I’ve just learned from Wikipedia (yes, maybe not the last word on any given subject, but for me unless highly controversial pretty much the first, and even when controversial still the first, just a bit more cautious before citing…) that the famed Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins on this day, well, this day in 3114 before the Common Era. Of course because one version of the calendar ended in 2012 it became a vehicle for people looking for end times... Read more

Dr Robert Smith was born in St Johnsbury, Vermont, on this day in 1879. By my calculation were he alive he would be one hundred and thirty four years old today. Using principles adapted from the Oxford Group, he and Bill Wilson created Alcoholics Anonymous, the creation of which is dated from the last time Dr Bob ever took a drink on the 10th of June, 1935. Read more

On this day in 1794 George Washington ordered the creation of a medal that quickly came to be called the Purple Heart. It is awarded to those wounded in combat. Among the few things I own that were my father’s is a VFW cap with three rows of medals on it. Now, my father was a complex man, and among the complexities was a strong fantasy life and a constant puffing of things. I once read a newspaper story from... Read more

I forget precisely, but as I recall it, in one of his novels, perhaps the Journey to the East, Herman Hesse suggests near anything might become our sacred text worthy of deep reading, pointing the way for our wandering hearts. My recollection was that he recommended Don Quixote as a good example. I’ve noticed some truth in this, although perhaps not for quite “near everything,” although perhaps even Hesse didn’t say that and was more cautious about what might make... Read more

I just love Pablo Stanley’s cartoon. (For more by Pablo, go here.) Admittedly there are many more slices one can come up with, and the rather literal use of the term “gnostic” is likely to confuse many of my friends who are used to rather different usage for the term, but still, not bad. Not bad at all… Personally, I mostly float between the top two pictures, depending on various things, but mostly who is annoying me at the time… Read more

Peter O’Toole turns eighty-one today. Made me think of that film that for so many reasons has haunted my imagination for most of my life… Read more

Here’s a link to the Dharma talks given at the 2013 Boundless Way sesshin. May they be of use in the healing of the wounded heart… Read more

Today is Lammas, the festival of the wheat harvest, and the first of the various celebrations that mark the Autumn in northern European cultures. For me on this lush and wet and hot day, the first hint of the season that everything changes, nothing remains the same, all of time rushes on… I gather one of the interesting mysteries for physicists is the question why time seems to run in one direction. I also know there are those who claim... Read more

I do love this set of pictures from Zen Mountain Monastery. I think they can really be helpful. I might add in my circles the “quarter lotus” is usually called the half ass lotus (lovingly, of course…). I should also note himself (the good one) added one can also “sit” walking, standing up and lying down. If you hold the various absolutist assertions lightly, this video provides a pretty good set of instructions on getting into the posture. Also the... Read more

This afternoon Jan and I dragged ourselves into our Pawtucket house after a two hour drive home from Worcester by way of Wellesley. I needed to stop and pick up a prescription renewal. Ah, the joys of aging… And aged I felt. Seven days of sesshin, touching the heart-mind. In the Zen community we’re used to, should we tell someone we were on retreat, to hear “hope you had a relaxing time.” Old hands tend just to nod, maybe say... Read more