meditation James Ishmael Ford A few days ago on social media, I wrote what I wanted to be a summation of the Zen way as I understand it. Zen is not about calm nor focus. It does not focus on nothing. Although it does not ignore it, either. Part of the […]

  Carl Gustav Jung was born on this day, the 26th of July, in 1875, in Kesswil, Switzerland. His father was a rural pastor of the Swiss Reformed Church, his mother the child of a prominent clerical and academic family. He would later write how his mother’s mental illness marked him. He would say he […]

      These days I find myself reflecting on the nature of awakening, enlightenment, or, if you will, conversion. For me the great turning is a human thing, some lovely mystery that we are all of us invited to. And many of us in our different cultures and religions seek. And find. But, what […]

    (On Facebook I saw a notice that today was Aitken Roshi’s birthday. The date was a tad more than a month off. But, it sparked a flood of thoughts and gratitude. A couple of years ago I wrote a brief personal appreciation of the old master and appended the “official” obituary from his […]

  WHO WOULD YOU BE BURIED WITH? James Ishmael Ford A voice from the dark called out,‘The poets must give usimagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiarimagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.’But peace, like a poem,is not there ahead of itself,can’t be imagined before it is made,can’t be known exceptin […]

      A poem composed on the occasion of my sixty-ninth birthday. Today on my seventy-third birthday, it continues to hold true… I pity anyone with no regrets Old Zen priest Myoun  

    There’s an old Facebook meme. It goes when I became a Buddhist my family and friends were all worried. But once I became a Buddha everything became okay. Let’s look at that first part. I recall the story of a young woman who joined the San Francisco Zen Center in the very early […]

      ON OPENING THE WAY Foundations of a Spiritual Life Chris Hoff Empty Moon Zen   This was going to be a Dharma talk about the ordinary. But, because of something that happened this past Wednesday. It is now a Dharma talk about the 10,000 things, and gratitude. Let’s start with the 10,000 […]

  One of the people I consistently follow on Facebook is Mushim Patricia Ikeda. She’s a teacher with East Bay Meditation Center and just an all around interesting and wonderful human. One of the things she does on her Facebook page is list “a Buddhist word of the day.” Today she posted “mudita.” Which, interestingly, […]

    Monday mornings we are usually at mom’s house on the slopes of Big Tujunga wash in Tujunga/Sunland. Jan & I have been exploring where best to take walks. The past two times we’ve driven down to the flats, have crossed Foothill Blvd, parked and strolled around on the west side of the boulevard, […]

    (I’ve been thinking a lot about whether there is in fact a universal current within religions. I think the best of scholarship says no. And, yet. As Kobayashi Issa sang at the death of his daughter: This world of dew A world of dew indeed And yet, and yet In my life I’ve met with […]

Some time in the mists of the past, before Covid was a thing, I was invited to be a presenter on a panel sponsored by the Society for Christian Buddhist Studies. It was about being spiritually “in between.” For the most part the panelists were Christian academics specializing in Buddhist studies. All professed to stand […]

    (Being the account of our flight to Pennsylvania and leisurely drive back home to California. Originally posted as entries on Facebook, now gathered together, slightly edited, and with a few photographs, and hotlinks attached for some of the more notable encounters…) June 15, 2021 We’re off on our grand adventure. We are currently winging […]

  Jan & I are on a drive across the country. We’d not allowed enough time and find ourselves more on the road than gawking at things. But, this has its charms, as well… As we were winding our way from the Oklahoma border into the Texas panhandle, having just eaten an astonishingly good Punjabi […]

Water and Light Soaking into the Earth  Seeking a Common Ground for all Religions James Ishmael Ford Guiding teacher, Empty Moon Zen Delivered at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles The Text After ages of practice, the nun Chiyono went out on a full-moon night to draw some water from the well. The bottom […]

  Jalaluddin Rumi is one of the great figures of world spirituality. He was born in what is now Iran in 1207 and died in what is now Turkey in 1273. He was a mystic, a scholar, a poet, and the founder of the Mevlevi Sufi Order, perhaps best known in the West as the […]

    The Disobedience Sutra, the Duty Sutra, and in the End, a Sutra of Interdependence James Ishmael Ford   I’m quite fond of the science fiction cartoon series, Futurama. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it follows the adventures of a late twentieth century Pizza delivery man accidentally frozen and then revived in the thirty-first […]

    Unitarian Universalism has long had a comfortable association with Buddhism. As a radically non-creedal community, approximately ten to fifteen percent of UUs identify as Buddhist.  At this point two Zen priests have served as parish ministers in UU congregations, although in both cases they had trained in conventional western seminaries. In this case […]

      Recently I posted a request for recommendations of a single book on Zen. I put it on a couple of lists to which I belong that are limited to Zen teachers. I added for this query some direct emails to a couple of old hands who don’t have formal titles but are […]

    Mother’s Day. I find myself thinking about my mother now long dead. My auntie, my “junior mother,” more recently dead. And, looming behind their mother, my grandmother. All now among the great cloud of witnesses. A few years ago I wrote a sermon for Mother’s Day. And in it I outlined my experience […]

    Oh my. I can hear him! Right now! The guy who drives through our neighborhood using a bullhorn to announce his one dollar tamales. He’s a recent addition to the neighborhood. And we haven’t yet taken him up on his offer. I love tamales, but there’s a reason they’re often called lard sticks. […]

        THE FLOWING BRIDGE A dharma talk James Ishmael Ford Empty Moon Zen May 1st, 2021   “As I cross the bridge, the bridge flows” From the Miscellaneous koan collection of the Harada Yasutani Zen tradition I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a person of the intimate […]

    Poetry & the Beginner’s Mind Poetry, the beginner’s mind, the kingdom of heaven, & the power of community. Matthew Sherling A sermon delivered at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles April 18, 2021 There was a time in my life when I had to start unlearning all the ideas & beliefs I […]

AMONG THE SNAKES & DRAGONSMind Bubbles on North American Zen Lives in the Twenty-First Century (A bit of a mess. A draft. To be worked on…) James Ishmael Ford “Ordinary people and saints live together. Dragons and snakes all mixed up.” From the Blue Cliff Record, Case 35 Among the various maybes and possibilities of […]

      I’ve been thinking about religion and spirituality. And what those words might mean for us. In my view Merriam-Webster is the great American dictionary. It’s first definition for religion, 1(a) interestingly, describes the state of a person under vows, like a nun.  1(b), probably is what most of us think of as […]

The other day Jan & I made a soup. Mostly collard greens and chopped up andouille sausage. And magic cornmeal dumplings. The creator, or more properly co-creator of the recipe, Aaron Hutcherson freely acknowledges a serious debt to Toni Tipton-Martin, and specifically to a recipe in Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking: […]

    In the Japanese calendar today, the 8th of April is Hanamatsuri. It’s becomes a flower festival honoring the birth of Gautama Siddhartha. The Buddha’s birthday is celebrated at other times in other Buddhist countries. So, a wealth to choose from. Of course that’s because we don’t have a clue about when Gautama Siddhartha […]

    Buddhist Resources for Memorial Services For an overview, you might read the Wikipedia article on Buddhist Funerals.   Resources “When Blossoms Fall: A Zen Guide for Death & Dying” a resource from the San Francisco Zen Center “Funeral Information: Guide to Planning a Buddhist Funeral” a resource from the Fresno Bestuin Buddhist Temple […]

  Every once in a while it’s important to come up with a brief list of books about important subjects. None is more important to me than Zen. Here I hope is a list of a handful of books that can give the reader a very good grounding in Zen Buddhism as it is practiced […]

  Practicing With Householder Koans Dharma Talk given on March 19, 2021 at the Empty Moon Zen Inaugural Zoom Sesshin by the Rev. Janine Seitetsu Larsen Senior Dharma Teacher with the Empty Moon Zen Sangha, and Resident Priest with Bright Cloud Zen practice groups of Seattle & Woodinville, WA   It is good to be […]

  YOUR BEST SEASON A Zen Meditation on Spring Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer Delivered on March 20th, 2012 at Empty Moon Zen‘s Inaugural Zoom Sesshin   Good evening, my name is Edward Keido Sanshin Oberholtzer. I’m the resident priest here at the Joseph Priestley Zen Sangha in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. We’re an affiliate of Empty Moon Zen. […]

  THE ZEN PRACTICE OF KOAN INTROSPECTION A Dharma Talk at Empty Moon Zen‘s Inaugural Zoom Sesshin 20 March 2021 Maureen Myokan Weinhardt Senior Dharma Teacher Empty Moon Zen   The Case Elder Ting asked Lin Chi, “What is the great meaning of the Buddhist Teaching?” Chi came down off his meditation seat, grabbed and […]

      Every once in a while I feel it important to pause and to assess where my heart is, what I believe, what guides me, what sustains me, and what pushes me forward. Hoping, possibly, this current edition of my confession might be of some small help to others on the intimate way. My […]

  I’ve captured these mostly for our small community, but it occurred to me that others might find these videos helpful, as well. I include links to the communities producing the videos. Also, if this subject is of interest, an invaluable resource for Soto Zen liturgy in English is the Soto Zen Scriptures for Daily Service […]

        I have been practicing well past fifty years. My skin is wrinkling. My hair is a different color than it was in my youth and maturity. I’m shorter than I was. And I need to go to the bathroom when I need to go to the bathroom. Admittedly, I still am […]

    I’ve been thinking of late about Zen and the intimate way in the West. It goes in bunches of directions depending on one’s perspective and the perspective of one’s teachers. In Japanese Zen one spends time in the monastery, usually between one and three years, and usually then trundle off to the family […]

    Wuzu said Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. Tell me, who is that other? Gateless Gate, Case 45 This koan is a simple as pie. And as complicated. Wuzu, who has a fondness for this sort of brief, and yet endlessly haunting question, tells the assembly that the Buddha and the Buddha […]

  MYSTERIES OF THE INTIMATE WAY The Zen Priest’s Buddhist Meditation for Valentine’s Day James Ishmael Ford Empty Moon Zen Tomorrow, you may have noticed, is Valentine’s Day. It is well known that this festival is largely the creation of a conspiracy amongst the greeting card association, the national confectioners association, and the national alliance […]

  Today, the 12th of February is Charles Darwin’s birthday. Were he alive he would be two hundred and twelve years old today. Me, I always consider this day one to celebrate. I mark it out most years here on this blog. And it turns out I’m not alone in this wish to celebrate all […]

      Just shy of two weeks ago my spouse suffered a stroke. It was, as such things go, mild. We have every reason to expect a full recovery. But it has left us both shaken. For me, in my meditations, I experienced moments where the various parts of what I think of as […]

    So. What is Zen meditation? We know it is the practice of a Buddhist spiritual tradition that, while it claims Indian roots, seems to have sprung up within the rich soil of ancient China. It has spread and has adapted variations in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. And from these different places, it has […]

OCEANS FLOWING IN YOUR BODYA Communion Hymn James Ishmael Ford Perhaps you’ve noticed. It’s all falling apart. *** The Republic has been shredded. The Empire is quickly overtaken. (You might want to brush up on your Mandarin.) *** Of course, we know this. No center holds forever. The sages sing: everything changes. Icecaps recede. Seas […]

    WHAT ROUGH BEAST The Zen Priest Reflects on the New Year, And Makes Some Resolutions James Ishmael Ford The year 2020, of lamentable memory, is now gone. Happy New Year, 2021! And. New Years are traditionally times to take stock and maybe make some resolutions. In that spirit, I have been considering this […]

    Recalling some of those spiritual leaders who died this past year. Many were figures in that great American spiritual struggle we call the Civil Rights Movement. Their ranks thinning every year. Their work, however, sacrifices and blood, continuing to birth a better world. Others a Buddhist monk, a rabbi and translator, one of […]

        I set my current book project aside for a week. And then today, going back to the introductory section I was letting marinade, I saw how, once again, I was repeating an old habit. Perhaps all theology is autobiography, but one should be careful about over indulgence. And so I cut […]

  A Rohatsu Meditation James Ishmael Ford Zen priest Tom Hawkins once wrote about his pilgrimage to Buddhist India. It’s been a while now. But one passage particularly caught me. And even though it’s been some years, it comes to mind every now and again. Especially today, Rohatsu, the date we mark out to recall […]

  Dionysius’ Three Steps on the Intimate Way James Ishmael Ford I’m currently working on a book outlining the spiritual path, sort of a guidebook of practical mysticism. What follows is a chapter that didn’t really fit the arc of the book, but felt worth sharing. Among the maps of the spirit that have touched […]

    It’s November 27th! And with that, once again, the blessings of the saints Barlaam & Josaphat are upon us! This is flat out my favorite of all Christian holidays. And I like to remind people of the details of this original Christian Buddhist mashup. So, please forgive the repetition parts of this small sharing. […]

    Fifty-seven years ago today, in Dallas, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. It was a lifetime ago. Actually two lifetimes. The parents of adults today were not yet born. Fifty-seven years is a long time. It is so long ago that it is less and less a matter of memory, and more and […]

    A BLESSING WAY James Ishmael Ford IN A BEGINNING In the beginning was light. And dark. In the beginning the cosmos began to unfold within a great explosion. Time and space, galaxies of stars and planets, and a hundred million million other things began to spin into existence. Living. And Dying. At some […]

  Well, the election is at hand. Today the last votes will be cast to determine wether we continue along the path Mr Trump has been cutting. Or, whether we will return to that hesitant and bumpy march toward ever greater justice and care for all of us, which has been the hallmark of our […]

    Kathryn Dawn Lang was born on this day, the 2nd of November, in 1961. Probably she’s better known to us as k.d. lang. An award winning vocalist, said to have the range of mezzo-soprano, she is also a Buddhist, and did one of my favorite covers of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I appreciate the […]

    Out near where my mother in law lives there’s a church “All Saint’s Lutheran.” They also sport a directional sign for parking. It reads “This way for All Saints.” And appended under that, “And sinners, too…” It never fails to make me smile. And. Today is the feast of all saints. It the […]