Araminta Ross was born a slave somewhere around 1820 in Maryland. One of vastly too many. Her life was brutal. At one time when one of her owners threw a heavy weight at another slave while she tried to intervene, she was accidentally hit. She would suffer spells of dizziness and pain […]

    There are lots of different reasons people are called saints. Some die witnesses for their faith. They’re called saints in lots of official calendars. Others live lives of extreme privation as examples. There are a number of them in those lists. Others just claim it for themselves and their co-religionists. But, for me, […]

        “When we begin to practice, I think our concepts and notions of enlightenment are formed by what drives us to practice. Some of us believe we’re special, or we want to be special. Some of us want to be free of suffering. Some of us want life to make sense. I […]

      I find myself thinking of the late popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould. Today, the 10th of September, he would have turned seventy-eight. If he’d not died in 2002. A while back when preparing for a talk I became obsessed with finding a half remembered citation from him. However, after decades of […]

    Wherein the Zen teacher James Myoun Ford picks at a koan, wanders around, gets confused about who founded Calvinism, has a musical interlude, and finally brings it all home.

It was on this day, the 7th of September, in 1911 that Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested under suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa. A classic example of the dangers of being an ironist in literalist times. Apollinaire was a renowned critic, poet, pornographer and the man who coined the term “surrealism” as well as “cubism.” He […]

      I wrote this a couple of years ago. Noting how this is the 29th anniversary of Issan Dorsey’s death on the 6th of September, 1990, I think it worth sharing again.    Tommy Dorsey, Jr, was born on the 7th of March, 1933, in Santa Barbara. The youngest of ten, he was […]

      The Poetry of Mysticism: Or, Mrs Underhill’s Foray into Universalist Mysticism Evelyn Underhill (Being the second part of her Introduction to Rabindranath Tagore’s translation, with her assistance, of the poetry of Kabir, very slightly edited.) The poetry of mysticism might be defined on the one hand as a temperamental reaction to the […]

      As I write this it was seventy-five years and two days ago that Paris was liberated from Nazi occupation. I noted this anniversary on my Facebook page along with a link to a contemporary newsreel. A friend mentioned as a comment that if we had Amazon Prime, we might want to watch […]

      The Hindu saint Ramakrishna was born on this day, the 16th of August, in 1836. He looms large in my spiritual biography. My father was a ne’re-do-well, who kept our little family moving from one town to the next, frequently just ahead of the law. And, occasionally, not just ahead. The sole […]

    In Japan today, the 15th of August, is marked as a time to celebrate the life of the second founder of Soto Zen in that country, Keizan Jokin. Seems important to me. Keizan was born on the 13th of November, 1264 and died on the 22nd of September. His mother was a devote […]

      It’s official. Smokey the Bear turned Seventy-five today. Happy birthday! And, in honor of the occasion here’s Gary Snyder’s classic poem “Smokey the Bear Sutra.”   SMOKEY THE BEAR SUTRA Gary Snyder Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago, the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite Void […]

      It was today, the 8th of August, 1974, that Richard Nixon went before the country and announced his resignation effective the following day.

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving It doesn’t matter Ours is no caravan of despair Come. Even if you have broken your vow a hundred times Come. Come. Yet again, come. attributed to Jalaluddin Rumi DIVING DEEP: A Zen Sesshin 19-22 September, 2019 at Pine Mountain Zen Monastery Thursday evening until noon on Sunday You are […]

I just saw a meme on Facebook that reads “Tradition: peer pressure from the dead.” I smiled. And then it made think a moment. And from that another frame: “Tradition: best practices from our ancestors.” Of course tradition, as valuable as it can be, must be balanced. I’m taken with a reframing of Richard Hooker’s […]

      It was on this day, the 2nd of August, in 1343 that the French nobleman Oliver de Clisson was convicted of treason and beheaded. His head was hung on the gates of Paris. Many saw the trial something trumped up, and the conviction and execution an act of injustice for which the […]

      Some Hasty Notes on the Western Encounter with Buddhism & Specifically Zen in the West (A gathering of newer and older reflections collected for a larger project, but something I thought possibly of use to others as it stands.) James Myoun Ford Buddhism is a missionary religion. It has a “good news” […]

      Six Markers of a Modernist Buddhism James Myoun Ford Buddhisms, Ancient & Modern There I was, on Facebook, when I was pointed to an article that purported to compare “traditional” Buddhism with “secular” Buddhism. The author appeared to belong to a Traditionalist school of one sort or another, and, interestingly, to me, […]

      The very generous folk at New World Library have just gifted me with a copy of Zen: A Short Introduction With Illustrations by the Author. I guess its one of the perks that come when someone gets confused for a moment and thinks I might be an “Influencer” in the Zen Buddhist […]

        Tafari Makonnen was born on this day, the 23rd of  July, in 1892. In 1930 would assume the throne of Ethiopia as the Emperor Haile Selassie I. Through the vagaries of mysterious karma, and possibly at least in part to the royal family’s claim to be descendent from the biblical Queen […]

    As it happens, it was today, the 18th of July, 1992 that the first picture was posted to the World Wide Web. The image was of Les Horribles Cernettes, Angela Higney, Michele de Gennaro, Colette Marx-Neilsen, and Lynn Veronneau. And here is the picture. The group was, according to Wikipedia, “an all-female parody […]

        The story that forms this sermon is inspired by a tale recounted in Simons Roof’s Journeys on the Razor-Edged Path. From that place I try to outline the arc of a spiritual life.

            Of course today is Bastille Day. And a tip of the hat to that revolution marked by the storming of the prison in 1789. It is also the anniversary of another uprising of sorts, a counter riot to the spirit of that revolution which also took place on the […]

  By calculations noted at good old Wikipedia today, the 13the of July, marks the conclusion of the siege of Jerusalem and its sacking by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian army. As the actual year isn’t precisely certain, it could be 597 before our common era or maybe 596, I’m not especially comfortable dating it precisely beyond saying […]

    It was on this day, the 10th of July, 1871, that Valentin Louis Georges Eugene Marcel Proust was born in Paris. His was a well to do family, his father Catholic, his mother Jewish. It is said that as he aged, Proust became “an atheist and was something of a mystic.” I rather […]

    So, my old friend in the dharma, the Zen teacher Dosho Port send me a note saying how he enjoyed my retelling the koan like parable of the laborers in the Vineyard, noting how it reminded him of the traditional koan “Sushan’s Memorial Tower.” And. Well. One thing leads to another. And. Here’s […]

  According to a story we like to tell, two hundred and forty-three years ago our republic was born. Of course, like all stories, at least the good ones, dig in a bit and it’s actually, always more complicated. We were founded by people who didn’t like they way things were, nor who was in charge. […]

  Not Knowing (retold from the Blue Cliff Record, Case 1, by James Ishmael Ford) Once upon a time long ago and far away the Emperor was visited by the Sage Awakened Way. The Emperor had converted to the intimate way, well as converted as one can and still remain an emperor. And he had […]

    The Sage Wonderful & the Vineyard A Zen Priest Retells an Ancient Koan James Ishmael Ford Once upon a time long ago and far away there was a carpenter named Wonderful. He was also a sage who had a following among the poorer members of his community. One day just as he was […]

    Today,  the 26th of June, 2019, Jan Seymour-Ford and I have been married thirty-seven years. Thirty-seven is a prime number, one of several special kinds of prime numbers. That’s nice. It’s the atomic number for rubidium, an element with which I was not previously familiar. Although it turns out to be the twenty-third […]

        LOVE ENCOUNTERS A WORLD ON FIRE The Buddhist & Unitarian Universalist Encounter & A New Universalism James Ishmael Ford Text “Buddhism is now an accepted path within Unitarian Universalist circles, and each year more people are discovering the value of Buddhist spiritual practices and the holistic Buddhist view of life. At […]

        Just a head’s up. The Zen priest Seigaku Amato is doing some very interesting work illustrating aspects of the Zen life. You might want to go visit his site. I believe he’s updating it regularly…

      The immortal James Weldon Johnson was born on this day, the 17th of June, in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida. Me, I think of him as one of those wonderful examples where genius rises despite astonishing obstacles. Against a backdrop of terrible racism and bigotry he wove a life. James Weldon Johnson’s writings included the Autobiography […]

      DREAMING OUR FATHERS A Meditation 16 June 2019 James Ishmael Ford Unitarian Universalist Church in Anaheim At this point in my ministerial life, actually in my life, it is a rare subject of continuing interest to me that I haven’t addressed in a sermon, or blog posting, or article in some journal […]

  John Eaton Calthorpe Blofeld died on this day, the 7th of June, in 1987. He would become an important early interpreter of both Zen and Tibetan Buddhism to the West. His mature life practice was within the Vajrayana tradition as an initiate of the Nyingma tradition. Blofeld was born into a middle class family […]

    An Ox Looks at Man They are more delicate even than shrubs and they run and run from one side to the other, always forgetting something. Surely they lack I don’t know what basic ingredient, though they present themselves as noble or serious, at times. Oh, terribly serious, even tragic. Poor things, one […]

Beyond Measure Meets a Fox Anaheim Zen Sangha Empty Moon Zen Network James Myoun Ford   Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there was a nun. After she left her master’s community and wandered for a time meeting other teachers of the intimate way, she settled at the ruin of a monastery […]

      The wondrous Walt Whitman was born was born on the 31st of May, 1819, two hundred years ago today. An American Daoist Sage before anyone heard the phrase, an American Zen Master before anyone knew the word… “This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise […]

      American politician, San Francisco City Supervisor, and civil rights activist, Harvey Milk was born on this day in 1930. I note this annually. It’s important. He would have been eighty-nine today. However, in 1978 he was assassinated together with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. The reasons were complicated. Although the precipitating event […]

  Me, I love saints. There are a ton of saints in the Roman & Orthodox calendars. Originally, in their corner of the Reformation, the Anglicans stripped their calendar down dramatically. Although they’ve been enriching it in very interesting ways over the last couple of hundred years. Saints, well, they have a way of popping up […]

  IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD, AND ONE OF ANOTHER A Meditation on Covenant as Spiritual Practice Among Unitarian Universalist Congregations James Ishmael Ford Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Anaheim 19 May 2019 Text …

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, […]

      On this day, May 14th, 1878. that the last trial on a charge of witchcraft was initiated in an American court. Somewhat awkwardly for all concerned, the case was heard in Salem, Massachusetts. Lucretia Brown of Ipswich, Massachusetts was a life long invalid. At the age of fifty she embraced Christian Science […]

    Happy birthday, Gary! He once sang to us: Ah to be alive on a mid-September morn fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up, holding boots, pack on, sunshine, ice in the shallows, northern rockies. Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes cold nose dripping singing […]

    Zen Meditation: A Quick Outline of Silent Illumination by Barry Farrin Forest Way Zen (Barry Ferrin is a Zen teacher in the Diamond Sangha tradition, a dharma successor to my dharma sibling Subhana Barzaghi. He leads the Forest Way Zen community in Doonan, Queensland, in Australia.) I am posting this brief paper so […]

    WHY CINCO DE MAYO MATTERS A Meditation on the Places In Between Places James Ishmael Ford   Today is Cinco de Mayo. It’s one of our more peculiar civic holidays. Out on the inter webs, if you’re moving in circles similar to mine, you’re probably inundated with memes and video clips all making […]

    I’ve admired Maia Duerr for ages. She’s a long time Zen practitioner, a trained anthropologist, keen observer of the human condition, one time executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and an all around good human being. She’s also smart as a whip. And thinks about important things, as well as putting the fruit […]

      I have a friend. Sometimes I refer to him as a Dharma Bum. What he really is, is a spiritual pilgrim. A little like Elijah he often appears when he is needed, shares a word, often a just right word, and is gone.” He is one of the wisest of my friends. […]

  With all his heart Zhaozhou asked his teacher Nanquan, “What is the way?” Nanquan replied, “Ordinary mind is the way.” Zhaozhou pushed, “Should I direct myself toward it, or not?” Nanquan responded, “If you try to turn toward it, you betray your practice.” Frustrated, Zhaozhou asked, “How can I understand the way if I […]

      Alan Watts is one of this most interesting of figures. He was one of the principals introducing Zen Buddhism to the West. And, nearly single handedly introduced a vision of Zen that reinterprets the original of East Asia, ignoring or downplaying critical aspects of the tradition. It should not be surprising he […]

          Once Upon a Time There Was a Queen Named Love James Ishmael Ford I’ve been thinking a lot about stories as windows into the spiritual life. One that is terribly important to me is the story of Gautama Siddhartha. It is a story that has been told and retold. What […]

  One of my favorite books is the Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton. That slender volume recounts some of the teachings of the desert fathers and mothers, Christian monastics in the fourth and fifth centuries within the Egyptian deserts. These are stories that on occasion recall the sayings and actions of the Chan […]

        A Zen Priest’s Argument With the Argument from Design A Bit of a Meander on Why I Don’t Believe What I Don’t, and Why I Do Believe What I Do, Concluding with a Call to Something. James Myoun Ford A Facebook friend who I really like is currently on a family […]

      I find myself thinking a lot about us as human beings. In the great swirl of things, looking at how we exist in this world, and what evils we are capable of, it is hard to see us as basically good. But, also I don’t see we’re unrelentingly evil. Clearly we have […]

      A couple of years ago I wrote a reflection on Zen’s precepts as koans. Okay, it’s a subject I return to with some regularity. And the subject has come to mind, or, maybe has come to heart again. We are talking about the mysterious matter of who and what we are. And, […]

        “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” Marcus Aurelius “For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, […]

    It is true that I do not believe in a deity with some human like consciousness messing about in history. And, at the same time, throughout my life I’ve stumbled into such serendipitous events that calling those moments evidence of a good god is totally understandable. At least if you’re not holding too […]

Your Moment of Zen  Exploring the Meaning of a Word James Myoun Ford A Talk Delivered at the Inaugural of the Anaheim Zen Sangha A member community of the Empty Moon Zen Network 6 April, 2019 As is my wont I was rummaging around the interwebs exploring how people use and, okay, sometimes abuse the […]

    I love, love LA. It is a world city. It is decadent, holy, dirty, visionary, mean, and glorious. Trying to find the beginning of a city is an impossible task. Los Angeles is a perfect example. Humans have been in the area for the last eleven thousand years. Give or take. The Chumash, […]

    You find yourself in a stone crypt. There are no windows. The sole door is locked from the outside. How are you free? Miscellaneous Koans of the Harada Yasutani Curriculum   I find myself thinking of Herschel Schacter. He was a leader of the Modern Orthodox movement who died in 2013. But we […]

            A time to recall the human adventure.   And…   Of course, there are the classics. And, a lesser known follow up.

        Charlotte Joko Beck was born on this day, March 27th, in New Jersey, in 1917. Sadly, I can say little more about her early life. She attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and spent some years as a pianist and piano teacher. She married. They had four children. After separating from her […]

The Calling of Our Bones: Zen in a Handful of Quotes & Poems James Myoun Ford “Zen pretty much comes down to three things — everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.” Jane Hirshfield “Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting that they pass away.” Robert Aitken The first […]

    The Western church celebrates today as the feast of St Dismas, the name that has been attached in the story of the two thieves who died with Jesus for the “good” one. In the story as we receive it actually the thief has no name. We no longer live in a biblically literate […]

    Clara Estelle Breed was born on this day, the 19th of March, in 1906, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. At her father’s death when she was fourteen the family located to San Diego. After she earned her master’s in Library Science she began a more than forty-year career within the San Diego library system. […]

Another under appreciated saint due to having to share the date with a super saint, is St Gertrude of Nivelles, whose feast is today, the 17th of March. Gertrude was a seventh century nun and abbess, and has become the patron of gardeners and most importantly of cats. Be sure to scratch a cat’s ears […]

      I was wandering around the interwebs when I found myself returning once again to the Sotoshu website, the site for the Japanese Buddhist church from which my own practice and ordinations derive. In the section titled “What is Sotoshu” I found an interesting summation of spiritual texts upon which the school relies. […]

Por Pablo Correa para IGC. Esta es una traducción del volante “The Faith of a Unitarian Universalist Buddhist” de James Ishmael Ford, quien sirve actualmente como ministro de la Iglesia Unitaria Universalista de Anahein en California, y profesor acompañante de Empty Moon Zen Network. James recuenta su historia cristiana, budista y unitaria universalista, y cómo […]

As it happens today is Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s eighty-sixth birthday. Not one of those days normally celebrated. But, that acknowledged, a day I hope we will take note of. Joan Ruth Bader was born on this day, thee 15th of March, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the second child and second daughter of […]

        Jean Louis Kerouac, or maybe it was Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was born to a French-Canadian family in Lowell, Massachusetts, on this day, the 12th of March, in 1922. Of course, we know him as Jack Kerouac. The Wikipedia article on Kerouac gives us a pretty good summation of the person […]

          It was on this day, the 11th of March, in 1984 that Rinzai Zen master Soen Nakagawa died at Ryutakuji monastery in Japan. I shared this last year. Felt appropriate to offer it again. In my study of Zen come West, Zen Master Who? I wrote about him. Through his […]

    I was recently a bystander on a Facebook thread about being Buddhist and Christian. My name was raised as an example of someone, how shall we say, “spiritually fluid.” A lovely term coined by Duane Bidwell, a professor at Claremont School of Theology, Presbyterian minister, and long time Buddhist practitioner. I raised my […]

        I wrote this a couple of years ago. I think it worth sharing again.  Tommy Dorsey, Jr, was born on the 7th of March, 1933, in Santa Barbara. The youngest of ten, he was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. He dropped out of college and joined the Navy, only to […]

    Maurine Stuart was born on this day, the 3rd of March, 1922. I wrote of her in my book Zen Master Who: Maurine Stuart, one of the first female Zen masters in America, was also one of the first to give Zen a Western face. Maurine was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1922. In […]

      Once again those lovely Episcopalians have come through when it counts. On this day in their liturgical calendar, the 20th of February, they celebrate the life and work of Frederick Douglass as a feast for a saint. While I tend to prefer to acknowledge special and holy people on their birthdays the […]

      It was today in 1943 when the Nazis began to arrest the members of the White Rose. This small group of German students and their professor had been posting leaflets denouncing the Nazi regime. They had succeeded in printing and posting six before they were arrested. A few days after the arrests, Sophie […]

Sesshin An Intensive Zen Meditation Retreat Opening Doors to the Mysteries of the Heart Led by James Myoun Ford, Roshi Assisted by Janine Seitetsu Larsen, Senior Dharma Teacher. Jan Seiryu Seymour-Ford, Senior Dharma teacher, and others… When: Thursday, May 23 through Sunday, May 26 Where: Camp Huston Conference Center, 14725 Ley Road, Gold Bar WA 98251 You Will: Arrive at 4 […]

    “Make of yourself a light” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal-a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old man, he lay down between two sala […]

          It is possible you may have noticed that today 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 of floral associations. I’m pretty sure we have a solid paper […]

I’ve shared these points before. But, they seem worth returning to every now and again. A little Zen perspective on living a spiritual life here in the West. First, it counsels getting over various things that are not actually helpful. Then it suggests some ways to see the world and ourselves that maybe has some […]

      “Paradoxical Intervention, Reverend Billy, Sanctuary, Universalism, Etc.” A Paper Delivered at the 117th Gathering of the Fraters of the Wayside Inn, Sudbury, MA, on 29 January 2019 Frater John Gibbons  (printed with permission of the author) I begin by reminding you of what you already know:  the Prior assigns the topics of the […]

        I’m going to be preaching at the UU church in Fullerton this Sunday, and found myself searching for the source of a half recalled illustration. I realized it almost certainly came from the late popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould. Now, I have to admit I’ve never held a book in […]

        A Chikuto Landscape Glenn Taylor Webb   In classical Chinese landscape paintings, made for nearly 1000 years, the humans depicted in the paintings often are tiny as ants compared to the vast mountains and valleys they are in. Certainly that comparison is true to life. But the paintings teach another truth: […]

      “My religion is kindness.” 14th Dalai Lama Today, the 28th of January, is the anniversary of King John Sigismund’s Edict of Torda, promulgated in 1579. It established the right of ministers to preach the gospel as they best understood it, and, as well, for congregants to reserve their own opinions in these […]

    The Buddha’s Last Instruction by Mary Oliver “Make of yourself a light” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal-a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old […]

        According to Matthew Ciolek’s Zen Buddhist Calendar today is the birthday of Su Tung-p’o. The listing noted he was an esteemed if controversial bureaucrat, lay Buddhist practitioner, and poet. I thought that interesting enough to look a bit further. Wikipedia says Professor Ciolek’s dates are wrong, marking his birth as the […]

            Once upon a time there were sixteen bodhisattvas. It was bath day and they entered the waters together. Simultaneously they all realized the cause of water. They called out as one voice, “This marvelous touch has illuminated all things. We have reached that place where the daughters and sons […]

      As it turns out Rick McDaniel has a new book coming out, The Story of Zen. And he invited the Zen teacher Dosho Port to write an afterword for it. Always looking for the easier way Port Roshi posted a query to Facebook asking what any of his Zen friends might consider […]

        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 […]

          On the Utter, Complete, Total Ordinariness of Mu James Myoun Ford Empty Moon Zen (a version of this talk is published in The Book of Mu) The Case A monk asked Chao-chou, “Has the dog Buddha nature or not?” Chao-chou said, “Mu.” Wu-Men’s Comment For the practice of Zen it […]

    Alexander Hamilton was born on this day, the 11th of January, in 1755, or, maybe it was 1757 in the British West Indies… He would go on to be chief of staff to General George Washington, founder of America’s financial system, a principal author of the Federalist Papers, founder of the US Coast […]

    Traditionally we mark today, then 10th of January, in the 49th year before our common era as the day that Julius Caesar crossed the river Rubicon. Suetonius says that as his army began to cross Caesar declared, “Alea iacta est!” The die has been cast… It has come to be a common enough […]

          I find myself thinking of folk religions today. And especially I’m reminded in the moment of  Santa Muerte, Saint Death, or Holy Death, or most formally Our Lady of the Holy Death. I’ve written of her before, and I’m drawing on some earlier thoughts here gathered together with some thoughts […]

    In the Christian calendar, at least some forms of it, today is the Feast of the Epiphany, or Three King’s Day. Some years ago my spouse Jan and I were talking about that hymn associated with the feast of the epiphany, “We Three Kings,” when she shivered and shared her recollection of that […]

    The eve of the eve of a new year. Noticing how time really does pass through that glass quickly. And. I notice that it was on this day, the 30th of December in 1916 that Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was killed by a small group of assassins. There’s a small connection for me. Many […]

          In our bathroom we have a small picture of Shide, co-conspirator on the matters of the heart with the poet Hanshan. I found it in a small antique shop in Seal Beach a lot of years ago. Sadly, they didn’t have the companion image of the old boy himself. On […]

    Of the various stories of the Christian tradition I am profoundly taken by the Christmas story in its various parts. And, of those contemporary images of Mary & Joseph on their way to that manger, this one by Everett Pattersen, with it many layers is my favorite. Of course in this time of […]

  Gutei’s Finger The Gateless Gate, Case 3 Translated by Nyogen Senzaki & Paul Reps First Published in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones Together with Nyogen Senzaki’s commentaries, First published in Eloquent Silence The Case: Whenever he was asked a question about Zen, Gutei raised his finger. A young attendant began to imitate him. When anyone asked […]

        A NOTE ON GASSHO AND BOWING Taizan Maezumi Roshi with John Daishin Buksbazen Visitors to the Zen Center often ask about the gassho and about bowing. What, they inquire, is the meaning of these gestures? Why are they done? And why is it necessary to do them so precisely and uniformly? These questions deserve […]