Holding the Lotus to a Rock: Boundless Way Zen Leadership Gathers in Worcester

Last updated on: April 10, 2017 at 12:40 pm By James Ford

The Boundless Way Zen network’s leadership circle gathered this past weekend in Worcester, Massachusetts, for our third annual meeting. We currently have sixteen teachers. Ten hold one of our forms of Dharma transmission including the four roshis, three senseis, and three dharma holders. We also include our six senior dharma teachers, who while not dharma successors, all have permission, with guidance, to give talks and most importantly to provide practice interviews including supervising koan introspection. So, while the roshis and... Read more

Zen and the Four Commitments: A Small Meditation

Last updated on: April 8, 2017 at 4:14 pm By James Ford

In 1993, a hundred years after the renowned World Parliament of Religions met in Chicago a second parliament gathered. The highlight for many was an address by the Dalai Lama. And certainly a worthy thing. For me, however, the most important thing to come out of that gathering was a document, “Towards a Global Ethic.” The principal author was the Roman Catholic priest and scholar Hans Kung. Father Kung is something of a controversial figure within his church, I once heard... Read more

Mysteries of the Soul

Last updated on: April 8, 2017 at 3:54 am By James Ford

If we’re not bewildered by the mysteries of the soul, we’re not thinking clearly, to paraphrase the scrawling on the subway walls. For the soul’s mysteries compress the most profound mythic questions that have always intrigued human beings: Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go when we die? But there is some consolation built into consternation, as the Sufi mystic Mevlana Rumi knew when he wrote seven centuries ago that “Bewilderment is intuition.” From... Read more

William Ellery Channing: The Reluctant Radical

Last updated on: April 6, 2017 at 6:58 pm By James Ford

William Ellery Channing was born on this day in 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island. I try to acknowledge this every year. He is one of the more important people in my own spiritual life. William Ellery Channing was the grandchild of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. As a child Channing attended with his family an extremely conservative congregation led by the Reverend Samuel Hopkins. Dr Hopkins was a strict Calvinist who preached the utter depravity of... Read more

A New Zen Teacher in Town! Welcoming Diane Shoshin Fitzgerald Sensei

Last updated on: April 5, 2017 at 2:38 pm By James Ford

It is with great pleasure we announce that, late in the night of March 17, 2017, the Reverend Melissa Myozen Blacker, Roshi, gave Dharma Transmission to the Reverend Diane Shoshin Fitzgerald, at a traditional private ceremony at Boundless Way Temple, in Worcester, Massachusetts. The ceremony of Denbo transmission within the Soto and Harada/Yasutani Zen lineages was witnessed by other teachers of the community. Shoshin Sensei is the second full successor to Myozen Roshi. Following this Shoshin Sensei has been voted... Read more

Happy Birthday to the City of Angels

Last updated on: April 4, 2017 at 12:55 pm By James Ford

Of course trying to name the beginning of a city is a pretty hard thing. And for Los Angeles, it really is pick your preference. Humans appear to have been in the area for the last eleven thousand years. The Chumash were principally in the Santa Barbara area ranging down to modern day Ventura, but well may have had an outpost or two within the bounds of what we call Los Angeles. The Tongva peoples lived directly in the basin,... Read more

A Feast for Martin

Last updated on: April 4, 2017 at 6:41 am By James Ford

It was today, the 4th of April, in 1968, that the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was shot while standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. After the police and FBI arrived, during all the confusion, people running around, agents trying to get a handle on what had happened, one agent informed his superior on a walkie-talkie how he just heard Coretta Scott King say that Martin’s dream would never die.... Read more

Soul Men: Gordon Tappan, James Hillman, and My Foray Into Archetypal Psychology

Last updated on: April 3, 2017 at 7:57 am By James Ford

I’m futzing around with a memoir. Probably nothing that will ever be published, but at this moment in my life I see it as an opportunity to reflect back and consider. A privilege of aging. This is one passage about one mentor and something of how he marked my life. I began taking classes at Sonoma State University, studying psychology while Jan finished up some general education requirements at several local community colleges. I was working close to full time... Read more

Following the Scented Flowers: A Small Meditation on a Zen Koan

Last updated on: April 2, 2017 at 6:56 am By James Ford

One day Changsha went off to wander in the mountains. When he returned, the temple director met him at the gate and asked, “So, where have you been?” Changsha replied, “I’ve been strolling about in the hills.” “Which way did you go?” “I went out following the scented grasses and came back chasing the falling flowers.” The director smiled. “That’s exactly the feeling of spring.” Changsha, agreed, adding, “It’s better than autumn dew falling on lotuses.” Blue Cliff Record, Case... Read more

A Feast for John Donne

Last updated on: March 31, 2017 at 7:52 am By James Ford

John Donne was born in London on the 22nd of January, 1573 and died on this day, the 31st of March, in 1631. His family were recusant Roman Catholics. He studied at Cambridge but was not awarded a degree as he could not take the oath of supremacy, which included acknowledging the sovereign as head of the church. Donne then read the law, and was admitted to the bar. Rather than take up a practice he traveled through Europe giving... Read more