There was an old woman who supported a hermit. For twenty years she always had a girl, sixteen or seventeen years old, take the hermit his food and wait on him. One day she told the girl to give the monk a close hug and ask, “What do you feel just now?” The hermit responded, An old tree on a cold cliff; Midwinter – no warmth. The girl went back and told this to the old woman. The woman said,... Read more
Sometimes the timing is just perfect. For me yesterday morning I preached a sermon at the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in Canoga Park, California on the book of Jonah. There I reflected on how we can, whoever we are, and whatever our limitations, live into something larger. In that case the story of a complete jerk being a prophet speaking true. Then, in the evening Jan and I went to see Fences. Now one of the reasons I’m hesitant to... Read more
A SONG OF JONAH Or, What Happens When the Prophet is a Jerk James Ishmael Ford A Sermon Delivered at Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church Canoga Park, California 29 January 2017 A Story Now God said to Jonah, “Arise, go to Los Angeles, that great city, and cry against their wickedness.” But instead Jonah rose up to flee to Seattle and went and found a ship. God sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest,... Read more
Zen & the Bodhisattva Way A Meditation on the Three Pure Precepts James Ishmael Ford Back in 2002 I gave a talk on Zen’s “Three Pure Precepts,” suggesting they could be understood as a summation of the Bodhisattva way. I continue to feel that’s true. Here it is, with just a few tweaks. These three precepts are, in our Zen tradition, framed as: “Renounce all evil, practice all good, and save the many beings.” Another way of rendering them is “Cease... Read more
I gather there is some confusion about how what we call the Four Noble Truths became the central exposition of Buddhist teachings. They are found in two versions in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the “Sutra or Discourse of the Great Turning of the Wheel.” There are both Pali and Sanskrit versions, and, yes, neither was the language the Buddha actually spoke, but that the two versions largely agree is meaningful. And while many critics can and do point to textual inconsistencies as... Read more
I have found myself thinking of Alan Watts recently. And then within that mystery some like to dress up with the fifty cent word “synchronicity,” I received a note asking if I’d be interested in reviewing a forthcoming re-issue of Watt’s Psychotherapy East & West. I said I’d be happy to re-read it and if I felt I could be mostly positive, I would write it up. We’ll see if the terms are acceptable. Alan Watts was in fact the... Read more
Text Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law... Read more
I briefly met Thomas Hand some years ago. One of the most interesting of people. And someone who has marked out the marginal way, something I’m more than passingly familiar with. A wise counselor and teacher. I hope more would become familiar with him and his path… Read more
I stumbled on this in my archives. I have no memory of having written it, but it doesn’t look like I can blame anyone else. So, for your entertainment, and who knows, maybe even some small spark of illumination, a look at a passage from Genesis treated in the manner of a Zen koan. The Text Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God... Read more
In his book The Demon-Haunted World the late great Carl Sagan gave us a “Baloney Detection Kit,” nine points to keep in mind as a corrective to various inclinations we might be drawn to on our quest to find what is real. Me, I think of the kit as sort of a supplement to Philip K Dick’s wonderful observation that “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Anyway, for some reason it occurs to... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In