SETTING A PLACE FOR ELIJAH Welcoming into the Circle as Spiritual Practice James Ishmael Ford 1 May 2016 Pacific Unitarian Church Rancho Palos Verdes, California Not long ago Vivian Hao and I were sitting in a little coffee shop in Long Beach talking about church growth. A subject that you might imagine is close to my heart. In that particular conversation we were discussing communities that we as Unitarian Universalists have not reached out to, but should be thinking about.... Read more

Wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut. In case you were wondering. Of course, we find it in older texts, as well. From the Heart Sutra we hear it all summarized as “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form is exactly emptiness. Emptiness is exactly form.” And, if all this remains confusing, perhaps the following video clip from the delightful “I (heart) Huckabee” will help… Read more

Jan and I are settling happily into our Los Angeles, or more accurately as people have come to say while we were tramping around the country, SoCal lives. Last evening it was sufficiently cool that we closed the sliding door to the balcony of our condo. First time in a while. (Think of this as a small shout out to our friends in New England…) We’ve also begun to figure out the tours we provide for friends passing through. So... Read more

My friend Larry Ladd pointed out that it was today in 1968 that the musical Hair opened on Broadway. While I think attempts to capture cultural moments through such things as a musical are inevitably compromised – in this case professional writers trying capture the rise of the Hippie phenomenon is a bit like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. What is amazing is how they came so amazingly close to something real. My coming of age, or a... Read more

Five Styles of Soto Zen in the West The project of Zen is awakening. Awakening is seeing past the illusions of our isolation and permanence and into the real world of causal play, where we understand from our cells that we and everyone and everything else are constantly birthing, dying and rebirthing within a dance more intimate than words can ever tell. This is, of course, our common inheritance. And people wake up to this reality in all cultures and... Read more

A Zen Meditation on Pain Chris Amirault After a series of upbeat updates, the last half day has been pretty brutal. I’m writing in the middle of the night thanks to at least five different aches and pains: the surgical incision; the missing rib sections; the incision drainage site and suture; constipation that has produced a hemorrhoid the size of Central Park; and a post-surgery phenomenon that one resident described aptly by mentioning that, “after a few days at home... Read more

Our Lady of Good Counsel is one of those things that make me love Catholics. And, yes, there are tons of things that take me in other directions, since you ask. But, this version of the great mother is a bit of the good stuff. The story is simple enough. It was 1487. The church of Santa Maria in the Italian town of Genazzano, which had been established in the fifth century, and which had weathered the vicissitudes of history... Read more

I am coming to the end of my whirlwind visit to San Francisco’s Zen Center. I’m here on the business of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, and we’re hard at it, yesterday a full day focused on the work of the board, and today a half day equally focused. After which, home. Still, while I’ve not wandered too far from our meeting room at 310 Page, its impossible not to have had some glimpses of life here. And I will... Read more

(This appears to be the only authentic portrait of the Bard) As I was just reminded today is the four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. I think about how we are who we are as people. The content of our minds are filled with images and phrases and assumptions derived from this and that, bits of feather, and fur, pebbles and random stars. For those of us who speak English William Shakespeare becomes a source, astonishing in its range,... Read more

Today I’m off on a whirlwind run up to San Francisco for a meeting of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association board. We’re being hosted by San Francisco Zen Center‘s City Center. While over the years I’ve been on campus a number of times this will be the first time I’ve slept there. I actually began my Zen life receiving instruction in zazen at the SFZC in 1967, although the center was at that time still housed at Bush street in... Read more