Not long ago on one of my Facebook groups where people gather to gas about Buddhism someone posted the question “how can a fat person be a Zen teacher?” I admit I didn’t feel like following the thread so I can’t report back on that little subset of people who like Facebook, think about fat and human beings, while also having an interest in Buddhism and Zen, came down on the subject. Me, I’d suggest... Read more
SESSHIN To Touch the HeartMind An Intensive Zen Meditation Retreat From Thursday Evening the 1st of February, 2018 Through Eleven a.m. Sunday, the 4th At Harwood Lodge Mt Baldy Road, Mt Baldy, CA 91759 This retreat will be led by Gesshin Greenwood, Sensei & James Myoun Ford, Roshi Assisted by Jan Seiryu Seymour-Ford Gesshin Greenwood is a Soto Zen Buddhist priest. She trained at Toshoji and the Aichi Senmon Nisodo, in Japan and at Green... Read more
There have been any number of good blogs by Zen practitioners over the years. Sadly, like all things made of parts, they have come and gone. However, right now at the dawn of 2018, here in the West there are a handful of good blogs by people who for the most part have lived deeply into the Zen way, and all of whom have something worth saying. I certainly don’t agree with everything written on these... Read more
Original Awakening is central to the Zen Way. From one angle, original awakening, from another sunyata, from still another the one, or the great empty. The mystery that is our being. It is the wondrous proclamation that we are all of us connected, and that our true heritage is awakening. There are critiques of original awakening asserting that it is antinomianism, that is it teaches no morality. Which I note are pretty much the same criticisms against early Nineteenth Century... Read more
What is Enlightenment? Zen & the Nature of Awakening James Ishmael Ford 31 December 2017 Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church Costa Mesa, California Text We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Little Gidding It was sometime in 1969. I had been living in a Zen monastery in Oakland, California... Read more
Scott Carey’s concluding monologue from the Incredible Shrinking Man, screenplay and book by Richard Matheson goes: “So close – the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet – like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God’s silver tapestry spread across... Read more
The Importance of Kensho Hakuin Ekaku (Translation by Philip Yampolsky) At present, we are infested in this country with a race of smooth-tongued, worldly-wise Zen teachers who feed their students a ration of utter nonsense. “Why do you suppose Buddha-patriarchs through the ages were so mortally afraid of words and letters?” they ask you. “It is,” they answer, “because words and letters are a coast of rocky cliffs washed constantly by vast oceans of... Read more
Not long ago a younger colleague, a Zen teacher whom I admire, asked me what I mean when I use that word “awakening.” It has become something of a challenge for me to try and express this thing, or, really, not exactly a “thing,” this moment, this perspective, this stance within this passing world in a way that might be useful to people. And so I’ve made a commitment to preach a sermon to a crowd of Unitarian... Read more
My friend the old Zen hand Stephen Slottow while researching for something else stumbled on a lovely archive of materials by and about Brigitte D’Orschy. He shared it with me. A German national, D’Ortschy was an architect, journalist, and translator. And, more importantly from my perspective, a Zen teacher, a lay master in the Sanbo Zen sangha. Sadly, she is not well known here in North America. I would like to help change that. And... Read more
Yamada Mumon was one of the great modern Rinzai Zen masters. A friend recently pointed me to this video. I think it worth eight minutes of your time. Read more
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