HOW MANY LIVES? Finding Zen’s Liberation Within a Contemporary Context James Ishmael Ford The mainstream Indian conviction was that each person has a single, permanent soul. The Chinese were inclined to allow that we are each a gathering of several kinds of “spirit” or subtle forms of energy that leave the body at death and return to their separate and proper places in the cosmos. The truth of a person is not, however, given in any one of these departing... Read more

It was on this day in 1901 that Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, and, significantly, to survive. It was her sixty-third birthday. A long time widow whose only child died in infancy, she worked mostly as a teacher, although she tried her hand at a number of enterprises, although none with great success. Facing old age and penury, and desperately wanting to avoid the Poorhouse, she took this gamble hoping... Read more

Just when we thought the last nail was driven, and Mr Cohen would forever be known as “Mr Buddhist Gloom.” Read more

I see that Timothy Leary would be ninety-five today, that is if he were alive. There was a good fifteen minutes that I thought psychedelics might save the world. Turned out I was wrong. But, I did collect some interesting memories… Read more

Derek Bell was born on this day in 1935. Read more

WHOSE LIVES MATTER? A Meditation on What My Grandmother Taught Me A Sermon James Ishmael Ford 18 October 2015 Pacific Unitarian Church Rancho Palos Verdes, California My father was a will-o’-the-wisp with more than a passing affection for the drink. In his life he never held steady employment. As a consequence we were poor, sometimes desperately poor, and we moved, a lot. On occasion as I think about from where I’ve come and where I’ve arrived I find I feel... Read more

Today is the twenty-sixth anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which while centered near Santa Cruz in California, wrecked havoc in the San Francisco Bay Area. At 7.1 those of us who experienced it tend to recall it as the “Pretty Big One.” It hit at five oh four in the afternoon. My brother was at Candlestick Park just outside of the City watching the World Series. Because of that event the Loma Prieta became the first major quake in... Read more

As a child I had a fascination with words. Just words. Loved them. I’d go to the public library wherever we lived a number of times a week and visit the large Merriam Webster 2nd International Dictionary, which almost always was set on its own stand in some place of honor. I’d open it up on occasion looking for a word I’d heard an adult use, but more usually just at random, and see what I’d find. Of course one... Read more

Apparently it was on this day in 1764 that Edward Gibbon saw a group of friars singing in the ruins of Rome’s Temple of Jupiter. It sparked something in him, and led, we are told, directly to his writing the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I read that book in my mid twenties. And I loved, just loved it. I thought it was a lyrical text, and by and large spoke truths about looking to... Read more

Wishing a happy birthday to Paul Simon! Read more