One of my all time favorite images from an American Zen center is this one. It comes from the Brooklyn Zen Center. They’re a Soto Center in the Branching Streams collective of centers in the Shunryu Suzuki lineage. I’ve loved that picture since the first time I saw it. It raises hopes in my heart. I hope you like it, too. I think it points to something possible, a promise of something. And there it sat. However, then this past... Read more
Jan and I went to see Wonder Woman Sunday afternoon. Because of the buzz, and the opening weekend rush, we pre-purchased tickets at one of the new crop of theaters featuring barcaloungers, and, critically, assigned seating. As we settled into the clips announcing forthcoming films especially curated to accompany the film, I began to feel slightly anxious. Lots and lots of things blowing up. Which, hey, I’m a guy, I do like. But, often blowing things up becomes a substitute... Read more
COME, HOLY SPIRIT, COME! A Universalist Meditation for Pentecost James Ishmael Ford 4 June 2017 Unitarian Universalist Church Long Beach, California One of the lovelier things that can happen for a writer is when something they’ve composed takes on a life of it’s own. In my Unitarian Universalist life this has in fact happened twice. Maybe twenty years ago I wrote a little piece called “An Invitation to Western Buddhists.” It was basically a suggestion that convert Buddhists who were... Read more
Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler is one half with his brother Hondo Dave Rutschman, of the blogging team No Zen in the West. I consider that blog one of a handful of seriously important Zen Buddhist blogs out on the inter webs right now. On the first of this month Jiryu wrote a piece called What Real Buddhist Should Do. His thesis is simple. I quote. “…if you don’t get interdependence, and if you don’t hear the call to enact, live out, and... Read more
For those among my friends who do not know, I am working on my next book, a study of Zen meditation with a focus on koan introspection. The following was deemed by my editor as not precisely on point for the book. Like much of what I write, apparently. However, thanks to my having a blog you can determine for yourself whether it has some merit on its own. I have added in a few things, and expanded on a... Read more
Rick Fields‘ name has popped up in conversations among various friends of late. I’m glad he is remembered. He died just ahead of the millennium only fifty-seven years old. However, he left us a legacy, books, essays, poetry. Much of it I cherish. Most notably he wrote the magisterial How the Swans Came to the Lake, the first attempt at a compressive history of Zen come West. It will not be the last word, but, it was pretty much the first.... Read more
It appears that it was on this day in 455 that two and a half months into his reign the Western emperor Petronius Maximus was fleeing the Vandal assault on Rome when an angry mob overtook him, stoned him, hacked up his body, and threw the remains into the Tiber. I think of it as a minor holiday… Read more
This past Sunday was quite eventful. First, the Long Beach Unitarian Universalist Church celebrated its annual music Sunday. The house band, the choir, and singers (a separate group), all led by the acting music director, gave full throat to a sweet gathering. We may not have been quite the near professional program I was used to in New England, but it was compelling. More like the family presenting than anything else. Sweet. Sweet. And, then I was invited to share... Read more
As it happens it was seventy-four years ago on this day, the 29th of May, in 1943, that Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter graced the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. A bunch of years later it would inspire this sermon… A MEDITATION ON ROSIE THE RIVETER The Divine Feminine and Liberal Religion and a Vision for a New World 8 November 2009 James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text The spirit of God has sent... Read more
A while back I posted on my blog a note about the anniversary of the convening of the council now called Nicea I. I opined how this could be seen as the end of the glorious mess that was early Christianity as the emperor Constantine began to remake the Christian church in his own image. One of the commentators at the blog opined that he saw some parallels between this and the creation of an organization of Soto Zen clergy in... Read more
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